If you don't wanna watch the video, basically they had the character of Nadine Ross, but they didn't know what she looked like, including her race. They auditioned a lot of actors, some white, some black, and Laura Bailey was the best choice. Months later, after lots of mocap/acting/development they started finalizing the look of the characters, and one of the character artists drew Nadine as the black woman you see in the cutscenes. Druckmann thought this was a good opportunity to have a prominent black woman in the narrative, but of course they also had internal talks about how this would be perceived because Laura Bailey isn't black. But they realized they had no real control over that and figured the pros outweighed the cons. Laura Bailey has done a fantastic job, and he stands by the decision 110%.
There's also a white character played by a black actor in the game, so hey. The power of the video game medium, where actors don't have to look like the character.
