Shadowheart's cutscenes and dialogue seem to take priority over the other companions in most cases.
In the instance of the Illithid dreams you can't get Astarion's nightmare cutscene when she's in your party. You also can't have a cutscene with other characters about going to find the creche or see priestess gut if she's in your party. I have to kill her temporarily to have scenes and dialogue with other companions.
It's really unfortunate because these are revealing/important scenes for the characters. I don't know why you can only access these scenes with one character in your party. It's honestly the most frustrating part of the game for me.
There are instances where a companion other than Shadowheart takes priority, but the result is the same. You're locked out of scenes and dialogue with anyone else.
There are some cases where you can get input and scenes from everyone at camp, but I think it should always be that way.
It's the same with reactions to events while you're traveling. In some scenes, like discovering the book of necromancy, you get comments from everyone. But in most the game chooses one character over the others, and the rest of your companions stay silent as if they have no opinion. I have to separate characters from my party and reload if I want to know what everyone has to say. The scenes where everyone talks are more immersive and pretty seamless/natural to me.
It's just tedious to have to work so hard to know the characters better. And unfortunate that it rarely feels like I'm in a party with a group of people.
The game also chooses one companion with an exclamation point over their head to react to what just happened in your travels. It doesn't let you choose who you want to speak with about it.
People who aren't interested in the characters can always choose not to speak to them. But I really like the characters and hope I don't have to keep doing this to know them better once the game is fully released.
