Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General If the main hero dies, and you don't revive them, can you still finish the game?

I don’t think BG3 handles companions much differently than BG1&2 does - companions join your party and in exchange tend to have requests of you. Laez asks you to locate crèche, Shadowheart I suppose just wants to protect the weapon and having bodyguards is convenient. Wyll joins you under he condition you help him kill Gobbo leaders (while having further more selfish agenda agenda), Gale hopes you will find on your adventures artefacts and feed them to him.

Honestly that is all fine and on the level of other RPGs. But of course, the issue is origins - because they don’t only see you as a help in achieving their own problem, you also all share tadpoles and have divergent, strong opinions on how to go about it. If companions were written more softly - suggesting a direction, but being hesitant to making decision themselves that would be fine. Alas, they scream and belittle player for not doing what he tells them but they never behave in a way that would be believable. They don’t leave, they don’t try to convince you or anyone.

I think if companions were more aware of each other, it would solve a problem - for example a scene where companions bicker about what to do, and then they turn to Tav to take a side. Of course, extremely open nature of BG3 would be a problem - one gains companions at unpredictable intervals with no early progress gate to schedule such scene with all or most companions present.

The clash comes from how hard companions try to seem independent and opinionated - is it ludonarative dissonance? Game tells us that we travel with equal or superior to us characters who are untrustful to us and will go their own way if they feel our company doesn’t benefit them anymore, and yet gameplay wise they are clearly our puppets to control.