I totally just started Honest Hearts earlier this week. I know, so two-thousand-and-late. You can thank grassfire and her random act of Steam generosity.

I haven’t played or really ruminated long enough to have formed articulate thoughts about either dude. But I will say this: They present an interesting conflict for the player, and the player character if you’re playing to RP. If you’re like me and were raised in a secular household [not atheist/agnostic, just secular], Joshua’s and Daniel’s faith-based motives seem… if not suspicious, at least iffy. You’re not sure whether they really do want to help the natives, or whether you’re encountering the British Raj Lite. The way a person handles the DLC, I’d think, would depend a lot upon their sociological and anthropological compass.

Overall, I don’t know whether I agree with them or not, but I think their motivations are really interesting! This is one of the leaves Bioware ought to take out of the Fallout series’ book - how to write good grey characters and, above that, grey scenarios. I get the distinct sense that there’s not going to be one ending to this DLC that benefits all the “right” people in all the “right” ways, which is, needless to say, a little more nuanced than the therapist-or-asshole spectrum you sometimes get with Mass Effect dialogue wheels.