Love and Deepspace has been out for almost two years now, and its participant base has grown more and more exasperated by a persistent downside affecting gamers with dark-skinned customized protagonists: their characters are actually invisible.
For these unfamiliar with Love and Deepspace, it is an otome recreation developed by Chinese language studio Papergames and revealed globally by Infinity Nikki developer Infold Video games. Love and Deepspace is exclusive in that it’s a 3D otome recreation with action-RPG parts, permitting gamers to type relationships with 5 completely different love pursuits whereas preventing area monsters. However the romantic parts are the largest draw, with visible novel segments and extremely detailed absolutely animated cutscenes between the participant character (MC) and his lover offered as gameplay rewards.
Love and Deepspace has been out since January 2024, nearly two years. It has been an enormous success throughout this time, and as of 2025, it has over 50 million gamers worldwide. It gained Greatest Cellular Sport at this 12 months’s Gamescom and has been praised for its optimistic tone in the direction of girls and their wants in relationships. Admittedly, Love and Deep House is not any trailblazer by way of range. MC solely has one physique kind, and all of her love pursuits are fair-skinned. Nevertheless, there are various customization choices for MC’s look, together with a number of darker pores and skin tones. This was a characteristic that was beforehand much less frequent in otome video games, and it helped dark-skinned gamers create MCs that they felt represented them within the romantic eventualities the sport offered.
Nevertheless, ever since its launch, gamers have reported points with the sport’s lighting, with dark-skinned MCs typically showing oddly shaded or utterly invisible throughout sure cutscenes. Complaints date again to the sport’s launch and have been posted as not too long ago as this week, and so they all embody:
thanks @Love_Deepspace This new card did not present lighting for gamers with darkish pores and skin π pic.twitter.com/innx60E7et
β Madam Sinclair (@MoonkissedMuse) October 11, 2025
That is, uh, fairly unhealthy! This difficulty just isn’t constant throughout all cutscenes and varies by pores and skin tone, however the frequent issue is that gamers with darker pores and skin in MC will don’t know if their character will seem in a cutscene when a brand new replace is launched. Gamers who’ve encountered this difficulty say they’ve reported it to Infold a number of instances, and not too long ago videogameaddicted acquired a flood of small posts on the guidelines e-mail alias from gamers upset in regards to the difficulty. Up to now, Infold has mentioned nothing in regards to the difficulty. Nevertheless, when contacted by videogameaddicted for remark, Infold issued the next assertion:
At Infold Video games, we have all the time believed that our video games are formed by the gamers who love them. Neighborhood suggestions, dialogue, and inventive ardour are what preserve Love and Deepspace evolving and alive.
We have been following the dialog and actually recognize everybody who took the time to share their experiences and ideas. All feedback about visuals, storytelling, and illustration assist us higher perceive how our work resonates throughout completely different views and cultures.
Love and Deepspace is actually a shared world of emotion and creativeness. We look ahead to working with our gamers to proceed constructing this recreation, studying and enhancing collectively alongside the way in which.
Love and Deepspace gamers are understandably annoyed by this difficulty. In any case, this recreation is explicitly promoted by the corporate for its extraordinarily detailed technical achievements that make each element of the characters really feel actual: hair, pores and skin, garments, every part. Whether or not this can be a one-time difficulty with one card and can be mounted quickly is one other matter. However two years later, there was no recognition, and dark-skinned gamers are linking the problem to longstanding problems with racism and colorism in gaming. Even when it wasn’t deliberately malicious, they are saying it is as a result of builders prioritized making white pores and skin tones look good, and solely added darkish pores and skin tones as an afterthought with out taking care to verify they appeared equally good. One of many gamers, StarPop, so eloquently put it on Twitter in Could:
“Traditionally, courting video games have simply been about honest pores and skin/pale Macs, black/brown gamers do not put money into taking part in the sport as a result of they do not see themselves. For us, we’re taking a look at another person or pretending to be somebody we’re not. Due to racism and colorism, white pores and skin meant magnificence and darkish tones meant soiled, disgusting, unlovable, just because they did not “match the wonder requirements.” In a courting recreation that does not recommend variations in pores and skin tone, that is a unique matter. “It is a approach of telling us that we’re undeserving of affection or consideration, and it is speculated to characterize you falling in love and being handled pretty as a result of lovers love you for who you’re, however that eradicated plenty of potential gamers. When Love and Deepspace got here out, it felt like heaven to see the MC’s pores and skin shade change.”
Traditionally, the courting recreation has been only a light-skinned/blue-white muck, and black/brown gamers do not put money into taking part in the sport as a result of they do not see themselves. For us, we’re taking a look at another person or pretending to be somebody we aren’t. Due to racism and colorism, their pores and skin is pale;
β StarPop (@StarPop_Arts) Could 20, 2025
βThe dearth of correct lighting principally exhibits that Black/Brown gamers donβt care sufficient about persistently and correctly lighting them,β StarPop wrote later within the thread. βSimply lighting with the default MC when implementing completely different tones doesnβt work, as a result of not everybody has the identical pores and skin tone.β
Whereas StarPop’s thread is only one particular person’s story, it displays dozens of feedback from nonwhite gamers and content material creators which have appeared on social media on Twitter, Reddit, Discord, YouTube, TikTok, and different platforms over the previous two years. Sadly, most of the current feedback are beginning to despair that this downside will ever be mounted. The neighborhood nonetheless encourages gamers to report this difficulty to Infold throughout participant surveys, however there is no such thing as a hope that something will really change.
“I used to be going to put up about this, however realized it wasn’t value disappointing myself or anybody else,” one Reddit person wrote in response to a different put up on the topic three days in the past. “I am not saying individuals ought to cease campaigning to repair it (it does not make a dark-skinned MC look excellent, it simply appears to be like), however with the complexity of the lightning bolt and the truth that they did not even hassle altering the shading of the harm on Fringe of Continuum (my MC’s “scar” appears to be like like she tried to placed on the mistaken basis, there are solely 5 pores and skin tones, come on), I am giving up on myself. I’ve to file one other bug report about my MC trying like a shadow particular person, so I am simply having fun with the playing cards whereas I can.
βAnd if, by some miracle, they really deal with it and it is respectable, I am going to give InFold each final prop I’ve in my arsenal. I am going to ship all of the props straight to their inbox.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at videogameaddicted. Yow will discover her posts at BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Do you’ve gotten any story ideas? Ship it to rvalentine@videogameaddicted.com.