The weird part is, Fane was actually written by a guest writer. Sometimes I wonder how the plot would have gone if he wasn't there to contextualize it.
There is one thing that actually really bothers me, though. Towards the start of the EA, it was said that Larian was only providing the evil companions at first to get feedback on them, basically making an assumption that they were going to be less popular options upon release. Gale was mentioned to be a last minute addition meaning he wasn't considered one of that group for a time, though I assume this is also mostly because not having a wizard party member in a DnD game (no, Wyll isn't a good enough substitute for the arcane caster role) would have been VERY awkward.
But now it's known that we're only getting 2-3 more party members, and one might have been scrapped. So as far as 'good' companions go, there's only Karlach and Minsc, since Helia might have gotten the axe. The whole thing about evil companions being tested first seems very dishonest when it looks like what actually happened was that the 'evil' companions were just the ones that were written and finished first.
I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that all three (Minsc, Helia, Karlach) were planned from the start-their info was hidden away in the files since the beginning. Karlach was there on the bank of the river since the beginning. There are what seems to have been scraps of *other* party members that did indeed get the axe earlier in development (before EA even) If Helia does end up getting the axe, I think it would be fair to say it was something later in development than the announcement, since she did get more mentions in voicelines referencing her an update or two ago.
But I do see it differently in regards to the balance between good and evil content, and I see it stemming from that initial statement. I do think that Larian could have communicated their goals with the 'evil' EA companions though. Most players did (and still do) play ignorant of Larian's specific request and context for that request in regards to feedback for those evil characters. The players look at what we have, and say 'wow, these folks are pretty nasty, why are all of the party members evil? Larian, could you make them less evil?'
And then Larian caters to those complaints, and we get more good content, the evil characters get softened (Shadowheart especially) and improvements from the perspective of players who want to play good gets prioritized, and the initial stated goal of desiring to improve the experience for players playing the game as evil PCs somehow gets lost by both Larian and the players.
