PC Gamer How Companions Work

[the_dog_days]

https://www.pcgamer.com/avoweds-companions-wont-ditch-you-for-making-the-wrong-choices-its-not-about-maintaining-their-approval-its-about-getting-to-know-them/#article-comments

 

*Recruiting each companion is mandatory.

*You can't send them away.

*You can still quest solo most of the time.

*No approval system.

*No ability to micromanage in combat.

From the sound of it these decisions were made to make sure companions were guaranteed to be in certian cut scenes. More and more this is sounding less like an Obsidian game where you're given tools to make your own story (which is what I love), and more and more like a BioWare game where you'll play through the story they want you to with specific, limited branching points (which I hate).

[the_dog_days]

*No romances (win for the good guys)

[Wormerine]

Yes, it's been said in the early reveal that companions this time around will be mandatory. What they said than, is that by making them unavoidable, they can be better integrated with the main story - which makes a lot of sense.

Personally, as I always gather all companions that I can, I don't mind it. It is logical, if that the game has to work without certain elements, those elements will have to be made more seperate. Whenever it is a worthy tradeoff, will depend on the quality of Avowed companions. At the same time, I doubt I will personally care, as I tend to collect Obsidian companions as if they were Pokemon.

Frankly, I would rather have Obsidian decide from the get go that companions are mandatory, than do what Larian did - give players freedom to ignore companions, and than create "reactivity" to retcon those choice, because they made some companions necessary for the main plot.

[Hawke64]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

Yes, it's been said in the early reveal that companions this time around will be mandatory. What they said than, is that by making them unavoidable, they can be better integrated with the main story - which makes a lot of sense.

Personally, as I always gather all companions that I can, I don't mind it. It is logical, if that the game has to work without certain elements, those elements will have to be made more seperate. Whenever it is a worthy tradeoff, will depend on the quality of Avowed companions. At the same time, I doubt I will personally care, as I tend to collect Obsidian companions as if they were Pokemon.

Same, but it feels better when you make the conscious choice to recruit the companions, instead of them being mandatory. I understand that making the story work with more variables is more complicated and costly, but it was possible in PoE and TOW, so why not now? On the other hand, if, say, Spiders (Greedfall, The Technomancer) told that the companions are mandatory in their new project, I would have shrugged - they do ACTION-RPGs, so less is expected from them.

 

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

Frankly, I would rather have Obsidian decide from the get go that companions are mandatory, than do what Larian did - give players freedom to ignore companions, and than create "reactivity" to retcon those choice, because they made some companions necessary for the main plot.

All companions in Larian's D&D game were optional. Some needed more encouragement to be on their way, but none of them was required in the party in order to finish the game. Even the areas where their side quests would take place were available without them.
(If you mean the Sharran priestess with a McGuffin, the priestess was optional, the McGuffin would teleport to the PC on its own).