I hope they implement it fast, it is a core function in my opinion.
I must agree, even though as someone who loves BG1&2 I wish it wouldn't be the case. I see a bit too many things in BG3 which made me not enjoy D:OS2.
Luckily for you I went back to the video and yes, multiplayer will be in EA. What we won't be able to do is play as origin characters (so your friends won't be able to play as your companions just yet). Here is the link with the time stamp and here is my transcript below:
https://youtu.be/qboLvZ5YQSg?t=2458
Everyone wants to know, you know, can friends play companions. Are we going to get multipleyer at least in EA?
So not instantly. We'll add an ability to play as one of the origin characters later on and that will give people the opportunity to get to know the companions from a third person point of view, if you want just by recruiting them. I gotta say depending on whch companions you pick we talked about permutations earlier. You'll get a completely different experience. Like if you Shadow Heat and Lyzelle they can't stand each other so that gives you completely different dynamics then if you take characters that actually like each other. So you should be able to have a lot of fun fooling around with these things and we will have multiplayer in there. So you will be able to play with a party of up to four. You will be able to play online. You'll be able to play in lan. We won't have split screen available. From the get go but that will be added at some point during development also.
