My opinion on this topic is that there are official rules to give a game this or that rating, as well as the need to put a warning. But developers can, for the sake of sensitive players, introduce additional warnings into the game at their discretion. These warnings can be incorporated into the game's storyline so as not to annoy other players by breaking the fourth wall. For example, during dialog you may be told that you're about to hear something very heavy, hint at what it's about, and your character may refuse to listen or watch it.
Rules for assigning a game a rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). These rules are used by Steam. Let's consider the M (Mature 17+) and AO (Adults Only 18+) ratings, since hardly anyone here is particularly interested in games rated T (Teen) and younger.
M rating (this rating is our all-time favorite game BG3). The game may contain violence, blood and core, sexual content, nudity and strong language. Note that sexual content and violence are separate, not combined with each other. Unlike games with AO rating (the highest rating). The game may contain prolonged scenes of intense violence, and may also contain demonstrations of violence.
*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***
Sexual violence, including repeated scenes of sexual violence, which are kissing scenes with facial expressions 6 patch.
You may ask - what is the problem? What is the difference between 17+ and 18+, only that some players who fall into this age range will be in a bad situation due to the increase of the game rating? Not really, games with an AO rating are also a kind of characteristic of the game. This rating is associated with games in the horror genre, games that build their story around violence for violence's sake, containing many violent and possibly traumatizing scenes (like Hatred and Postal). It seems to me that the concept of the game, which is positioned by Larian as the concept of BG3 (in all promotional materials and public announcements BG3 is presented as a fun game, with humor, aimed at a wide audience), in my opinion, is not very compatible with what is usually understood under games with AO rating. Some game stores (e.g. GOG) don't really like to include AO-rated games in the list of games they sell (e.g. GOG refused to sell Hatred).
The only scene in BG3 that is currently (which thankfully will be fixed soon) beyond the M rating is the kissing scenes of the Ascended Astarion.
*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***
Sexual violence. Sexual violence is non-consensual sexual activity. The fact that the sexual action (kissing) is violent and non-consensual is clearly demonstrated by Tav's facial expressions in this scene. Also, this scene is a repeated scene of sexual violence - the player can repeat these scenes as many times as they want.
How is this different from the dialog with Hope and the subsequent scene with Haarlep? In the dialog with Hope, we can clearly understand that she was a victim of the
*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***
Sexual Assault. But in the game itself there is only mention of SA, but no demonstration of it. Hope hints at what was happening to her, but we don't know the details, there is no text description and most importantly, there is no corresponding video sequence. The video sequence is what first obliges the game to raise its rating and put up a warning. There are no such clear guidelines about the text description, but conscious developers do put a warning for such things, as such content can also cause complaints and traumatize the player. I can give you an example of a similar scene from Disco Elysium, where there is a brutally detailed description of a group sexual assault with the murder of the victim, mutilation of the body and the subsequent act of cannibalism, and all of this is described in great detail, strongly, powerfully and in a way that is unlikely to leave the reader indifferent. The event is presented as a story of what happened in the past. There are two warnings before the description in the game - the player is made aware of what they are about to read and twice given the option to skip the story. If you want to skip, you'll learn the basic storyline necessary for the quest chain - that the character was a mercenary and committed atrocities in the war, but you won't learn the details of that. The main difference between this story and Hope's story is that Hope only mentions it, you get about as much information as you would in a Disco Elysium game if you refused to read the description of the event after being warned. If Hope had told us a detailed story of what happened to her, or we had found some diary entries with brutal details - then the game would have had a detailed description of SA comparable to the demonstration, and of course the developers should have accompanied that with some sort of warning.
Sex with Haarlep happens voluntarily at the will of the player. Sorry, but taking a “death threat” from a boss in an RPG as a serious threat of death to Tav is only possible if you have the fantasy and desire to roleplay that way. Weak Tav is afraid of Haarlep and “gives himself up for the key” - but this is already a fantasy that the player's imagination draws, in any RPG we constantly come across some enemies that threaten death and we, as a rule, blow their heads off, not really worried about it. You can tell Haarlep right away that you're going to kill him without even hearing about any of his game. The sex scene itself (I won't go through it myself, sorry, but I think the video gives enough information to evaluate it) looks like a normal consensual sex scene. There is no hint of Tav's disagreement/resistance in the video.
As for those scenes that are hard for the personal perception of any particular player, you'll have to put up with it. Either don't play games at all that may contain something that could hurt you, or learn about such content in the game in advance and avoid it if possible. I try to avoid, for example, watching content that shows opportunities for the player to be cruel to Astarion if I want to have a good day today, because something like that makes me want to cry and/or kill (*joking). But since my personal emotions only matter to myself, I can handle it on my own. So when someone finds that they feel bad that their Tav is smiling in response to those actions of Astarion that they personally find offensive to them, at that
*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***
They like the recurring scenes of sexual violence in the game, which they wish to keep for the sake of their roleplay. Then I can advise you to use mods, choose another partner who will not commit “abusive” actions, there are plenty of ways to avoid what you don't like personally.
And when it comes to facts that show why a given scene is triggering and not appropriate for an M-rated game, that's an entirely different conversation.
It is more difficult for me to form an opinion about what in a game can scare rather than cause emotional pain, because I myself have problems with fear in games, I have not yet managed to find a game that managed to scare me, I can get very nervous, especially if the scene requires quick action and high reaction speed, but I have not yet managed to experience fear specifically because of game events. I love horror games, especially horror stories like The Dark Pictures Anthology, Until Dawn. I like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Dead Space, Callisto Protocol. By the way, that scene in Dead Space 2 where Isaac stabs himself in the eye, which I mentioned in the thread about kissing, is really quite difficult to get through. The scene is interactive, you have to do all these manipulations with the eye with your hand, a xenomorph breaks in the door, you can make a mistake and kill Isaac (the video will be appropriate). I dreamed about that eye afterward (funny, I read later that many people dreamed about it after going through that scene), some complained about that scene, asked for it to be mitigated, or asked their friends to go through that scene for them. But in the context of the game, that scene was completely justified. And I can't remember a single horror game where the game tried to dictate to me, “This is where you should be afraid!”, especially in a scene where I don't see the slightest reason to do so. That's nonsense. I think with the thing about personal phobias, when you know what you're afraid of, then you can try to figure out where in the game you run the risk of encountering that fear, whether that scene can be avoided, and decide whether to play it or not. Of course, if the developers can make a list of warnings (for example, in the form of text attached to the game) regarding scenes that can cause negative emotions in the player, it will be only a plus for the game.