The fact that companion characters, and other NPCs are openly racist in the commentary - quite often in this game, just as they are constantly in earlier Larian titles - and that we, as characters have *No* option but to passively accept that behaviour and stand alongside them while they say it, with no recourse to define our own character's personality or feelings on the matter is not good.
It's another instance of the overarching problem that is out inability to characterise our character and to tell the game the sort of person we're playing - and that's something we really need to be able to do, in order to engage with the roleplay of the game.
Lack of ability to self-characterise for the game aside (and that really is the more mechanically major issue), The level of baked-in racism in Larian's earlier games was very off-putting for me. It didn't add to the feeling or flavour of the world, it was just uncomfortable, and was made more so by my character's lack of ability to say anything; the fact that the game treated that behaviour as normal, natural and acceptable, and not worthy of comment, and the fact that supposed heroes and characters held up as strongly good characters also engaged in the behaviour really left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth and soured my experience of the game as a whole. It was a huge detraction that added no value, the way it was presented and handled in D:OS2.
And now, Larian are doing the *Same Thing* here, again, and I don't want it. They're just lacing in-baked racism and derogatory racial language into the everyday dialogue of their scenes, and making everyone act like it's okay, normal, natural and fine - no-one reacts to it, no-one comments on it, and we have zero options to say anything about it, and so are forced, in almost every case, to act like our character is fine with this kind of language. Sorry, but I'm not. It's not necessary to characterise the world, and while that kind of behaviour can and should show up in relevant circumstances and with relevant characters, it should be done in a way that highlights it as bad behaviour, and we should have at least the option to call it out if we don't approve, or if our character doesn't.
Options to define our characters are a good thing; the ability to characterise ourself and how we feel about things is important in a character driven roleplaying game. Fisher doesn't want that option to be present at all, unless there's an option to accept the behaviour as well; good news, there already is. It's the current default, where you listen, abide and accept the behaviour and treat it as though it's entirely normal and okay. that's what we do right now, and we don't have any *other* option at all. If you want the option to double down on it as well, then by all means, make it any option - but right now the 'default' which we are all forced to accept, is to be passively complicit and accepting of it, and that's not okay.
