Would you mind elaborating a bit on the Wyll changes? Specifically things relating to his alignment.
He still has a big of a swagger for sure, but there is as reason for his wanting to do a certain task early on in the game, and if you have him when you meet said 'task', it becomes clear very quickly that he was deceived, and he freely admits it. As for his unique situation (being a warlock and all), he has no regrets for making that pact, and it's clear he did it to save someone/many someones. It seems obvious he put his own soul on the line to help others, and that causes him to suffer.
Small things - his introduction is a bit cooler, but no real personality change - he opens up at camp a decent amount. More than most of the early origin companions actually, it's a nice change not having just "shut up, we need to get healed" or "I'm a private person, don't ask me about that". Ironically, he feels much more fleshed out than the others at the start. - at the point i'm at (About to start the journey to moonrise towers), I would definitely consider him a good companion.
It is a bit odd having two good companions be connected to the hells though lol. Larian's sense of irony I suppose.
From Act 1 only: To add: In EA, his quest was to find Mizora and he was willing to torture a guy for it. In full release, he is introduced as hunting Karlach, whom he does NOT know is a tiefling and not a devil. When he finds her, he is clearly upset and is trying to talk himself into killing her, but you tell him she’s clearly innocent, and he will back off. He KNOWS he’s breaking his pact by sparing her life and he does it anyway and even after his transformation, I think he mentioned he’d do it again. He thanks you for stopping him, and his approval goes up, even though he’s just been brutally transformed.
The terms of his pact restrict his ability to say why he took it, but he makes it clear there was no other choice and that he would do it again. This is after his transformation too.
If you talk to him about how he became the Blade of Frontiers, his story emphasised the child he saved rather than his combat prowess. He says he leapt in to save the child almost automatically. He is consistently more concerned with the immediate wellbeing of the people he saves rather than being hailed as a hero.
Wyll is categorically unwise and shortsighted, make no mistake, but he WANTS to do the right thing, and he is willing to suffer for it.
Thank you the both of you.
It's been my suspicion ever since they announced the big rewrite of Wyll that he was rewritten specifically because of all the criticism that the companions were so very heavily skewed towards the evil side. I felt that maybe they decided to shift Wyll from shady and sketchy neutral-alignment guy to a more explicitly good-oriented guy. Sounds that way from what you both are saying here, which I certainly am happy about.
Yes, Wyll is very much a good character who was tricked by a devil, and signed the pact to do good deeds. I am over 30 hours in the game and to be truth, none of those NPCs feel truly evil. Each has some agenda, and some of those agendas may feel dubious at least, but non of them so far feels like a bloodthirsty madman or ruthless killer. I would have trouble to pin an alignment to them, if I'm being honest. Shadowheart is talking like a Shar zealot, but her personality is a contradiction to her words, she often approves your good deeds, which makes me believe there is much more to her story than meets the eye. I have some theories, but better to not spoil anything here. And Karlach, despite hailing from Avernus and being a tiefling is very much a good character. As goof as Wyll, I'd say. And she is a hell of a good tank, too!
I haven't yet recruited Halsin, only managed to talk with him once, but he seems like a decent guy, although not shy to spill blood to protect his people. It's too early for me to judge him fully.
The closest NPC to being evil that I recruited would be I think Astarion, but I'd rather say he is... complicated. I'd say his evil side comes more from a fact he is in this state for hundreds of years, so he doesn't care much about other humans. I know I won't recruit Minthara in this playthrough, because this one really is evil.
If you really want to label them with old-fashioned alignment, I'd say no companion is Lawful good, but none is chaotic evil either.
