No, it's not. It's specifically focusing on the people who are rightfully pointing up the plot contrivance of so many special one companions by reminding them that each of the 'companions' are also MCs of someone else's playthrough. It's not an opinion, it's clear from many of the posts above me were focusing on them as companions without considering they are also protagonists too.
Well they ARE companions - player character is the only one with any urgency. They all neatly fall in line and follow your character like in any traditional RPG, they just lack narrative reason to do so.
If Larian’s intend is to create companions that feel like players equal that’s fine. But at least in EA they haven’t done that very well.
It would be a challenge to do so - games fall into repetitive character tropes for a reason. If NPCs role is to join player party and follow their orders (or leave their party is they disagree) that they benefit of being portrait in a way that makes sense - in the same way a mandatory quest giver should have some kind of authority over PC.
RPG companions should feel as equal - because they are not equal in gameplay. I think one reason while I dislike BG3 companions so much as they all behave like commanding characters, while at the same time having no urgency to act or do anything.
One can still write a subservient companion that feels like a strong willed independent being - look at Kim from Disco Elysian. But again there is narrative reason for Kim behaving the way he does.
Of course, we need to see 1.0 to truly judge the game - clearly some changes have been made and perhaps they managed to make companions feel more organic.
