In Baldur's Gate 3, your companions live with you. In Cyberpunk 2077, they live in your phone. The two RPGs are some of the 2020s' biggest, and show two very different strategies for handling the mechanic that keeps fans coming back to RPGs again and again.

Different Parties, Different Priorities

Some of those differences spring from Larian and CD Projekt Red's differing identities. Larian makes strategic RPGs, and squad-based tactical combat doesn’t really work without multiple characters for the player to control. CD Projekt Red makes action games — third-person melee in The Witcher 3’s case, first-person shooting in Cyberpunk — and you don’t need companions by your side for those encounters. They might be helpful (think Mass Effect) but they aren’t necessary for the system to work on a fundamental level.

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As a result, The Witcher 3 has fantastic characters, but they aren’t traditional companions. They might tag along on a quest, but they weren’t long-term members of your party. Yennefer, Dandelion, and Triss were all great characters, but you only saw them at set times in the story. With Cyberpunk 2077, technology allowed CD Projekt Red to expand on that approach. No, not the real-world tech; the tech available in the game. Because Cyberpunk was set in the future, V could use a cell phone to text and make calls. That also meant that your friends could call or text you to talk, even when you weren’t nearby.

Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't have a traditional party that follows you around and fights with you, but Judy, Panam, River, and Kerry served as a more realistic take on companions. They're friends, people you can make plans with to hang out, but they aren't always with you. In that way, Cyberpunk 2077 had an approach to companions that more closely matched our atomized present. They don’t live with you, but they may be able to hang out when you’re both free.

Reality Or A Sitcom

Baldur’s Gate 3's party (and the traditional RPG party) is much closer to a sitcom. It’s a group of friends (or maybe frenemies) who are always hanging out together. In an RPG, the characters come together to achieve a common goal, but like a sitcom, it gives you an idealized view of adult friendship. Baldur's Gate 3 and sitcoms are both imagining a world where college never has to end, and you and your friends are all together all the time, living together, eating together, and going on adventures together.

I love Baldur's Gate 3's party, but it's really just a rendition of something we've seen a million times before. It might be the best rendition of that approach to a party ever, but it's still familiar. Cyberpunk 2077's approach is more novel and closer to real life. Cell phones mean that our friends are always available to chat but, as Cyberpunk 2077 shows, they aren't always available. Baldur's Gate 3 is a better game, but I'm more excited to see another game (maybe the next Witcher or Cyberpunk) build on what CDPR accomplished.

Most RPG parties stick together by necessity, including the one in Baldur's Gate 3. They’re all invested in accomplishing a task and, once that's done, they disband. It's sad — like a long-running sitcom's finale — but it's what happens when you reach the end of a certain stage in your life. But Cyberpunk 2077 offers a take on the party where friendship isn’t centered around a necessary task and, as a result, not compulsory. The characters hang out because they want to hang out, not because they have to.

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