Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Thoughts On Companions

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes for good companions. Obviously “good” is subjective, so I’m thinking more in terms of what makes them really stick in my memory beyond a gimmick. I’ve discussed it with some friends, and I think Larian makes some great strides in some respects, while falling completely short in others. The presentation of Baldur’s Gate 3 feels much more akin to something like Dragon Age: Origins, and I’m hoping that the companions can feel just as much a part of the story as they do in that game, as DA:O is, to me, the gold standard when it comes to CRPG party members feeling like fully integrated parts of the story. Like them or hate them, they feel very much woven into the experience in a way that few other CRPGs I’ve played can match. Unfortunately, in my (admittedly quite limited, as the game does not run well on my system at all) time with Baldur’s Gate 3, I worry it will not maximise on this potential. The following are some things I’ve reflected on which, for me, go a long way in making companions memorable.

1) To start on a positive note, I love the fact that Larian has quest-lines for companions which stretch across the entire game. One of my biggest gripes with The Outer Worlds was how pathetic the companion quests were. Talk to the person on the ship, do a quick little side-quest, and then that’s it. With the exception of Father Maxi and Parvati, these quests felt insubstantial even by the standards of many other side quests in the game. Having these quest chains, rather than a singular quest, is an awesome way to feel like the characters are evolving with the story!

2) On the flip side, in Divinity OS2, it feels like characters do not exist outside of their quests. No matter what choices you make in the main plot or in the world, they do not react. It seems odd that I can genocide an entire city, and everyone goes along with it no problem. It seems odd that I can make sweeping choices in both main and side-quests, and your companions have no reaction at all. On the rare instances that they do react, it’s mostly just a round-robin of stating their opinions before returning to silence.

I believe this is one area where Dragon Age: Origins shines. Which companions you take with you will impact how certain conversations play out. Some characters will refuse to join your party if you have the wrong person in there. Others offer you bonuses. Sometimes party members will leave depending on the choices you make. It makes the companions feel like people, with their own agendas, ideals, and lives. In Divinity many of the companions have interesting personalities, but it never feels like they get to flex those personalities, because they exist mostly to follow the PC around. (This is not exclusively a Divinity problem, fwiw).

3) To get back to a positive, I actually enjoy the way BG3 presents its companions. I’m aware that I’m playing a version where they adjusted most of the earlier interactions, and it’s a fairly contentious situation, but I think far too often companions come along solely because ‘you are the PC, therefor we must submit to you’. Having characters grumble about being there, or needing convincing, and not simply bowing to your every whim because you’re the PC… well, I actually enjoy that quite a bit! It adds to that sense of them being people!

4) On a negative note, companions in Larian games rarely seem to acknowledge each other’s existence. In my Divinity OS2, everybody talks to the PC, but never to one-another. Lohse is possessed by a demon: a fact which I would assume somebody would have opinions on. The Red Prince is being hunted by assassins, and Ifan is an assassin, so there’s definitely room for conversation there. Likewise, if something in a quest were to arise conflicting opinions, this never matters.

A fun party has conflict amongst itself. Watching how characters react to conflict is what makes for a good story. The story among the group can be just as engaging as the story of each individual! Making these people with different goals and ideologies come together (or, if they just can’t cope, split apart) makes the party feel alive. With Dragon Age and Mass Effect, I can’t stress enough how much it’s not just the interjections into dialogue, but also the banter as you run around which makes the party feel like a living organism.

5) Back to the good! BG3 has production values, and that’s great because characters can emote! A lot of human communication is non-verbal, so getting the chance to tap into this really helps lend a dimension to the characters that just cannot be captured through a text box. To be honest I find the grey text of Pillars of Eternity or the narrator of Divinity rather obnoxious. I understand they are working on a budget, but these are things which should be animated! And lo, now they are! Awesome!

6) Last negative, but this one is more wishful thinking. To go along with ‘interjecting into main plot’, I actually enjoy it when quests can change considerably based on who is with you. I’m aware it’s a lot of work, but I think it really delves to the heart of one of those things which makes CRPGs special in my opinion. It feels like an adventure with lots of variables, and those variables make the world feel alive rather than just a construct within a video game. Also it makes for some great replayability!

