The devs of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order were not vibing with the idea of black or female lead characters.
Is this a case of exaggerated wokeness, or an actual case of... racism? I'll let you be the judge, so here's the story: The team behind Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order wanted a black or a female lead character. I applaud that, and, in fact, I think Red Dead Redemption 3 should do the same - for very specific reasons. Unfortunately, the higher ups were not vibing with the idea as much as the team.
When I worked on SW:JFO a LOT of devs wanted & advocated 4 the main character 2b black &/or a woman. 'Reasons' 4 NO: We already have 2 black people in the game. Rey is a woman & we can't do that to' guess what the demographic of the people making those decisions looked like?
— NoraNevaBoreYa (@NoraShramek) May 10, 2022
Nora Shramek is a ligthing artist, who has since parted ways with Respawn, and also pointed out that the decision to not have a black or femalie lead was very much an internal team decision, and not something that 'evil EA', Lucasfilm or Disney pushed against.
So is she simply being overly sensitive, or is there a little bit of racism going on at Respawn? Well, another quote of hers certainly seems dooming: Shramek tweeted that she overheard the following comentary while working at Respawn: "I think all the Black people need to have more glossy skin because Black people have more oily skin than other people." To Respawn's credit though, the comment was met with shock from everybody, and, as one of those black people, I gotta say: That's not racist, that's just a silly comment.
Shramek is not trying to be a whistleblower, though, and she also pointed out that things seem to have changed at Respawn ever since she left the developer. Now, it just remains to be seen if there are any changes to the protagonist of the upcoming Jedi Fallen Order 2.