Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Depiction of elves in BG3

I've almost two full (afaik ) playthroughs of BG3 (one Tav, one "good" Durge), and I'm now on my 3rd with an evil Durge (start of act 2). The first two characters were high elves, the 3rd is a lolthsworn drow. And as much as I love the game overall (it's awesome), I'm a bit disappointed in how elves are depicted in it.

- General: Elves seem overrepresented and culturally assimilated in the game. There a lot of elves in the game, but almost all of them behave as long-eared humans. Just being there as whatever is needed (farmer, waitress, Ilmater priest etc.). As if in the Retreat never happened, and they don't have an own culture, language, religion. The only trait which sticks out among elf NPCs is that they are on average more xenophobic. But otherwise they just behave as humans. Nothing is ever mentioned for example about why a wood elf would be a Councilor in Baldurs Gate. Or a random sun elf smith, Ilmater priest being there etc. They are all culturally behaving as Baldurians. Basically there are no other elves in the game. Except for one - the Shadar-Kai in act 2 is done well. That feels like someone actually had interest in that kind of elf and made something out of it.

- Companions: The same is true for the companions. If you compare La'zael to Astarion for example, there is nothing specifically elven about Astarion. Besides his ears. His identity is 99% being a vampire spawn and Baldurian noble. Caveat, I've not romanced him, nor played as him, but he has been a party member in all 3 playthroughs. And as far as I know he never even says one word in elven or does anything specifically elven, or references to it. I don't think it has to be as pronounced as with La'zael, but there is nothing. Halsin is similar. He's a druid. There is a bit going on with him being old, but that's it. Besides elves being xenophobes, longevity is the only other trait which is mentioned once or twice when you play as an elf. Which leads me to the next point:

- PC: When you play as a (high) elf, it almost never comes up as a topic. Because elves are so normal in the game you have almost no specific interactions with anything. You almost never feel like playing as an elf. The biggest problem, for me at least, was because sleep, dreaming and memory being such important topics in the game, but it's never referenced in the game that elves don't sleep, usually don't dream and how devastating it would be for one to have no memories. Basically an elf, until they get their memories back, would run through the whole game without being able to "sleep" once and relax, it should be devastating for them not being able to access their memories. Of course, this could easily be solved with the tadpole macguffin, because there is a limit on what the devs can do for just one race. But it's not even mentioned at all. And there these constant references to sleeping etc. which make no sense for an elf. I think the elf chapter in Mordenkainen's Tome was done really well. They put a lot of meat onto how Reverie works and how it shapes elven culture and psyche. Sadly nothing of it is in the game.

Besides longevity and ears (kinky earplay is in the game, so that's a plus I guess) nothing else comes up either (melancholy, elven magic, language, etc. no interaction at all with any of that). And even if finally someone reacts to you being an elf - like Minthara insulting you - there is not interaction - no insulting back the drow, no clever remarks, nothing. Neither is there anything with the Shadar-Kai, Astarion, Halshin or any other elf in the game. If you appreciate art, magic or anything as far as I know there is no specific line for that either (like "you should work another 50 years on that, even a lame, old joke like that would have been better than nothing in my view).

- Looks: There is a whole threat about it, but in short, from the skin (smoothness), face to body, there isn't anything specifically elven about the elves. Again they mostly look like humans with long ears. For me that's the least important topic though, if you aren't zoomed in, they look elven enough.

If you play as a lothsworn drow this is done so much better. Of course, like with the Githyanki, elves are not as unusual, so I don't expect the same kind of dialogue, but really there is almost nothing, and you never feel like you are actually playing an elf in the game. In fact it felt so weird and out of line with the Forgotten Realms, I went back to the books (Sword Coast Adventure Guide etc.) and checked if there had been any changes to elves, but didn't find anything.

I know this won't change, but maybe for the next game they could do a bit more for elf players. It's usually a sizable part of the player community, and not everyone just plays them just for the looks.

some of your idea is pretty good, probably too late to implement.

