It's clear through just the video that the attitudes and slurs they are using are ingrained into their design goals for the environment, not used as story material, and used casually enough to indicate they don't associate the import they deserve as aggressively offensive terms. It's not contained.
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The aesthetic they wanted could easily be replicated without resorting to such a lazy device, or using less offensive terms that communicate the same tone.
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There are many different options here to achieve their goal, and to portray minority characters in a way that doesn't involve such a cheap and lazy method, and they don't do them. They don't get a pass because it's a video game.
Also, characters can be portrayed negatively in a healthy, narrative way, that speaks to them as characters, and this sure isn't it.
Thanks for articulating pretty exactly my problems with the game as shown. It's a shame that the writing and characterization wasn't handled better, since there's other really neat things they've done.
@clagnaught: Ahhh, that's a really good point about B:TS. I'm not super familiar with gamedev cycles, so I wasn't sure how to take that. Good to know, that gives me more hope for Detroit. QD games aren't perfect, but damn if they don't aspire to something high and rare. I love that about them.
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