Johnny Novgorod said:
EternallyBored said:
...seems to want the setting to be more serious in tone (...) turning the setting in a more realistic direction.
What on earth was "serious" & "realistic" about a pimp monkey riding a bike, firing a gun and spouting "************" ad nauseam?
Serious, as in being upfront about the darker themes of creating slave races and said races exploring spirituality despite/in spite of fully knowing how/why they were created (admittedly that wasn't in the trailer that bit came from the devs afterwards), exploring actual space pirates and revolutionaries that aren't just a bunch of plucky pure hearted rebels fighting back against the man. A crime boss/syndicate that isn't a brightly colored black market that's actually a black market and not just there to sell you powerups. Characters that might have questionable or even objectionable motivations rather than a pure good guy that's so much of a good guy they have a cliche orphanage hook where you know exactly what's going to happen to those orphans as soon as you meet them.
Realistic in the sense of gray rather than black or white morality, i.e. instead of the chosen one/plucky reporter you have a crime boss and a group of rebels that actually might be a mixture of morally dubious, outright scumbags, and/or actual good guys. Perhaps gritty might be a better way to phrase it, realistic doesn't just mean mimicking reality you can also be realistic in theme, tone, speech etc. Which leads to the swearing which I am fine with, I have met real people that swear just as much, I would expect a con artist space pirate to have salty language, and they didn't extend the swearing to the captain and the bike driver so as long as they don't make all the characters over the top in their swearing, I am going to expect some fucks out of the character they are trying to create with the monkey.
That said, serious or realistic does not mean good. Despite throwing shade on some of BG&E 1's plot, it was a perfectly good story, like a saturday morning cartoon serial, I respect what it was going for, the chosen one stuff was a little lame so late in the game, but they could have easily made it work in a sequel, just paired with the cliffhanger and no resolution its kind of a lame plot point.
BGE 2 could nail the tone change, despite what you may think, plenty of properties have gotten darker, more serious, or grittier, and succeeded: Jak and Daxter 2&3, Prince of Persia 3(after going too far with 2), Ratchet and Clank, Tomb Raider, etc.
On the other hand, you may be right and they make everything silly and stupid, although I seriously doubt it will get as bad as Shadow the Hedgehog, the problem there was that Shadow was changed for no explained reason and put next to the other Sonic characters who retained their characterizations from earlier games, BGE 2 is separated enough in being a distant prequel that we likely won't have to deal with Jade suddenly smoking, swearing, and shooting realistic guns while the other BGE 1 characters all act exactly the same as they did in the first game.
The change for Jak and Daxter 2 worked because the world and characters around Jak changed to match the new tone, in Shadow Hedgehog you still had a plucky tales and charmy the fucking bee giving pep speeches while fighting Robotniks same silly looking robots while the new villain didn't look serious or threatening enough to match shadow's own characterization.
Tl;DR: The setting looks to be grittier and more serious, the devs have stated they want to explore some interesting questions, however none of that means they will succeed or that the game will be good, and I completely sympathize with those that don't like the tone change, it does seem to be a departure from the first game, though how much of one remains to be seen.
