I see this as the worst thing they could do if it's the only thing that's done because I don't see the non-Halsin interactions to be problematic. Some of them aren't ideal and some of them seem intentionally written to allow individual player calls on how to contextually read them but removing them just for the few people (in general, not pointed at anyone here) essentially saying "if it isn't done in a way that I find good enough don't do it at all" would just be destructive to the player experience for people who are okay with it even in a non-ideal state.
In a bigger picture sort of way it's so rare for high-budget games to even approach these dynamics that I think it's far better for the industry at large to allow them to make a couple mistakes (again, not including Halsin in that because his is quite major) learning how to portray it appropriately than it is to just discourage trying in the first place.
I'll take a breather after this one because I've been posting a lot.
To me the issue isn't that it's been attempted, it's how it has been attempted. It should've been added from the ground up with an origin companion, not shoehorned in as optional inconsistent scenarios into the stories of companions that were already written a certain - different - way, while not having impact on said stories because that wouldn't feel right. As it stands I simply think it would take too much effort to make right, especially considering people already like the companions for who they canonically are right now, not necessarily who they would become, and it should instead be something they could add to their next game. Make it a learning experience rather than something forced to continue here and now. Of course, I have absolutely no say in any of this as this is just the opinion of a random (very opinionated) person on the internet, and they'll likely - if anything - make very minor changes at best.
But that won't stop me from enjoying discussing the topic, while having a sliver of hope that Larian is just built different than what I'm used to.
