Anti-woke elements are why BG3 isn’t woke

I still see a lot of progressives who don’t get what woke means, but I’d say it’s when DEI and/or woke ideology ruins a game. So if a game inserts modern politics in a way that contradicts reality, it’s woke. If it feels like HR was breathing down the devs necks, it’s probably woke.

Something I think often gets missed though is that having enough anti-woke elements - things like racism, sexy women, or anything else woke progressives like to get mad about - seems to cancel out the woke elements. And although BG3 does have its woke stuff, it also has racism, religion, white people, sexy women, sexism, slavery, and no doubt a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting to mention. Furthermore, what woke elements the game does have aren’t forced on the player and don’t feel forced.

For example, let’s take the drow. They’re an evil race of man-hating sexists with attractive women who enslave those they think of as “lesser races.” They’re about as un-woke as anything can get, which is great, because it makes the world feel immersive and gives us some compelling villains.

As I’ve seen progressives pointing out, there were people complaining about the game… before it released. Have you noticed how no-one is calling the game woke anymore though? I think people were concerned that the game was going to shove woke stuff in your mouth and dumb down Faerun’s setting, but concerns about that have largely been alleviated.

To be honest, another game I think falls into this a bit is KCD2. While I haven’t gotten to the gay romance stuff yet, at least so far, I’d say the game has plenty of anti-woke elements since it’s mostly got white people who are Christian. Hearing NPC’s saying stuff like “he’s a good Christian” unironically and seeing white people everywhere has been great, because it makes the setting feel more believable. Seeing how the devs have handled the rest of the game makes me think that when it does get to the gay stuff, they’ll handle it in a way that feels believable for medieval Bohemia… but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see on that one.