Mostly games prior to 20 years ago. The good ones that were interesting with natural racial tensions that come from strong cultural differences of people living in close proximity to one another that equally value land and other valuable resources.
Racial differences and cultural exchanges as a rich and present part of the world is one thing; it's great to have that. Having a game make the vast majority of people you interact with speak in distinctly racist ways, and force you, the player, to just accept that as okay because it's the norm, and not allow you to call it out, is different. In DOS2 Larian did the latter, VERY heavily, all the way through the game. I do NOT want to see the same thing here... and yet there are early signs of it.
Instead of drawing on the cultural differences of the party members who clearly come from all walks of life, we're presented with [...] an endless sea of teen angst. This is a wasted opportunity that could have been used to teach the player about the lore of their people.
Yes. Yes it is, and yes it should be. No arguments here.
I shouldn't have to be Googling why the new red peoples with horns cowering in fear from a handful of goblins are different from the old red peoples with horns that were only just recently trying to kill me.
This is just bad storytelling.
You know what would be really neat? Little 1-2 minute intro videos that give some atmospheric descriptions of the culture, lifestyle and general considerations facing each race... something you could click to watch/listen to, when you're selecting race and subrace in character creation... The active story can only do so much to ground people in the general realms lore, without feeling ham-fisted and poorly executed, and yet the game needs to be friendly to people without any existing realms lore under their belt. It's a tricky balance.
Not sure what exactly do you refer here, but to me it seem like either there isnt any racism, or PC beign bright exception in this ...
Okay, how about this: There are more racial/cultural/religious slurs thrown back and forth by npcs at other npcs in the first act of this game than in the ENTIRE Neverwinter Nights series of games and all of their expansions combined.
That amount is a distinctly toned down density of racial prejudice and slur language used in DOS2.
It's not necessary, it doesn't add anything to the game, and it's just unpleasant to have to listen to people talking like that, and just have our character carry on and respond to them normally as though that's just a normal and fine way to speak, without any option to object.... by doing that, they create a game world that is telling us, the players "This is okay; it's normal and fine; no-one really objects to this, and that's why your character can't".
Just from looking at them, Tieflings look much more sinister and alien - and the Gith girl does, in fact, look comparatively "normal"
To be fair, Larian kinda chickened out with their depiction of Gith for some reason, and made them look a lot less non-human than they should be... there's even dialogue about their nasal design which doesn't at all line up with Lae'zel's fairly human-normal-looking (slightly upturned) nose.
The players are humans, they don't know that Tieflings are supposed to be "normal" - they'll judge by their appearance. And they also don't know that Gith are supposed to be "alien"
Well I don't know about you but I'm actually a moogle; internet anonymity is great because everyone thinks you're just joking...
That aside, anyone coming to baldur's gate three, because they are fans of baldur's gate one and baldur's gate two... or who are looking for another d&d video game, which this one promises itself to be... is going to know those things. You could also read the racial descriptions provided on the character screen, which informs you at least a little bit. That is not to say that the game shouldn't be doing a better job of sharing relevant lore to the players in a smooth way, and trying to make itself play-friendly to people with no background realms knowledge - it can and should.
In the case of Zevlor & Co, it's weird that the Goblins are not afraid of him.
Why? Why should they be? They are entities that live in the realms and know full well what tieflings are - mortals that bleed when you stick them with arrows. Why should a few unusual calcified outcroppings instill fear in them? Or an extra appendage or two? Why shouldn't the refugees who barely know which end of a sword to point outward not be afraid of violent raiders who raid and pillage for a living and who want to kill them? Why should their skin colour, or bony head ornaments mean that they have nothing to fear?
