This is as much as I’m going to say on the debacle at the moment.
Veilguard as a text worries the audience is at least a bit racist on the whole. It wants to somehow prevent this from playing out in gameplay this time and also avoid the whole issue altogether maybe thankyouverymuch. This is in no way an actual ethical shift from previous BioWare games. They’ve just finally said ‘oppression bad’ in the text instead of hoping you’d know that and added some extra weight and consequence just in case you really wanted to kill the black dude or side with the fascists for noreasonatall.
To contrast. Disco Elysium knows most people are quite racist. It has zero interest in the audience’s response to its approach. And its approach is to call racists clowns right out the gate.
I know which approach I prefer, and I know I prefer it because it’s ethically stronger and not built on a codependent relationship with the audience. I also know why Veilguard did things the way it did. If you’re mad about it, maybe just check in the mirror for greasepaint first. And at least consider acknowledging that BioWare’s audience holds stock in the clown shoe factory.
