So, recently there has been a little bit of a controversy about the Marvel character, Storm on the NetEase game, Marvel Rivals. It's all about her cosmetic options in the game and how she has been left behind when it comes to all the fancy costumes that other characters get.

Now, I play Marvel Rivals quite regularly. It's one of the ways I unwind! Plus, as I've already announced before, I am going to be working as my school's EDI Coordinator in the upcoming academic year (2026-2027). That (combined with being a biracial, neurodivergent, queer woman) means that I have some thoughts about the situation and how it was handled. So, I thought I would weigh in with how it was handled and what we can learn from it going forward.

What happened?

Storm from the X-Men was one of the original launch characters who was released when Marvel Rivals came out in 2024. That means that she came out at the same time as Magik and Scarlet Witch.

In the over a year and a half since Storm has come out, she has only had one Legendary costume released on the game. Legendary costumes are the most expensive costumes in the game and come with great additions like special animations when you win the MVP of your match.

By contrast, Polygon points out that Magik has five legendary costumes, and Scarlet Witch has six.

Not only that, she's the only woman in the game whose swimsuit costume isn't a Legendary costume!

Fans were concerned about what this means about how NetEase treats the only black woman in the game. It's a Chinese company, and there have been many trends and other cultural moments in China recently that have made many black people very worried about racism.

For example, they sell a baby doll in China called the Natasha Doll. It is supposed to be for 'stress relief', which means people punch it, throw it around and stomp on it. The worrying thing here is that most of the people doing violent things to the Natasha Doll online have chosen to buy the black doll, with one user of Chinese social media saying that the white version of the doll looks too 'human-like' to abuse in the same way, according to BBC Africa.

And this isn't the only cultural moment in China that has worried people about racism in the country. There are plenty of other instances that seem to me to be unambiguously racist. I remember years back when there was an advert for laundry detergent where a woman shoves a black man into a washing machine and he comes out Asian.

So when a Chinese company chooses to prioritise Legendary costumes for its white, Asian and light-skinned characters over its one black woman, it's safe to say that some eyebrows were raised.

Luna Snow, a Korean character also released at launch also has six Legendary costumes. White Fox only came out in March 2026 – over a year after launch – and she already has two Legendary costumes. White English Elsa Bloodstone came out in February of 2026 and also already has two Legendary costumes. Blonde-haired Invisible Woman was released a month after Storm and has six Legendary costumes. It seems like a massive oversight to only have one for Storm, to me.

NetEase did come out and respond. They have promised to make some very promising steps to fixing the problem that I am hopeful about, and they plan to work more on Storm's costumes in the future. However, I did find their response quite lacking in a couple of different ways, but we'll get onto that in a little bit.

Is this racism?

Some of you might be wondering: does this mean that NetEase is a racist company?

Well, I think that's the wrong question to ask.

When it comes to racism, I think we focus too much on the intentions of the perpetrator rather than the impact on the people affected. It often feels like we're more concerned with weeding out the mustache-twirling secret evil villain racist and less about making the world a better place for the black people who might see this and feel like they're less of a priority.

It makes me wonder:

Why do so many people care more about what the perpetrator of racism meant, rather than how it hurt the victim?

To me, it doesn't matter if NetEase is a racist company or if they wanted to do this on purpose because I'm not out here trying to cancel them.

For me, talking about racism isn't about punishing people. It's about making the world a fairer place for people like me so that we can feel like we're not treated differently for the colour of our skin.

As you'll see when I finally release the plans for my EDI Coordinator role, I'm not concerned with people performing like they're good people or saying the right things. I'm more concerned with actually inspiring change to make the world a better place. And putting a big red 'RACIST' stamp on NetEase doesn't do that.

The truth is that regardless of NetEase's intentions, overlooking Storm has a racist impact. Let's look into why.

Why did it have a racist impact?

In media, when you only have one person from a specific group, they become the representative of that group in a piece of media.

For example, if a film only has one man in it, then that character represents 'men'. So, all the ways that he is different to the other characters in the film will represent the differences between men and women. The more men you add to the film with different personalities, interests and other identity features, the less pressure there is on that one man to represent all men. The difference between him and other characters is less in your face.

The same is true with all other types of identity features. If you have one gay person in a piece of media, people are going to fixate on how they act and become hyper aware of any stereotypical behaviour they might display. If there are ten gay people in a piece of media, then suddenly it's less noticeable if one or two of them have some stereotypical elements.

Right now, Storm is the only black woman in Marvel Rivals. So, how she's treated becomes a representation of what NetEase thinks about all black women.

