I think the locking down the party size to 4 and possibly killing off(or worse) those origin characters that don't make it in the party after act 1, as was done in DOS2, is a bad way to up the replay value by forcing players to choose what companion related narratives they can experience in a single playthrough.
In DOS2 it didn't work as a motivation to replay the game for me, since I never cared that much about the prospective companions I left out(the lizard and the skeleton were both massive toff douches, so no big regrets to abandoning them).
In BG3, I'd be interested in keeping all the companions around, even if they're rather tiresome bunch at times. Still, if the active party size is locked to just 4, then you'll be missing out on much of their storylines even if they're just lurking around at the campsite. Nor do their comments about the gameplay events make that much sense, since they're nowhere to be seen during the events they later comment on as if they were present.
However, I'm not at all sure if BG3 is actually interesting enough to complete twice, since the big narrative branching choice of the first act seems to be a rather humorless choice on whether or not to join a suicide cult or not. This forced choice, between pretty much every conceivable motivation ranging from good to self-serving pragmatism and plain dumb self-harming shambling, is annoyingly familiar: it's like the choice between aligning with the Shadow thieves and Bodhi's organization in BG2, and the choice between opposing or allying with the voidwoken in DOS2.
Last edited by IdPreferNotTo; 25/07/21 12:56 AM.
