Yeah, the Augmented Rights Coalition. Who are STILL shown to be good guys with a righteous cause at their core, suffering only from the (mis)guidance of the Illuminati plant. You meet their founder and he's shown to be an unambiguously good guy, the implication being that there was nothing wrong with the group until the Illuminati put Marchenko in control - IOW, what saner BLM defenders will say about tge riots while ignoring the org's actual ideology or how its founders explicitly identify as trained Marxists, done unironically.
Plus the game's best ending involves them getting what they want re:aug control legislation. Unlike previous games where you get a choice of who to side with and each faction gives you wildly different outcomes, MD's endings are variations of one ending determined by whether you pass or fail certain conditions.
Anyway, DX1 did this 'good org subverted by conspirators' thing much better in 2000 with Silhouette, the avant-garde rebels I mentioned previously. The game doesn't go out of its way to get you to agree with them in every regard but methods and there's signs of them being under Illuminati influence even before they're outright absorbed by the Illuminati in Invisible War.
DX1 is just flat out written better. I don't think the SquareEnix writers intended to put in modern-day woke messaging, they just weren't very talented and were incapable of anything else.
Yeah, the Augmented Rights Coalition. Who are STILL shown to be good guys with a righteous cause at their core, suffering only from the (mis)guidance of the Illuminati plant. You meet their founder and he's shown to be an unambiguously good guy, the implication being that there was nothing wrong with the group until the Illuminati put Marchenko in control - IOW, what saner BLM defenders will say about tge riots while ignoring the org's actual ideology or how its founders explicitly identify as trained Marxists, done unironically.
Plus the game's best ending involves them getting what they want re:aug control legislation. Unlike previous games where you get a choice of who to side with and each faction gives you wildly different outcomes, MD's endings are variations of one ending determined by whether you pass or fail certain conditions.
Anyway, DX1 did this 'good org subverted by conspirators' thing much better in 2000 with Silhouette, the avant-garde rebels I mentioned previously. The game doesn't go out of its way to get you to agree with them in every regard but methods and there's signs of them being under Illuminati influence even before they're outright absorbed by the Illuminati in Invisible War.
DX1 is just flat out written better. I don't think the SquareEnix writers intended to put in modern-day woke messaging, they just weren't very talented and were incapable of anything else.