Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Are the EA companions the only companions?

12 companions would be great, or however many more they can add and still have them be well done. The EA seems to have sold well, so maybe they can afford at least a few more than the original 8.

If we get any more companions beyond the 8, I hope we get some more non-humans. Like a non-vampiric elf, a dwarf or two. Would be nice to see at least one representative of the underdark subraces as well-Deep Gnome, Drow, Duergar.

I have heard people talking about how they think Karlach will be either a Paladin or Barbarian, and both of those can step in for a fighter well enough, but It would be nice to see another arcane caster option(sorcerer?), as well as another rogue and cleric.

This is what I would like to see. Something between generic mercenaries and origin companions. We wouldn't necessarily have a giant collection of people at our camp either. Some quests could reward one of two (or more) companions depending on the path taken.

I would expect way less of them to be playable. Probably only the 8 planned originally. This wouldn't inflate costs much at all. Not all of them even need to have a lot of dialogue, just the minimum to make them unique.


I think it would also be nice to have the ability to create mod companions (like in Skyrim.) Anyone know if this type of modding can be done in Larian games ?

I'm all for race diversity in the companions, but since the humans we already have do not include any good-aligned companions, where does that leave those of us who want human good-aligned companions?

Multiplayer! All human players, plus you can make a rule that everyone play humans AND that you follow a good path.

I'd do it.

I'm not even that confident there will be any more companions beside these first 8 playable as "Origins". In fact, being a work in progress, I'm not even 100% confident we'll get all the eight ones datamined so far. So there's that.
And I will openly challenge the notion of it having a low impact on the budget (both in terms of money and manpower) that couldn't be better focused elsewhere, being it "more companions" or "different features" altoogether.

Flexibility of the modding tools aside I'd expect it to be possible.
But the challenge when it comes to modern modding is that the entry level raised considerably compared to the age of Infinity Engine games. You can't have just a standard character model with a copy-pasted Luis Rojo portrait picture and few lines of scripting.
Modding that wants to merge seamlessly with the game will have to account for animations, voice acting (this used to be out of the question, but in recent times many high profile modders started hiring amateur/beginner voice actors for their creations) and all that jazz, almost necessary to make the custom content blend naturally.

Honestly, I am operating under the assumption that there will be 12 (or maybe 13) Origin characters so that there will be one for each class, not doing that would hurt the game I feel but doing it that way will take a lot of resources because you have to assign people to make sure relevant tags follow through, writing for each companion and interactions with other origin companion, modelling, animations, and programming their unique thing. That said, I feel like they could still do non origin companions, and even the insane amount stated earlier, with delegating people to said tasks and careful management. That and non origin companions actually frees up certain things as they do not have to program them with the complexities of the origin companions (the ability to be the main character, unique tags and dialogue constantly, events relating to the character constantly) and instead they can operate off of the more generic tags like the custom Player Character does.

I hope we have non-origin companions, for the sole reason that this will mean they're recruitable past Act 1. Given that it's unclear whether all companions you don't choose at the end of Act 1 will be killed off and/or otherwise removed from your party, knowing that there will be 2-4ish additional companions in BG will be a relief.

I just can't imagine they're going to add in 12 origin characters. This is just pure speculation, but check out these two covers

current Baldur's Gate 3 title

https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1086940/capsule_616x353.jpg?t=1619607436

and early divinity original sin 2 cover

https://i.imgur.com/bs3ltTg.png

I'm willing to bet they add in one, maybe two more and that's it. How we're going right now is 100% how Larian works (imo) There is no way they're going to integrate 7 more origin stories into the first act as seamlessly as the ones currently in-game. I just can't see it.

We already know at least 3 other origin companions will be coming because of what Larian has said. (And there is datamining indicating who they could be, though that might change). Additionally they said they started us with the companions that would be the most contentious (leaning toward neutral and evil) so they could get feedback on them, indicating that there will be good aligned companions coming.
The graphic you linked is to advertise and show off the early access as that is the cast at the start of EA, but it will surely increase at least by three, and I hope more. Also basing the party size off of the cover isn't exactly the most accurate thing as covers can be pretty misleading in my experience, especially with party based games cause there are either less or more characters on the cover than I can actually control in my party.

We better get at least 15 companions, origins or not. Ridiculous, a baldurs gate game with less than 10...
BG3 : Content regression for cinematic bling.

I'll be honest, I don't buy that for a second. Why did they make the companions we have softer/not as asshole-ish then? I think THESE are the core companions they envisioned as THE origin characters and have maybe a couple others planned. Whether or not they've changed their plans after some of then negative feedback is another thing.

There is just no way we're getting 12 origin companions.

Also, can i get sources on the exact quote when Larian said there are "at least 3 other origin companions coming"?

One of the writers did a stream at the start of EA in which he said they were planning on 8 companions and possibly more. Here is the summary on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/jd1qsq/highlights_from_kevin_vanords_stream/.

At this point, it's been so long that I don't think it's reasonable to take anything said from the start of EA/pre-EA at face value anymore.

It could be a good idea to reset your expectations for the next patch, considering the near total radio silence of the past three or so months.

"They plan to have eight companions, possibly more, and potentially including companions that won't be origin characters"

Interesting wording, I wonder if he said "eight origin characters" or "eight companions". I agree with Saito, at this point I think it would be wise to take everything with a grain of salt. Hopefully we'll know more soon!

I'm more or less of the same opinion.

Not just about companions, either.
There are plenty of features that they teased/described as "work in progress" at the start of this EA (like the alleged UI to have a party-wide contribution to dialogues, etc) and then they were never mentioned a single time again since then.
I'd lie if I said that I have full confidence that they are still part of Larian's plans.

Sounds like more work than Skyrim then. Animations may make it more complicated for me but I don't care about voice acting. If I was to make companion mods I would just let someone else bother with that stuff. Subtitles are enough for me.

I cannot think of the words to describe properly why they did this without offending a lot of people. Pretty sure it has to do with people nowadays being oversensitive and claiming to be hurt by even someone looking at them in a manner they perceive as negative. Probably there were many complaints that the companions were making the players miserable or whatever, and rather than repost what they had said, they caved to these types.

I would hope some non origin ones show up after Act 1 if we are going to be locked to the same party. People and opinions change and it would suck to be stuck with someone you no longer get along with in the party.

Sorry, no. There isn't enough money in the whole world to pay me to play multiplayer.

I'm with those here saying we won't get any more companions beyond eight, and even the eight number is iffy. And since the five already revealed are the evil and neutral ones, three and two respectively, the remaining three companions yet to be revealed had better ALL be good-aligned to match the number of evil-aligned companions.

A couple of my more cynical friends have commented that this may just be code for 'we're releasing evil/neutral companions first because that's what we have the most experience writing'.

It does kinda make sense, because the DOS2 companions are largely the same way, though they were all varying flavors of neutral rather than evil. Work with your strengths first before you try to swing at something new. I think the only one that could be argued to be good-aligned would be Loshe, and that's probably why she and Fane are among the most popular companions (and Fane was a character written by Chris Avellone IIRC).

Also, going back to the talk about how stuff from early EA shouldn't be taken at face value due to how much time has passed since then, those of us who remember the original BG3 announcement know that the controlled character's dialogue options used to be entirely in implied passive 'I asked about X' type of speak. It was so wildly unpopular that a ton of people slammed them for it, enough that Larian immediately changed course, although I recall a fair amount of people still defending even that.

I do wonder exactly how much of the script had to be redone due to that, though.

One might think mods can help out but...is it even possible due to the heavy cinematic nature of the game to add extra NPC characters via mods??? Where not getting access to Larians recording studio and facial animation software.