IMO, it is forced when the character's defining quality is their marginalization. When something a character is doing is impressive because they're female, or LBGT, or PoC. This is what the CW's Batwoman show did a lot of.
Battlefield V is a not a super great example, because that was just war shitheads getting mad at nothing. But the marketing behind BF5 was really based on "Look their are girls now" which also was stupid. Which i think was the core of the problem that people had with it, and in typical internet fashion people took it too far.
The new Star Wars trilogy was just bad. It rehashed a lot of old story beats from the original movies, while also making the main character a perfect woman who couldn't be flawed in anyway, she had to be better than everyone at everything. There are a lot of examples of this, from her insane power over the force with no training, to being able to embarrassingly fix the Falcon in front of Han without even trying. "haha I just fixed it because I'm just soooooo great at everything." Kind of stuff. I get why people didn't like Rey.
But here is the thing. People aren't against strong female characters. What people are against are bad characters. And on top of that they don't want to be shamed for not liking a character. We've seen this cycle on repeat a lot over the last few years. Major female led movie is made, it sucks and people don't go see it, creators blame audience for being sexist.
It's NOT SEXISM, your movie is just SHIT. There is a difference.
If the audience was sexist why are the original Alien films so beloved? Terminator 2? Badass heroines that were not sexualized for the "male gaze" have been popular for a long time, and they would still be popular if Hollywood would actually put some fucking effort into writing good characters again.
But you see the vocal minority online is why this is happening. The people who blindly demand more "representation" in media, do so because it appears to be working and that feeling of power drives them. And when you point out all the representation that has happened throughout the last 30 years, they ignore it. Because even having one cis-white-dude is a problem. They want more 100% PoC made products, or LBGT made products without any regards to qualifications of how that product should be. So what you end up with is all-female Ghostbuster films expecting success because it's all female when no effort was actually given to making a good movie first.
Like cancel culture, forced diversity is just another boogeyman. Regardless if the product is a good or not, there are people out there that don't want to see my people, other races and genders, and religions not get any representation or to be only seen as "funny" Uncle Tom foolery, bad stereotypes, victims or things only be saved, or villains. Nothing positive. People like that exist inside and outside of all entertainment industries. Whenever we get any head way some one has to try tear us down out of unfounded fear or hatred, because they don't want to become the "minority" or "replaced".
These fuckers that complain about "forced" diversity be it in games, movies, or television:
Where the fuck where you when
Streets of Rage was around?
Where the fuck where you when
Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, etc?
Where the fuck where you when
Parasite Eve was a thing?
Where the fuck where you when
The Suffering games were out?
I know why, because during those times, you were a kid or teen too oblivious to care, and when you started noticing something, you learned to be an asshole about it. Either because you got it from racists/sexists parents, grand parents, relatives, piers, neighbors, Bill O Riley/Fox News, or some asshole on the web with nothing better to do with their lives!
There will always be corporation that pander or appeal to different demographics or not of their usual norm, but has always been the case and not a "new" phenomenon or problem. It bares repeating, regardless of high or low quality, there are racist/sexist assholes fans and certain audiences that do not want to see us exist in anything nor have strong focus. Because of they're insecure assholes afraid of someone being different from them.
I remember when certain "fans" complained their should be no "politics/dangerous politics" in
Miles Morales, because of a small mention of the BLM movement towards the last side mission. Or how super hero games should have "no politics"! What a load of bullshit! Where the fuck were you when
Arkham City release back in 2010? Where were you during all of the
Infamous games? The last Spider-Man game had plenty of politics, but no one complaining there!
Miles has plenty of politics, racial and economical. Y'all just don't want to listen or think, and would rather stay in your self satisfying escapism. Claiming to be a free thinker when you're just another mindless drone that can't think for themselves.
Insomniac was showing their support and they did nothing wrong for standing for a cause. At least they stand for something and not this whole: we're anti/apolitical vomit EA, Ubisoft, and Acti-Blizz pour out of all their orifices every year. Thankfully, most actual fans of the Miles called out the other "fans" crap argument.
Need I remind you again how these same assholes claim black people never fought in WWI or WWII, or try to constantly downplay their achievements and individual accomplishments? Most of these assholes don't care about quality that much. All of these games could be utter crap and most of them would not raise a fuss, if all the characters are straight white dudes. Throw in multiple people or more than 3 non-white/female characters and everyone loses their minds, because it's not "part of the plan"! Upset the established "order" and everything becomes "chaos".