Dontnod co-founder Jean-Maxime Morris talked about his female lead character in the upcoming Remember Me in an interview with Computer and Video Games:

CVG: “Remember Me‘s lead character is a mixed-race female, which stands out against the crowd of white male heroes. There’s a sense that publishers attach risk to anything other than white male leads. At any stage in development, did you feel you needed to change the lead character’s appearance?”

JMM: “No, we wanted Nilin to stand out. I think these sort of issues become self-fulfilling prophesies; people saying that only white males sell, so then everyone only does white males. If you start believing these things, you get your head inside this cold marketing strategy that you cannot get your head around. It becomes a pretty f*cking racist and misogynistic way of thinking about lead characters.

We are essentially directing Nilin’s story here – it is a very linear game, in terms of both navigating the landscape and narrative. This was an important, conscious choice for us. We want to have much control over the scene – the events and the emotions that the player has to go through.”

Check out the trailer for Remember Me:

It’s really nice to hear this, especially on the same day as the #1reasonwhy tag exploded on Twitter. Hopefully, more developers will start taking a page out of Jean-Maxime’s book! To not only have a female lead, but a mixed-race female lead, is a big step in the right direction in terms of diversity in gaming and lead characters. The article also discusses the game’s approach to guns and killing: none whatsoever, which is pretty fresh for the action genre. Capcom is already talking about making Remember Me into a franchise, which is really encouraging.

What do you think about Remember Me?