Lately I keep seeing comments like:
“It’s just virtue signaling devs whining.”
“Saudi Arabia isn’t open-minded, so at least games will finally be more neutral, without ideologies shoved down our throats.”
“They also have big stakes in nintendo, activiosn, capcom and nothing changed”
Let me be clear: if BioWare actually goes “neutral tone,” Dragon Age and Mass Effect stop being Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
also, Nindendo’s franchises (Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, Smash), Capcom’s (Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter) and Activision Blizzard’s games (Call of Duty) don’t touch LGBTQ+ themes or social commentary in the first place. There’s nothing “controversial” to censor…”
So of course nothing obvious changed, those publishers already weren’t leaning into progressive storytelling.
These games have always been political
Mass Effect: Entire arcs are about systemic prejudice (krogan genophage, geth/quarians, council xenophobia). Shepard is literally trying to unite clashing civilizations. Romances — including queer ones — aren’t optional fluff; they’re woven into the emotional heart of the trilogy.
Dragon Age: Mages vs. templars = authoritarian religion vs. oppressed class. The Dalish = displaced, colonized people. Party members like Dorian (gay), Krem (trans), Zevran, Leliana, Anders, etc. embody themes of identity and resistance.
This isn’t “virtue signaling.” It’s core BioWare storytelling. If you remove the politics, you’re left with generic swords and lasers.
🛑 “Neutral” ≠ neutral
“Neutral tone” under authoritarian or ultra-conservative ownership doesn’t mean “fun escapism.” It means stripping out diversity, sanitizing themes, and avoiding messy questions.
The result? Games that look AAA but feel hollow — worlds without queerness, without marginalized voices, without allegories that hit close to home. That’s not Dragon Age. That’s not Mass Effect.
Why this matters now:
People point to PIF’s investments in Nintendo, Capcom, Activision and say “nothing changed.” True, but those companies weren’t pushing queer or political themes in the first place. BioWare is different. Its brand identity is built on exactly the kind of representation that makes authoritarian investors squirm.
David Gaider (lead writer on Dragon Age) already said it bluntly: guns and football are safe, queer content is not. If EA’s new owners steer BioWare toward “neutral,” it won’t just be censorship., it’ll be the death of the very thing that made these games beloved.
TL;DR
If you’re saying “good, make games neutral again,” you’re really saying:
“Make Dragon Age not feel like Dragon Age.”
“Make Mass Effect not feel like Mass Effect.”
These games have always been about politics, identity, queerness, and resistance. If you want them stripped down to “apolitical escapism,” you might as well play something else.
One thing I did like is how realistically useless a lot of lib or chud politicians will act in the face of impeding civilization collapse (hell fascism too I reckon) despite all evidence shown. They don’t want to rock the boat. They saw sovereign’s technology and just concluded it was the geth. They didn’t do extensive study on the leftover tech. Carbon dating, radiometric dating or similar scans would show that these things are far older than any species in the galaxy. Again… In ME2… No one thought to investigate that derelict reaper? Hell just seeing what sovereign did on his own should have awoken them in what fucking world did any race have a single ship that takes on the entire citadel fleet and the human alliance fleet on its own? If shep didn’t stop that there they all would have been destroyed.
Matriachs on thessia had info on protheans that they kept hidden to keep an edge and only bought it out when they were doomed. Such would have revealed the existence of reapers long before the series. Fucking VI even knew of the catalyst. In fact evidence points to the council knowing about the reapers after saren but not doing anything to avoid panic… But really I bet they cared more about their ratings. Edit:files on citadel dlc showed they believed shep about the reapers but did jack
iirc they did and got indoctrinated even though it was supposedly “dead”
And in typical movie fashion no one follows up on that
That mission did give us the line “even a dead god can dream” so I can’t hate it too much