“Our protagonists, our characters, can be anyone.”

Katie Chironis is the team lead and writer for Elsinore and for Gamasutra she wrote about how her team approached diversity in the game:

Elsinore is an adventure game set in the world of Shakespeare’s Hamlet – which places it, historically, in 16th century Denmark. Since we began work on the project a year or so ago, I’ve shown the playtest build to family, friends, and strangers alike. After they’re done playing, intermingled with their feedback on gameplay, they often point to Ophelia and ask: Why is she black?

My answer is always the same: Why shouldn’t she be?

Which to me at least is sufficient answer. If anything has shown its adaptability it’s Shakespeare after all, but there are always morons who want to argue the toss about the plausibility of a black woman in 16th century Europe. Hence Chironis’ focus on historical research, even though the game itself isn’t very historical. It’s easy to nitpick her argument in the context of her own game, (as seen in the MeFi thread here), but that misses the point she’s making. Games need to be more brave at embracing diversity and not whitewash history, not cling to a faux-historical perspective that can’t see anybody but white men be assassins or knights.