Oh for the love of..
I'll speak here as a Pole AND a former employee of CD Projekt (disclaimer - I was the logistics guy in Polish distribution branch of the company, not part of the creative team behind The Witcher 3) - I'm sick and tired of all those ethnic debacles about this game.
CDPR is a Polish company, yes, but right now it's pretty much a multi-culture team. The Executive producer for this game is an American from Georgia state. They have a team of people from all around the world, including black people (from France) and Asian (Filipino). And those are just people I personally met there, there's probably more, if you'll dig into the subject. Heck, their next big project, Cyberpunk 2077, is created in close association with the original Cyberpunk RPG creator - Mike Pondsmith, who is black. The team is pretty much aware of different ethnic backgrounds, thank you were much. As for us, Poles ourselves - yes, our country is like 99% white people. No, that does not mean, we are not aware of other cultures existing.
So... Why there was no black people in Witcher 3? Because it does not fit the lore, God damn it. If someone would actually bother to read the books (although I heard that the English translation is terrible, so that may be at fault here, I don't know), would have caught it immediately. The world of The Witcher series is basically Northern Kingdoms, Skellige Isles, Nilgaard Empire, and Zerrikania. From the west, there is a vast ocean that no one traversed, and no one knows what's there. To the East, there are huge mountain ranges, that people did not traverse to find out what's there. Zerrikania is a desert land, and as far south/east as people ever went. This is this universe land of black people who are living there peacefully and minding their own business. In fact, they are deliberately staying away from from Northeners (ie. white people), because they want to take no part in their crazy power struggles. The only exceptions are pretty much mercenaries, like Tea and Vea - the duo of female Zerrikan bodyguards in the books, or indeed Azar Javed, a Zerrikan sorcerer, one of the main antagonists in The Witcher 1. Even the mercenaries prefer to stay away from the North though during the time of war. The war that we see in The Witcher 3 is actually the 3rd war with Nilfgaard, and during the 2nd one in the books it is stated, that Zerrikans want to have no part in any of the Northener's bloodshed. Also, they would have to either sail through ENTIRE continent west coast to get there (kindly reminder: Skellige pirates does not fuck around), or travel by foot/cart through Nilfgaard, and their borders.
Do you see where I'm getting at? Putting a black person in this particular region of the world, during this time would mean explaining, why the fuck would he/she travel so far north during such dangerous times (Velen/Novigrad is basically THE FRONTLINE of this war), when risk/reward ratio is really bad, while he/she could stay safe in their homeland south. It would be getting out of the way of the lore and common sense of people living in that universe. It could be done, yes. It would be also an unnecessary stretch to fit in there, that would be instantly accused of tokenism, I guarantee it. And no, expectations of some people from USA are not enough to compromise perfectly fine geographical lore of the universe. You don't like it - fine, no one forces you to agree with it. It's a product you can willingly accept to consume or not based on your preferences. THEREFORE please do not force your expectations of racial quotas on other people's products, because not all products are made with you in mind. That's their idea of the game, where black people simply do not fit, due to LOGICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, LORE reasons, not "Lol, racism, we don't know that black people exist". You are basically expecting Zulu people to travel north and fight in Germany vs Poland war. Please stop that, it's insulting.
Phew... Rant's over. Now go play the game. It really is damn awesome.
