Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Companions: how have your views on them changed from first impressions?

Nah, still shallow and predictable.
If you had played any rpg in the last 30 years or watched any TV show you could predict the story of each companion 5 minutes after meeting them. (Granted, it required some meta game knowledge of Larian being very conservative and risk averse, so there was no chance of them making any surprising turns with companions).

And if you know anything about the FR you could play "spot the difference" with the D&D original and Larians lazy copy.

The only real change was when Larian catered even more to fan demand which made the companions even worse.

Edit: To be more specific

Shadowheart: Most overused trope imagineable. While her background as cultist for the god of lies could serve for good characterization and some awesome mind games Larian was clearly too afraid to do anything with her and instead stuck with "designated waifu", meaning all edges were filed off and it was clear from the start that she can easily be fixed with just a few kind words which is also what happened.

Lae'zel: Similar issues than Shadowheart. Her arc was very obvious and telegraphed right from the start. Her background, too was much to underused in order to keep her likeable for romance purposes and after the first story beat in the druid camp where she acts very arrogant she softens very quickly without any reason. Her fight with Shadowheart is also a very underused opportunity and marks the end of anything interesting about her.

Astarion: Same as the other two (a common trend, Larian was not exactly creative when it comes to character archetypes. "Betrayed by authority figure" describes half the party).
While his story had potential to be interesting, but Larian was too afraid to do anything with it or let him be actually evil and from his design and mannerism it was clear that he was designed as romance target. And once it became clear that this is indeed the extend of his character and outside that has the same type of tragic backstory and being easily fixable like everyone else I lost all interest in him.
It doesn't help that Larian even chickened out of making him an actual vampire and instead made a Twilight "in name only" version instead.

Gale: Gale is a victim of Larians lazy writing. His backstory being a near exact copy of Elminster soured my impression of him by a lot. And his character arc as designated bomb might have been interesting, if the game would not be D&D, where ressurecting people is common and we in fact ressurected people the whole time, reducing death to the equivalent to a bathroom break. Even outside of the ressurect-o-tron, Larian made him such a special character that it is near guaranteed that he would come back in some way as archmage chosen always do.

Wyll: Same handicap as Gale, his backstory being a watered down version of Rise of the Dragon Queen. Get more creative Larian!
I had high hopes for him in act 3 which is why I kept him around, but when it turned out that despite him being nobility politics is not a factor I dropped him instantly as it reduced his status to that of a wet blanked who can't do anything in my eyes.

Karlach: From all companions the least conventional trope. Doomed, but instead of moping about it, wanting to spend the remaining time the best way possible. Only soured by the game being D&D and death not meaning anything.
Initially I was skeptical after her tantrum but her not 100% predictable arc made her my favorite, although I am not sure if Larian planned that or just ran out of time when implementing saving her, considering how safe they play all stories (which also made this result an actual surprise)
I also think she got hit by extensive reworks as her anger issue takes a backseat quite fast.

Halsin: Not a character. Painfully obvious that he was written as an NPC and that his story ends in act 2. He only got made into a companion because EA player wanted to ride his bear meat and that is the extend of his personality.
Wasted space.

Didn't play much with the legacy characters, so no comment on them.

Overall all characters are various degrees of bad and stay that way. Main reason is imo that Larian was too afraid to do anything interesting with them and instead kept them simple for maximum mass market appeal and hornyness.

Also Larian overused the same tropes over and over again. Tragic backstory, betrayed by authority figure.

Other RPGs have much more varied tropes like (pulled from Owlcat games), "proud to be evil" characters that can rationally argue why, and can't be fixed, successfull characters without tragic backstory, the pretty female companion being an unlikeable murder psycho instead of mellow waifu or redeeming evil characters by absolutely humiliating and breaking them instead of saying a few nice things and they are good now and getting backstabbed by good characters that are blackmailed.

Larian would do well to get more creative and brave with companion instead of making the same character archetype, tragic backstory and easily fixable, which the fandom/shipping community likes so much over and over again.