In early access, a lot of companion content was tied to long resting, and long resting frequently, but that's not been my experience with the full release. Some previously camp-locked content will kick off in the world if you have the companion with you, and even for companions you don't have in your party it now seems more than one of them will talk to you of an evening.
I guess if you long rest really infrequently then you could miss content that way, but for me the party scene was about a week in (and the last thing I did in that wilderness area) and I don't think I was missing stuff.