If there were more black women in the game and they all had plenty of Legendary costumes, most people probably wouldn't notice that Storm has less. And even if they did, it wouldn't become a 'what is their problem with black women' thing and more 'what is their problem with Storm specifically'.

The more people you have from a particular identity group, the easier it is for them to be treated as individuals.

So I'm going to be as charitable to NetEase as possible and say they probably didn't intend for Storm to be the only woman in the game whose swimsuit costume isn't Legendary. Maybe they realised that Storm just isn't a very popular character and didn't bother giving her many costumes because of that.

It's not their fault that she's a flying weather-based character. That's just how she's always been written. And in my experience of playing the game, flying characters just aren't the most popular characters to play.

But the problem is that I've also noticed that having lots of cool costume options for a character actually makes people play that character more. Every single time a cool Invisible Woman or Luna Snow costume comes out, people are clamouring to play the character again – me included. In fact, they suddenly become popular picks among people who never play as healers, let alone play those characters.

So it feels a little big like NetEase is shooting itself in the foot by not making more Storm costumes.

And the impact of their choice to overlook Storm up until this point is that it seems like they don't think black women are worthy of cool, expensive costumes. The fact that Storm's swimsuit costume is cheaper than the other women's swimsuit costumes makes it seem like she's less valuable than them.

And as I said before, I care more about the people who are hurt by racism than the perpetrators. I don't care why NetEase did the thing that had a racist impact. I care more about what it means for black women who play the game, and what we can do to fix that.

Why I'm not happy with the NetEase statement

First of all, I just want to point out that NetEase's statement isn't an apology. It's a recognition that people are unhappy.

Read it for yourself! At no point do they say anything that seems like 'We are sorry for our impact' or 'We dropped the ball with Storm'. Instead, they frame the backlash as people being passionate about Storm. It focuses on the reaction to their behaviour, rather than there being anything wrong with their behaviour in the first place.

And before anyone comes and says, 'Well if they didn't intend to be racist, why would they apologise?', I just want to point out one thing: if I step on someone's foot by accident, I didn't intend to hurt them. But I'd still apologise for it. In fact, why would I apologise if I did mean to step on their foot? I'm not sorry!

But I'm not actually that concerned with the fact that they didn't actually say the words 'I'm sorry'. What I'm more underwhelmed by is a sentence in the last paragraph of their statement:

And while we understand that tensions run high, harassment of our staff, including the development team and moderators, is not acceptable.

This is something I see a lot when people apologise for hurting others online. They often say 'I'm sorry, but also I'm being harassed'.

My problem with it is that it shifts the blame away from what they have done to hurt people and focuses more on how it's hurting them. That makes their apology seem less sincere.

It's absolutely wrong for people to be harassing their staff member for this decision. This isn't the responsibility of a single development team member. It's an issue with the company as a whole. Don't blame one random worker or even a group of workers for the actions of their company. They're just there to make a living.

But I've got some serious issues with them posting this alongside their statement:

• The kind of people who would harass the development team over something like this aren't going to stop just because you told them to.
• Adding that means that the responses to this statement aren't all going to be about the racist impact of their decisions. Instead, they will attract people who will focus more on some random people online harassing workers.
• Bad people who harass workers of companies they dislike will always exist. They will always find a reason to do that. So mentioning it now takes focus away from the problem.
• Now people who want to talk about the effects of NetEase's choices – including the people that their actions hurt – will have to make sure that they caveat their discussions just like I did.
• The company didn't actually apologise in the first place, so the fact that they're adding this line really makes it feel even less sincere.
• If they really cared, they could have let their statement sit (preferably after apologising more) and then sent out a message about harassment a day or two later. Or even just on a separate tweet on the same day!
• If their staff members are being harassed by this event, then one sentence tacked on at the end of the post just isn't enough to deal with that. It's offensive to the staff going through the harassment, too.

The fact is, people who want to excuse racist impacts like this will always look for a reason to excuse racist impacts. And NetEase has given them ammo by saying that they're being harassed over this.

So the thing I really want people to learn from this situation is how not to apologise. Instead, focus on the impact of your actions, actually own up to making a mistake and then tell us what the plans are in the future. Let that breathe. If people are harassing you, post about it in a different post where it gets the room and seriousness it deserves.

What am I doing now?

Well, I'm not going to stop playing the game over this. I definitely don't want the workers or even the CEO to be cancelled, harassed or attacked. I'm just going to keep playing, waiting for them to make the Storm swimsuit costume Legendary in the future, and be on the lookout for the new Legendary costumes they promised for her.

But I'm hoping that if anything like this happens again – and it probably will, since humans make mistakes – that their response will be better.