All this has been mentioned since day 1 of EA.

Larian's BG3 feels like HUMANS are cosplaying into other races. I hate it. But what can you do? My god do gnomes and halfings look hilarious.

I think the simple reason, or excuse, is I believe: cinematic dialogues. Obviously humans were used as base for all the animations.

I've only played it once, and while I absolutely love the game, the world building does feel a bit puddle deep. It's partially because we interact only with 2 settlements, the druids and BG. There's no half orc tribe being really half-orcy shamanistic. There are no halfling village being deeply concerned with someone stealing a family recipe.

It's also not something the game set out to do. The focus is in three main areas, exploring origin characters personal story, map exploration, fun combat. It does those things really well I think. That's why the generic Tav and the rest of the world is a bit of a puddle, you can only do so much. I would've loved to see more thematically and lore appropriate race, class and faith based characters, but the scope has to end somewhere and they certainly scoped the game wide enough, the depth is in the origin stories and not in the world building.

Thank you, and I agree, for this game it's too late. Just meant as a feedback in case they do DLC. Maybe they can add more for races like elves (I'm sure dwarf, hafling etc. have the same issues).


I understand of course that they have to focus on some areas/races. But in many cases, it felt to me they could actually have done less to make it better. Like not having a ton of random elf characters in Baldur's Gate, which adhere to human gods or a just there as radonm folk for example. Most of the other things I mentioned are basically just added dialogue options. I agree though, there is definitely a limit what they can possibly do, they game is huge already. On the other hand, I don't think it was necessary to have such a big difference between let's say lothsworn drow and playing a high elf. Both aren't the focus of the story, but it feels like night and day.


I can see that using humans puts a limit on the looks. That's why I puy that on the bottom of my nitpicking list. And because there is already a giant thread about that topic. I feel mostly like more race specific dialogue and less cultural homogenizing in the NPC depiction could have made for a much better player experience in that respect.

The one elven thing I do notice is Halsin meditates instead of sleeps. But yep, that's as far as elven culture goes. Because the game takes a very vulgar approach and philosophy. It doesn't want to be Tolkien, it wants to be Critical Role, cynical and meme-filled.

Elves are also supposed to be preternaturally beautiful, but good god are the male elves just ugly outside that single face option. Even when they're old, they should look angelic and ethereal, not haggardly and worn down. Male elves lack beautiful face options because they basically chose one conventionally attractive male face option that's young with a good jawline and chin, and then the rest of the phases are old and haggardly or their attempt to include African or Asian ethnic features, but it's not even young and attractive looking male Asian or African faces, it's really ugly ones. As a result I predict the vast majority of players who roll male elves will have that single male elf face since the others are just so thoroughly unattractive, and people don't play elves to be ugly. They play them to look regal, as close to eternal and ethereal as it gets.

By the way, this applies to other races. You'd think the tieflings would have more comment on their appearance and among themselves have something to say about Mephistopheles/Asmodeus/Zariel lineage, but not even close. The plight of tieflings is not that they are a devil touched race, but that they are a stand in for your stereotypical refugee and the mean natives who refuse to accommodate and help them.

I have to disagree on halfling/gnomes, though. I find male gnomes pretty cute in their endearing gnomish way. The halfling males are unfortunately fat with a double chin unlike the females, but they're OK.

I completely agree that elves are mostly treated like longer-lived humans with pointy ears in BG3. I absolutely love FR elves and there is a lot of interesting lore for their culture/biology/spiritual aspects, so it's disappointing to barely see any of it. At least the elf characters trance instead of sleeping.

On the appearance front, it's telling that the concept art/render for the eleven chainmail uses a male half-elf model rather than an elf . . .

Tieflings also feel too similar to each other. I loved all the weird tiefling traits and heritages you used to get in old Planescape, but WotC has ironed out all their diversity.