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Has a single game ever been ruined by "forced diversity"?

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Fare thee well

Neophyte
People who are often more worried about signaling what virtues they stand for tend to focus less on crafting a rich story. Bottom line, I don't care what race, sexual preference, religion, level of beauty, etc characters are so long as it's a great story. It's a shame that the term 'diversity' now has this erroneous correlation with poor quality. But it's because people politicized gaming where it didn't need to be. They cried wolf once too many.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Nope. Not a game. Most games are set in modern or fantasy settings, so really no excuse for more diversity. I heard the the new ND game will have a black and gay lead. If true, I think that's great news. More diversity in general isn't harmful. Western nations are becoming less white and more diverse anyway, so why shouldn't games reflect our society

However, I can think of films and TV shows that have been impacted, but you'd have to start another topic on that one.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
My Forza Horizon 5 character is multiple people (they/them is plural) trapped inside of a quadriplegic with 4 blue prosthetics. The story, characters, etc in Horizon is super cringe though. I wish they'd just delete it and let me race.

Battlefield 5 of course.

TLOU2, although I guess there might be enough anabolic steroids still available. I think this was to show "powerful woman figure" without realizing that that is a value of a person's character (who is ironically emotionally destroyed).

I'm sure it will get much much worse in the coming years, as clown world really accelerated in the last few years, and video games take awhile to make.
 
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NikuNashi

Member
OP I think you are missing the point, of course the script, plot, characterisation or gameplay are the issues that make the game fail. The reason being is that these came secondary to the message of pushing in diversity. Anytime a game is sold on 'first black lead' etc, then the top priority is not unique story, gameplay, script etc, it's built around an agenda and then game design is fitted around that.
 

Tams

Member
I have some issues with a disproportionate amount of women in Battlefield 1 and I think V had that too. It's not that big of an issue, but it is an issue. Battlefield 2042 can have as many women as it wants, because it makes a lot of sense.
Battlefield 1 was fine for women.

Sure the Middle East campaign was a bit fantastical, but that character's role did make sense and Lawrance was still more important in the end. And it sort of fit in with Lawrance being very much a fantasist. The rest of the campaign stories had no wokeness at all in them (and dare I say the tank crew one was actually good).

I don't recall any wokeness in the multiplayer. There were some women in one of the DLC expansions, but then they also made historical sense so that wasn't an issue either.

Battlefield V's marketing was an utter mess and the devs then just really dug themselves deeper. So bad that it didn't matter that the game was standard fair; they really shot themselves in the feet there. So a decent but nothing special game with a very heavy negative atmosphere around it (the devs told people not to buy it; so they didn't, myself included) led to poor sales. Who knew.
 
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nkarafo

Member
Gears of War 5 and Battlefield 5.

Also Mass Effect Andromeda, from what i hear.

For me also Subnautica 2, not that i have played it to know better, it's just that i don't feel like playing it at all after reading some user reviews.
 
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Can't think of any yet.
I nominate Siege (timestamped at 6:05):


I'm not sure if that's quite forced diversity per se.... but the noxious wokeness as a whole as the game has evolved really turns me off. It started off pretty grounded, the women characters fit in pretty well... then it started getting kinda silly and cartoony which was off-putting in its own way and now we're onto whatever the fuck this is. She always outperformed her four stupid older brothers and she's totally jacked because she works out like that strong powerful independent woman in The Last of Us 2 and she's very anti-bully and also she likes horses!

I guess there are other issues with the game and ultimately you can ignore the 'lore' as you're playing. But as someone who hasn't been playing a lot of Siege lately and watched the reveal video trying to get hyped about coming back... just tell me the new operator is from some real special forces unit, don't tell me why they joined... tell me what they can do... and make their fucking uniform look like something that actually exists in that world so I can have five seconds of peace before the dress-up-like-a-pizza-or-dinosaur skins hit the in-game store.
 
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NahaNago

Member
Isn't this a trick pro diversity question? Ruin is such a strong word, at most forced diversity negatively affects the story so you could still have a great game even with it as long as everything else is great like the gameplay, music, and visuals. With that said I tend to steer clear of most forced diversity games for the most part.

Has a single game ever been ruined by not forcing diversity? :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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nkarafo

Member
I would also add the recent Wolfenstein games to the list. I only played Colossus and some of the characters and story were straight up cringe worthy. I don't know if i was supposed to take some of the scenes seriously because the game's tone was all over the place.
 
Isn't this a trick pro diversity question? Ruin is such a strong word, at most forced diversity negatively affects the story so you could still have a great game even with it as long as everything else is great like the gameplay, music, and visuals. With that said I tend to steer clear of most forced diversity games for the most part.

Has a single game ever been ruined by not forcing diversity? :messenger_tears_of_joy:

yep

Mario absolutely ruined by only featuring white people and toads and shit. I’m sure there’s a REEE thread about this
 

Longcat

Member
Timespinner. Gameplay wise it's not a bad metroidvania, but almost every character is some color of the rainbow, except the evil straight man villain of course. Just felt super preachy and out of place in an otherwise excellent game IMO.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Nah i don’t get triggered that easily like the fucking woke crowd.



i just shrug and continue maybe make a photo and share it with my other privileged “superior” white male friends who are not gay or disabled.

Sorry for being white /s
 
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