TDP has two main leads, one white and one black.

I’m not walled off from Star Wars’ controversies, merely pointing out that “every time” isn’t accurate.

In case anyone is confused, the camel calf’s body is facing the camera head-on; we’re looking at its forelegs. Its neck is curved upwards sharply and slightly to the viewer’s left, but the fur colors make it blend in (you can see the back of its neck slightly).

“Every time” is certainly an exaggeration. Just off the top of my head in a minute:

• The Dragon Prince - nobody gave a damn.
• Star Wars [pick any of several releases] - we’ve had various people of color, both human and alien, as protagonists. I don’t remember much of a fuss over that in particular.
• Various MCU things - Brave New World just came out, again featuring Mackie as Wilson - taking the place of the stereotypically WASP Steve Rogers, no less.
• Hazbin Hotel: Vaggie is heavily coded as latina.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch From Mercury - okay, not a non-white lead, but the first Gundam series with a female lead, and a lesbian romance front and center. Once again, no attack.

If I looked around further, I’m sure I could find more. All of these have variously been critiqued for writing, characterization, or pacing, but failed to draw attacks based on the ethnicity (or orientation) of their protagonists.

Is this kind of attack a thing that happens? Absolutely. Is it “every time”? No. I’d suggest it’s more often when a series goes out of its way to bludgeon the audience with a message related to it, or tries to sell a newcomer as a superior replacement for a legacy character, that people can get riled up.

Oh absolutely. OP only asked about UI, so I focused on that. But Generals had a lot of WC3 flavor in it.

Command and Conquer had traditionally used a “right-pillar” control interface, with your map at the top. utility controls like “sell building” or “power down”, followed by a build selection screen below. There you had 4 panels you could select between - “main base” buildings, defensive buildings, infantry, and vehicles - and you could scroll up and down a given panel. So long as you had the right production building, you could select things to build from anywhere on the map. If a unit had a “special ability”, it would be triggered by double-clicking on the unit.

Come 2003’s Command and Conquer: Generals, the UI had been totally redone to resemble the layout of Blizzard’s wildly popular Warcraft 3: The control panel now sat at the bottom of the screen, with the map on the left. Building a particular kind of unit required you to select the building or unit that produced it. Selecting an individual unit gave you a list of magic spells special abilities it could take, such as using an alternative weapon or purchasing a particular upgrade.