According to a host of apparently liberal game developers working for Respawn Entertainment, the company received scores of requests from team members to make the main protagonist in the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order video game a black woman. Now, they are complaining their requested race swap was reportedly “shot down.”
The Fallen Order game was released in 2019 with a white male lead, Cal Kestis played by Shameless actor Cameron Monaghan, who has become an established and popular figure in Star Wars canon after playing an embattled padawan survivor of Order 66.
“When I worked on [Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order], a lot of devs wanted and advocated for the main character to be Black and/or a woman,” tweeted Nora Shramek, a lighting artist at Respawn who worked on the game.
The reason that Monaghan’s character wasn’t replaced by a black woman, according to Shramek, was because the game already featured two black people. These were presumably the characters Saw Gerrera and Cere Junda played by Forest Whitaker and Debra Wilson.
The sequel trilogy, which featured a woman as the lead protagonist, “Rey” played by female actress Daisy Ridley, was also considered in the decision to not replace Kestis with a black woman, according to reports.
The main antagonists in the Fallen are the Second Sister played by Dominican-American female actress Elizabeth Grullon, who alongside the Ninth Sister, played by female actress Misty Lee, pursue Kestis across the galaxy at the direction of Darth Vader.
When I worked on SW:JFO a LOT of devs wanted & advocated 4 the main character 2b black &/or a woman. 'Reasons' 4 NO: We already have 2 black people in the game. Rey is a woman & we can't do that to' guess what the demographic of the people making those decisions looked like?
— NoraNevaBoreYa 🏳️🌈 (@NoraShramek) May 10, 2022
“It was our team’s game and yes, a few of the people with decision making power made choices,” she later noted, adding that the issue isn’t with Cal or his actor, but “about opportunity lost.”
The employee called EA Games “evil” and said that Lucasfilm and Disney were “overly controlling.”
Shramek further noted that that these were her personal experiences with “a few people who had the opportunity to push change” while she worked at Respawn, but clarified “I no longer work at Respawn and, from my understanding of people who do, there have been changes since my departure.”
News about the alleged refusal to adopt a black, female lead comes as the games’ successor, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order 2, has been announced.
