Key Takeaways

• The list features 18 Black video game characters across fighting games, role-playing games (RPGs), shooters, and open-world franchises.
• It includes both protagonists and supporting characters who appeared in major titles across multiple console generations.
• Characters from series like Grand Theft Auto, Apex Legends, and Mortal Kombat are highlighted for their roles and gameplay presence.

Black characters deserve to be seen in video games just as much as anywhere else in entertainment. Gaming culture has come a long way in terms of diversity, from calls for more stories centered around them to now seeing them take the lead in bigger titles.

Over the years, we’ve gotten characters like Carl “CJ” Johnson in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, who really set the stage for someone like Franklin Clinton to thrive in Rockstar Games’ massive open-world universe. There’s also Miles Morales, who hardly needs an introduction at this point, given how big he’s become in the Spider-Man world. Then you have some other longtime favorites, whether it’s Coach from Left 4 Dead 2, Sgt. Avery Johnson in Halo, or Balrog from Street Fighter II.

In no particular order, REVOLT rounded up Black video game characters that will always have a place in our hearts, from Jax and Jade in Mortal Kombat to Resident Evil 5’s Sheva Alomar. Take a look below.

1. Miles Morales in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Peter Parker may have been the neighborhood-friendly Spider-Man most people grew up playing as through the ’80s, ’90s, and even the aughts, but Miles Morales definitely gave him a run for his money when Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales dropped in 2020. The Afro-Latino hero has only grown more popular in gaming culture since then, thanks in part to the Spider-Verse movies, their Metro Boomin-backed soundtrack, and the fact that Miles has powers Peter simply doesn’t, like bioelectricity.

2. Carl “CJ” Johnson in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

“Ah, s**t, here we go again!” might just be one of gaming culture’s most iconic one-liners ever, courtesy of none other than Carl “CJ” Johnson. The Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas protagonist gets dropped into the “worst place in the world,” and over the course of one of Rockstar’s most beloved games, players get to customize him and move through the story pretty much however they want while he works to reclaim the streets.

3. Lee Everett in The Walking Dead

Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead gave us not one, but two of our favorite Black characters in a narrative-driven game inspired by the iconic comic book series, and later the television adaptation. For obvious reasons, we have to start with Lee Everett, who serves as the game’s emotional center and, in many ways, its everyday hero, depending on how you play.

4. Barret Wallace in Final Fantasy VII

As Final Fantasy fans already know, Barret Wallace can be a bit of a hothead. Even so, he helps drive a huge part of FFVII’s story, and having a gun for an arm is probably one of the coolest details about him.

5. Aveline de Grandpré in Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation

First introduced in Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, Aveline de Grandpré became the franchise’s first female playable protagonist. Even better, she’s a Black and French heroine of Creole descent.

6. Marcus Holloway in Watch Dogs 2

Watch Dogs 2 introduced players to a new hacker, Marcus Holloway, who was “a wrongful victim of ctOS 2.0’s invasive crime prediction algorithm.” That ultimately leads him to join DedSec, where he helps take on a corrupt power structure that uses technology to control and suppress people across the Bay Area.

7. Jax in Mortal Kombat

Jax is, for all intents and purposes, a cyborg — and a pretty bad**s one at that. Of course, he didn’t start out that way. Since being introduced in Mortal Kombat, we’ve seen many versions of him losing both arms and ending up with the now-iconic bionic replacements.

8. Clementine in The Walking Dead

Surviving in a world full of the undead is hard enough as an adult, as Lee showed us in The Walking Dead, so it’s almost impossible to imagine doing it as a child. Clementine was the latter when she first entered Telltale’s series, and by far, she has one of the best character arcs in the game.

9. Coach in Left 4 Dead 2

Coach arguably became for Left 4 Dead 2 what Bill was to the original Left 4 Dead. He’s the oldest member of the second game’s survivor group, and much like his name suggests, the Chad Coleman-voiced zombie slayer worked as a coordinator for a high school football team before the apocalypse ripped through the world.

10. Balrog in Street Fighter II

Balrog can absolutely give any Street Fighter character a beatdown when he’s in the hands of the right player. Japanese fans know him better as Mike Bison, a nod to real-life boxing icon Mike Tyson.

11. Roland in Borderlands

You get to play as Roland in the first Borderlands, and by the second installment, players watch him get shot in the back by the game’s main villain, Handsome Jack. The Crimson Raiders founder represents your typical soldier class, offering infantry, support, and medic roles (or a combination of all three) depending on how you build his skill tree.

12. Sheva Alomar in Resident Evil 5

If there’s one thing Resident Evil loves to do, it’s pair its male protagonists with female partners who are just as capable in a fight. In the fifth mainline installment, Chris Redfield teams up with Sheva Alomar as they battle the infected in the fictional West African region of Kijuju.

13. Jade in Mortal Kombat

Jade has been a fan favorite for years, especially among players who always gravitated toward the women of Mortal Kombat. Between her staff, signature green, and her long history with Kitana, she’s fortunately never really felt like a character thrown in just to round out the roster.

14. Kimberly in Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 is a game fans either love or love to hate, mainly because its art direction took a big departure from the previous installments. That being said, it introduced some really great characters, Kimberly included. Takayuki Nakayama, the game’s director, told Fanbyte that she was developed with feedback from Black employees “in order to make her as authentic as possible.”

15. Axel in Twisted Metal

Twisted Metal has grown a pretty devoted cult audience over the years, especially considering how long the main series has gone between releases. One of our favorite characters from the games is Axel, who’s quite literally bound between two enormous machine-gun-equipped tires.

16. Sgt. Avery Johnson in Halo

There are plenty of soldiers in Halo, though very few are as immediately memorable as Sgt. Avery Johnson. A lot of that comes down to his personality, considering he brought a sense of humor and confidence that allowed him to stand out even next to Spartans.

17. Bangalore in Apex Legends

Compared to some of the other games mentioned above, Apex Legends is a relatively newer title. Released in 2019, the battle royale from Respawn Entertainment brought a pretty diverse lineup of playable characters. One of our favorites is Bangalore, a former military weapons expert equipped with a smoke launcher and a speed burst.

18. Tanya in Mortal Kombat

Introduced as a playable character in Mortal Kombat 4, Tanya has mainly held it down as a minor antagonist, but definitely one you don’t want to mess with. Her attack arsenal includes moves like the split flip kick, the human cannon drill, and her powerful Three-Section Staff (which took the place of her already-lethal boomerang).