To me the commitment comment just seems like a joke in an update about romance.
In an early EA stream one of the writers said one of the reasons to have a fixed party after the first act was that it was difficult to continue companion quests in later acts if all the earlier parts of the companion quest were missed because the companion was not in the party.
That doesn’t seem to make any sense. In previous games you met potential companions throughout the game and it didn’t have any bearing on doing their quests. This also suggests that you meet all companions inside Act 1 which is really sad because it takes away any spontaneity of meeting any new companions after Act 1. Another strange Larianism it would seem.
All the Origin companions have to be in Act 1, so if you play them you start in the same place. I hope there are non-Origin companions, too, but his comment is likely about Origin characters.
It might also have to do with the design of having companion quests able to be completed without the companion. In some other games I have played the companion is required to start the companion quest, so if there is a multipart companion quest, the companion couldn’t do the third part without having completed the previous parts.
