Well this is a positive take to their approach, here is a snip;
“When we were designing a story for and then decided to cast Keanu Reeves, it was slightly different than with Idris Elba,” Sasko said. “With Keanu Reeves, we already had a story that we knew we wanted to tell, and we were on the level of scenarios when we casted an actor. Then this is where Keanu Reeves came in. With Idris Elba, it was slightly different because we were on the level of story outlines. So, even before you go into screenplays and scenarios, so just very general. Then we started thinking about an actor that could actually fill that role.”
The team then reached out to Elba, who was interested in joining the project, and according to Sasko, having him signed on to portray Solomon early on informed the entire conception process for the character, his story, and how the player would interact with him in Phantom Liberty.