Whilst accurate that most players will only play the "good" route, whilst the "evil" route, wherever it exists, is largely underdeveloped. And it's a cycle that keeps on cycling, with not enough data to work with in terms of how to make an evil character walk the same general route as the good one, etc.
Never mind that good and evil as game concepts are outdated in terms of what the present times bring us...
I have to disagree. Definitions of good and evil do not change over time because good and evil do not change over time.
...which I could hazard to call the "science of good and evil". Turns out that the vast majority of human beings are inherently neutral and cooperative, mostly due to how a societal species works in the first place. The "evil"-ness tends to come about from social outliers in their various forms. As such, what evil human being do you go talk to about how their evil perspective would see themselves playing this or that game. Even the whole "then vs us" thingy is not inherently evil, since both sides see the other as bad and themselves as good. One could say that that twisted reciprocity is the sole driving factor...
Generally, what we even describe as evil human being is, for the most part, driven by a lack of empathy of the human being we consider to be evil.
I'm not really sure where you're going with this. If you're simply pointing out that in modern times situations operate in "gray areas" I would agree. Societies that live in worlds where dragons, hags, demons, devils, and other soul sucking creatures exist do not operate in these "gray areas" unless dealing with other humans or more "neutral" creatures. The way classic RPG's define the the sections and subsections of your alignment are still largely applicable to any RPG that gets made. Most characters, creatures, or monstrosities fall within the...
Lawfull Good
Neutral Good
Chaotic Good
Lawfull Neutral
True Neutral
Chaotic Neutral
Lawfull Evil
Neutral Evil
Chaotic Evil
...alignment types applied to pretty much any story driven RPG. And that literally encompasses pretty much every designed character or creature. I mean, we could debate the philosophies of it but all actions and morality can be displayed within that alignment spectrum. For example hags like the one in BG3 (you know which Auntie I refer to) are Chaotic Evil. There is literally no "gray area" in her morality. If she is cooperative it's so she can do you some evil. Perhaps there are benefits to allow her to do evil. But she's doing evil.
I think what it sounds like is that you want your character in an RPG to have good incentives or societal pressure to perform evil within the game. Which if that's the case, I might agree since having situations like that is congruent with how morality typically works so seeing it displayed in an RPG narrative is not only fine it should be encouraged. In the real world doing hateful things does have benefits from time to time so in an RPG there should be reasons and purposes for doing those things as well.
How do you even role-play an utter lack of empathy when you still have some empathy running around in that brain circuitry? Questions for the ages, I guess?
I trust Larian to give their best shot at delivering a form of evil route, but whether it'll be satisfactory to the "evil" players among us, is to be seen.
It will highly depend on the scenario/game where you're roleplaying. I think people can be pushed into doing evil by external forces. You can still do evil things and have empathy, but typically the most extreme cases of evil (Chaotic Evil as it were) doesn't typically require you to lack empathy so much as it requires you to enjoy causing catastrophe or chaos. Much like a pyromaniac can't help but be fascinated and addicted to starting and watching fires, a person can be fascinated with how much control and power they have at ruining other peoples environment/life.
Nature vs. Nurture can be debated all day but people always still fall all over the alignment spectrum. But you can't make a great fantasy RPG without at least dabbling in good and evil.
