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.
I'm kinda disappointed they used something as fantastic as the dynamic of the suicide mission for the collectors. And then mass effect 3 you barely see any of the characters. So we went to hell and back together and you're relegated to cameos?
It's the classic problem you face in this type of series, where your choices in older games can't actually matter very much, or else by the third game you'd have to be developing the equivalent of multiple games with drastically different narratives. So nothing that happens in older games can really matter.
they could have done something with this where each person is contributing something important to the effort in 3 but if they died you just don't get that part and that's why you die at the end.