Love and Deepspace has been out for almost two years now, but its playerbase is growing increasingly exasperated over a persistent issue impacting players with dark-skinned custom main characters: their characters are literally invisible.
If you're unfamiliar with Love and Deepspace, it's an otome game developed by Chinese studio Papergames and published globally by Infinity Nikki developer Infold Games. Love and Deepspace is unique in that it's a 3D otome game with action RPG elements, where players can build relationships with five different potential love interests while also fighting off space monsters. But the romantic elements are the big draw, with visual novel segments and highly detailed, fully animated cutscenes between the player character, or MC, and their love interest, presented as gameplay rewards.
Love and Deepspace has now been out since January 2024, almost two years. It's been wildly successful during that time, too, with over 50 million players worldwide as of 2025. It won Best Mobile Game at Gamescom this year, and has been praised for its positive tone toward women and their needs in relationships. Admittedly, Love and Deepspace isn't exactly a pioneer on the diversity front: there's only one body type available for the MC, and all the available love interests are light-skinned. But there are a variety of customization options for the MC's looks, including multiple darker skin tones. It's a feature which hasn't historically been a common one in otome games, and which has helped players with darker skin create MCs that they feel represent them in the romantic scenarios the game presents.
But ever since its release, players have been reporting issues with the game's lighting causing MCs with darker skin tones to look weirdly shadowed, or occasionally become totally invisible during certain cutscenes. The complaints go back to the launch of the game and are still being posted as recently as this week, and they all look something like this:
