Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Reacting to the preview of the city of Baldur's Gate (trailer from 11/6/2023)

Out of interest, would you not use Minsc and Jaheira in BG2 for the same reason, or does the fact that it follows almost immediately on from BG1 excuse it? I’ll admit that I’m not yet a total convert to the idea of having them as opposed to new characters for my party in BG3, but the thing that partly reconciles me to it is the fact they’ve already been “retreads” in the second game and I can see the appeal of having at least a character or two who can be a companion for every series entry and perhaps help bring the series together by highlighting elements of continuity and bringing to life BG history. Plus there’s an opportunity for richness of interaction with these that wasn’t available in original games, and certainly not BG1 (Jaheira admittedly did get more companion content in BG2 than, I think, any other party member).

Personally, I’m willing to wait and see whether Minsc and Jaheira will fully justify the way they are included in the game as more than fan service. It could still go either way for me.

Speaking as someone who hasn't really played the original games before, I think having Jaheira and Minsc in the party is totally fine so long as they aren't the only firmly good characters. If they are then I'd personally feel like we were denied fresh, new characters because those two took up time and space on the roster. And I think this matters even for newcomer players because returning characters are likely going to have a distinct vibe to them that new ones won't. I think having them return in the second game is entirely appropriate since I believe it's a direct sequel so of course there'd be some continuity of companions. It's like in Dragon Age when Varric came back for the third game. And technically Anders coming back for the second game is a case of that as well. And look at Garrus and Tali from Mass Effect. For direct sequel games, that continuity helps keep a thread going. For BG3 I think the distance makes that less necessary. However I do think having the presence of past companions is something important. However I'd have preferred something like how Leliana in Inquisition was an advisor rather than a party member. I think that would have been a better use for Jaheira, and she could have had some sort of protege (not necessarily a child) that joins you instead.

On a related note, they've announced Minst and Jaheira are gonna be in the game as companions, they've even announced Minsc's voice actor, I wonder why they haven't shown up in the marketing more alongside the other companions? It's not even like monks, and the remaining phb races where Larian's kinda said they're confirmed but they're being reticent. Minsc was the centre of a trailer and they made a whole big deal about getting his voice actor. Arguably they made a bigger deal about Matt Mercer than they have about the villains' voice actors.

My personal theory is that Larian decided on including Jaheira and Minsc very late in their development process. They originally intended to have two or three completely new "good" companions in the game. But then they got sidetracked with all manner of other things they were excited about working on, and completely dropped the ball on creating those new "good" companions. So then, at a very late stage, they decided to (re)use Jaheira and Minsc as a way of quickly bringing in two "good" companions without having to do a lot of work on them. This is what I feel happened.

I still wonder whether Minsc and Jaheira will actually be full companions like our EA team, or recruitable only in the sense that they can join us for some particular missions they have their own interest in. Personally I’d love it if we could have our core party of four but occasionally supplement it with guest companions who have their own scores to settle for specific quests (like Halsin and/or Barcus for Moonrise Towers), who would join as additional party members somewhat like Halsin already can in the Shattered Sanctum or like Lae’zel even if there’s already a custom party of four in the prologue. If something like that were the case then showing more Minsc and Jaheira might indeed be a spoiler, but it’s even more rank speculation and I’m not really expecting Larian to go that route.

I still wonder whether Minsc and Jaheira will actually be full companions like our EA team, or recruitable only in the sense that they can join us for some particular missions they have their own interest in. Personally I’d love it if we could have our core party of four but occasionally supplement it with guest companions who have their own scores to settle for specific quests (like Halsin and/or Barcus for Moonrise Towers),

Solasta did something similar, with a core party of four but the two remaining slots constantly filled by temporary NPC guests.

Man, it feels like this game has zero hype among the general gaming community. Such an unfortunate release window, the full launch is getting drowned by damn near everything releasing in the fall.

Man, it feels like this game has zero hype among the general gaming community.

OH BABY. don't get my hopes up!

From the dataminig at the start of EA it seems like Minsc was originally planned to be an origin character and then was later changed to a nonorigin companion (rather than not planned at all).

we saw Aasimar in trailers