And with that I will conclude these thoughts. Honestly I wish I could have simply sent them to Larian directly, but their thread directs feedback to the forums, so here it is for all to see! I do welcome any feedback, and to anyone who put up with reading this wall of text: cheers!

The BG3 companions have quite a bit of potential, but I worry a bit in that a lot of their appeal seems to be frontloaded into the more mysterious parts of their character arcs rather than anything you actually see them doing while they're in your party at the moment. The lack of party banter between the different members of the party speaks to this quite a bit. With the exception of Shadowheart and Lae'zel, they feel like they are seemingly being designed like completely separate entities rather than major pieces of a larger whole. Sadly, if Larian insists on going through with the highly implied 'all party members not in your active party at the end of act 1 will die for plot reasons' thing just like they did in DOS:2, it basically removes a lot of the future incentive for the writers to even bother putting that much effort into inter-party dialogue for the later phases of the game, when most players have no possibility of seeing the majority of said banter in any given playthrough with half or more of the potential playable cast already dead about 1/4th-1/3rd of the way into the game.

There is another cRPG, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, that is planned to be released in early September (specifically the 2nd). Judging from my experience beta testing it, the party members in that game basically do everything you described that BG3's characters are lacking in (along with one other thing you haven't mentioned, the game's NPCs and enemies actually acknowledging the existence of the party members instead of just the lead character, sometimes resulting in brief conversations between them). The major downside is that not all of their lines are voiced throughout the game, and the game is hardly cinematic, but I find it's largely a question of budget more than anything else.

I recently recorded a demonstration here... Be warned, it contains end of chapter 2 spoilers for Wrath of the Righteous.


Since it's unlikely that BG3 is releasing anytime within the next year, the writers have plenty of time to see what WotR does in regards to its companion writing in order to steer the BG3 companions towards a better or more immersive direction.

Are you talking about BG3 or DOS2?

Cuz in BG3 we already can see how companions communicate with each other, they argue in plot points, they may complain to you if you do something that they do not approve, and they will leave if you do not listen to this warning.

I think these are already good changes.

I think the reason we didn't have this in DOS2 is because we only had 3 companions, and everyone else was dying. So it was important that no matter what, they didn't leave us.

You're a bit wrong in the last part. In DOS2 companions may also leave you. There is at least one crime that nor Ifan, nor Beast would tolerate.
But you can't expect any extreme reactions from your companions when you don't do anything extreme. So BG3 just seems to bring more controversy between companions and the PC.

I have Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and it looks quite neat. I intend to get to it after Tyranny, which is after OS2 (which I'm wrapping up soon). It's nice to see different studios putting effort into companions.

I'm talking about BG3, but using DOS2 as an example because I assume it's where Larian is drawing a lot of experience from. FWIW I have seen good things in BG3, but as I said, I can't play much due to it just not playing nicely with my (very out of date, in the case of the CPU) hardware. I just think it could be much better based on what I've seen from my own game experience and in other gameplay videos, as well as conversations with friends who also have played the EA.

I loved the companions in DAO. Their personalities are etched into my brain at this point, and they truly feel like old friends. Of course, the game had such high replay value because of the origin story concept, that I experienced every little snippet of everyone's personality in my gazillion playthrus of that game. No other game really nailed choice and consequence like that game for me either, both in terms of how your companions reacted to you and how the entire game played out.

*sigh* I would love to fire it back up, but it would take a whole day to find all the essential mods at this point. But the spell combos! And getting to set the tactics for your party! That mechanic also contributed to how I viewed my companions as well. For example, if I was romancing Alistair, I would set him to shield bash anyone who came near me. I would always set Sten to rush headlong into battle. And Morrigan would demolish the field with spells. Leliana would pepper the battlefield with arrows while singing crazy songs in the rear. Gah! Tactics + great writing = best companions ever for me personally.

I also loved the ME series chars (not counting MEA, which were atrociously shallow). Anderson...Legion...Mordin -- *sniff*. WHY?????? *sniff*

I think this game has great potential to be as good as those games in terms of companions. The writing is fine and the voice acting is really excellent. Sure, there is cheese in the writing --- but I have never played a fantasy game ever where there was NOT a healthy does of cheese. Especially in the romance scenes. One must learn to master the cringe, let if flow through you, etc.

