Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General 20 years of companions

Without going into old school DOS stuff , a list of RPGs multi-controllable companion/squad RPG games and how many they had. What’s your favorite?
Really shows how much the numbers dropped that last decade. Always quality>quantity but it doesn't feel we are getting that in recent games. Just prettier graphics with less content.
Pathfinder being the notable exception.

In hopes that Larian can at least hit that 10+ number…Please!

<7> Planescape Torment 1999
<25> Baldurs gate 1998
<17> Baldurs gate 2 2000

<25> Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura 2001

<15>Temple of elemental evil 2003

<17>Neverwinter Nights. 2002
<31>Neverwinter Nights 2 2006

<6> Mass effect 2007
<13> Mass effect 2 2010
<12> Mass effect 3 2012

<10> Dragon age 2009
<8> Dragon age 2 2011

<11> Pilars of eternity 2015
<13> Pillars of eternity Deadfire 2018
<6> Tyranny 2016

<7> Torment Tides of Numenera 2017

<1> but 90+… Disco Elysium 2019. Masterpiece of a game. My favorite after Arcanum and Planescape torment/BG2.

<12> Pathfinder Kingmaker 2018
<20> Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous 2021

<4> Divinity Original Sins 2014

<6> Divinity original sins 2 2017
<5> (8~9?) Baldurs gate 3

<6> Solasta 2020

<8?> Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness

A better metric might be how many lines of dialogue they have.

But I think we can all agree for sprawling companion base cRPG at least minimum 10 is a given...Especially if you call your game "Baldur's gate".
Minimum party of 4 playable characters, this just gives you 6 to play around...So under 10 is already REALLY tight.

Games like Torment or Disco are really the exception here being completely main character driven, like the Witcher series.
Which I think is amazing for the Pathfinder series to have done this balancing act. Yea its not brilliant writing but it still manages 20 characters with decent stories and interaction, especially for Wotr.
The more companions you have the harder it gets to build a solid game around them, no doubt. But Larian is a big studio now.

I think the biggest realistic TRUMP card that Larian can pull on us on release : Hey guys, 15 companions!

Sure, I can agree that there seems to be a good median

How about this, I usually play BG:II with a core of 4 companions with an open slot for everyone you find while adventuring, if I were to make BG:2 again today I'd just go all the way and make those companions temporary, coming in and leaving with their quest. BG:3 could treat all the non-origin companions the same way, they'll be party members along with your core 4, the scope of their writing will be more focused, hopefully leading to less of the duds you get in games with lots of companions, and they won't overstay their welcome. Just something this made me think of.

Just a thing to add:
Dragon Age Inquisition, 9 companions

My favourite companion casts:

Planescape Torment, Pillars of Eternity1, Mass Effect2.

Listen, there is no denying that games with 10plus companions tend to have smaller content for companions. Think not only about “amount of lines” but complexity of personal quests, branching paths of their quests, their integration into conversations.

BG2 had a lot of companions, but they varied greatly in content they had, and that content was on rails.

I think a more interesting question would be: how complex companions need to be?

PoE2 was an interesting experiment: with a cast of companions with really rich integration into conversation, and over complicated relationship system, and romances. It also had “sidekicks” with little dedicated content pre-DLC. Interestingly, while sidekicks were clearly a weaker offering content wise, I know some people preferred them as characters - they had just enough personality injected to create an attachment.

And I still believe that cast of PoE1 was simply stronger, in spite of being simpler mechanically and more modest content wise - they were closer to one would get from fleshed out BG2 companions - linear interactions though with some branching paths. It was enough to create clear story arch’s for each companion, and inject them with personality.

Not that there is no benefit to being more ambitious - I far prefer companions who express themselves through interactions with other NPCs (like PoE2) then lengthy camp conversations (DA:O). Having companions act as representation of the wider world, and amplify reactivity to choices we made is a powerful tool as well. Writing wise I will take one companion like Kim, over wide cast of forgettable archetypes.

Personally I will take fewer companions that I want to travel with, then bunch of characters I don’t care for (like Pathfinder) - being given a choice is hardly appealing if all choices are unenjoyable - BG3 issue for me is less that there won’t be enough companions, but that they all seem to be Anomens.

There is also the case of gameplay consideration - if you have a game with team based combat with wide variety of classes, you kinda need to give players a wide choice of companions to construct the party you want. Be it through sheer number of companions. or allowing for customisation of classes that companions offer.

All i hope is that we get at least single Origin character per class. :-/

BG1-2 needed much more companions because they have a alignment system.
As non D&D player alignment is for me a positive "quirk" because i dont plan to play a dozen chars in every constellation.
D&D players like the non alignment system maybe more but as a PC Player i think BG3 is boring. Combat and immersion is lacking alot.

I would like Halsin to be a companion!

starwars the old republic 1 & 2, dont remember how many though. skyrim, fallout series, greedfall, & outer worlds

possible games but not sure: shadowrun series and spellforce 3 / series

An alternative would be to have fewer origin characters than class options... but to allow you to pick from a short list of classes for origin. Wyll, Shadowheart, and Gale need to be warlock, cleric, and wizard respectively, but the rest have at least a little flexibility. Astarion could be a ranger or a monk, and Lazael could be a reasonable barbarian or even a paladin (although in that case the type of oath chosen could make or break the lore).

Anyway, the fit in some of those cases would not be perfect, but the added flexibility would be nice.

I absolutely loved Arcanum, but the companion characters were paper thin. They got to 25 because they spent very little time developing most of them (with a few exceptions such as Virgil, of course)

Torment, ME, and KOTOR were in a league of their own for characters.

This is for sure Larian's best work to date, and their fully voiced story-boarding is truly an awesome idea.

While I appreciate the work on the characters, they all feel like people I work with and not people I truly connect with.

That being said, they all have potential story wise.


I think if the limit the repetition of annoying shouting and abrasive dialog choices, and put some interesting NPCs here and there; they can create a better feeling world.

I got lost in that game and loved every minute of it

Oh man cant believe I forgot KOTOR, yea that was a pretty legendary one lol. 2003...post University looking for a job...It was a time in my life I had NO TIME to play it...so any <games> in that period not as anchored in my memory. Though I did try out Temple of Elemental evil (still love that D&D gameplay) which was at first so buggy and bad I gaved up. Turned up to be great after some patches/mods.

At this point id me satisfied is at least Larian mentioned more companions for future expansion for the game...That would probably up the count to around 10.

Kreia is probably one of my favorite companions of all time.

I'll also put the cast of Neverwinter Nights Mask of the Betrayer up there. Small cast and short game, but really enjoyed them.

Kreia was one of the best written villains of all time. Subtlety seems to be a lost art in favor of pure meme and political agenda.