Honestly, I am operating under the assumption that there will be 12 (or maybe 13) Origin characters so that there will be one for each class, not doing that would hurt the game I feel but doing it that way will take a lot of resources because you have to assign people to make sure relevant tags follow through, writing for each companion and interactions with other origin companion, modelling, animations, and programming their unique thing. That said, I feel like they could still do non origin companions, and even the insane amount stated earlier, with delegating people to said tasks and careful management. That and non origin companions actually frees up certain things as they do not have to program them with the complexities of the origin companions (the ability to be the main character, unique tags and dialogue constantly, events relating to the character constantly) and instead they can operate off of the more generic tags like the custom Player Character does.
I hope we have non-origin companions, for the sole reason that this will mean they're recruitable past Act 1. Given that it's unclear whether all companions you don't choose at the end of Act 1 will be killed off and/or otherwise removed from your party, knowing that there will be 2-4ish additional companions in BG will be a relief.