But seriously --- I am actually rather invested in seeing their stories play out. My only gripe is that they show absolutely no interest in *me*. In DAO, all the chars would ask about you, and you would get a chance to respond.

Sten "Are you a woman?" LOL. But even Alistair shows concern over how you feel after Ostagar. Wynne is all about listening to you and offering advice to keep you focused. Even Zevran is curious about you...and he was sent to kill you!

NONE of the companions in BG3 show any interest in my char whatsoever --- until they all decide to hit on me at the party. (yech). That would be the most important thing that needs to be fixed in this game to really elevate the companions, imho.

Also... I really hope they don't pull a DOE2 and force you to choose only a subset. I really dislike that. It makes it feel like the intro area is nothing more than a popularity contest. I find it icky. I also think this is why they all hint at "dark secrets" and all that so early --- to basically beg you to choose their story to pursue. It is a shame, and frankly takes a bit of the fun out of it.

But I will reserve my judgement until the completed project is out. So far, I am digging it. The issues I have with the game are more about some of the mechanics that make combat way too easy. In terms of the story, I am interested to see where it goes, and how my companions evolve as we go there together.

I don't know how there were any points in BG3's favor when it comes to this. BG3 is the most extreme culprit of ‘you are the PC, therefore we must submit to you’ I have ever seen.

Lae'zel is given strong motives to find her creche. Not only is it her duty to her Queen, but from her perspective, it is her only hope of getting the tadpole out and not turning into a mind flayer. And then a Tiefling tells her that Githyanki were spotted not a five-minute walk from where we are standing. She should be making a beeline for that bridge no matter what you say. But if Tav the Guild Artisan decides to just head into the Underdark and fight some minotaurs instead, she will abandon her duty to her Queen and accept the almost absolute certainty of turning into a mind flayer because ‘you are the PC, therefore we must submit to you.’

Gale needs to eat magic items in order to survive. But his obedience to Tav the Guild Artisan is so extreme that he will beg for Tav to let him eat a magic staff that HE picked up and has in HIS inventory. Why in the world would he not just eat the staff that he picked up from Ethel's lair? Why is everything anyone finds on their journey automatically the property of Tav? If Tav's ownership of all the party's property is going to be a plot point, shouldn't there be some explanation of how that ownership was established? Gale knows that if he doesn't eat magic items he will die, as will countless others... but he won't do it without permission from Tav the Guild Artisan because ‘you are the PC, therefore we must submit to you.’

The legendary Blade of Frontiers has taken it upon himself to help the Tieflings in their hour of need, and enlists Tav to help him. But as soon as he joins the party, he is an obedient little sycophant, living in the shadow of Tav the Guild Artisan. He is literally so obedient that he won't settle a score with the goblin who took his eye unless he can get permission from Tav first because ‘you are the PC, therefore we must submit to you.’

Having characters grumble about being there, but ultimately submit to the character's choices because they were cleverly outmaneuvered and left with no alternative would be great. In BG3 they grumble about being there, but then stick around precisely because ‘you are the PC, therefore we must submit to you.’

Another big point to add to my recent simping for WotR's companion writing, it's the closest I've seen to emulating that old DA:O companion quality feel. I'd argue it has SURPASSED it, actually. They have the type of dynamic that makes each individual party member look way better the more you closely analyze them, instead of falling apart like most other cRPG companions.

Hell, even thinking about this post made me realize something else about them that I and most of the beta testers did not pick up on before - there's actually a rather consistent emphasis of how each character defines the meaning of family. For example, one companion's character arc includes being a Best Woman to a wedding among a tight knit group of childhood friends. Another companion is part of a group of thieves within a city where everyone else spits on their kind. One literally became a professional assassin to provide for his family, but otherwise tries to keep his work and family distant from each other. A different companion was essentially a bastard child and only sees her family as another tool to further her own ends. One lost his most direct family, only to be 'cared' for by an extended family of insufferable nobles. The last example I'll give is someone searching for a missing older brother, and has to grapple with the idea that he may no longer be the idealized sibling that he once knew, or perhaps his memory of his brother was already far beyond any reality to begin with.

It makes sense in hindsight that the party seems to behave like one giant extended family at times as well.

I will not elaborate with exact specifics here, as it would contain even more massive spoilers for an unreleased game, but it is something to really think about for anyone planning on picking it up in the future.