I don't know what archetypes they fall into, but I'm mostly happy with 12. A little afraid they'll be stretched too thin with gender neutral romances, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I just hope they're not like the Karma based followers in Fallout 3. I liked it more when they were tied to factions, with Cass being the exception rather than the rule.

I'm curious as to what the companions will be. In addition to the four confirmed I'd bet that we get a Metahuman and a Synth. I'm also hoping to get another eyebot, but Codsworth probably torpedoes that sans mods.

With all due respect, I think that's a pretty stupid stance to take. That's like saying it's okay to release the game in an unplayable state because mods can fix it.

My view is that Bethesda is selling a product, and that means anything perceived to be wrong with it is free game for criticism and complaints. Especially because mods are never a guaranteed solution.

The only complaints I've seen at all about companion characters have been in regards to the possibility that they're all bisixual. Personally, I don't even believe this to be the case, so I am happy with the way they're looking so far. Definitely appears that they're aiming to be be a few steps up from Fallout 3.

I'm one of them, I have tangible doubts that they can furnish 12 companions with the same depth as the ones in New Vegas.

I'd be surprised if any of them have the depth of Rex tbh.

Maybe people are confused as to what companions are? Maybe they think they are the only npc's you'll have an interaction with or something?. Maybe they think that they will be the only people you can gather to live in your built up communities? I don't know. People are generally silly (including me.) Fallout companions have never been integral to the past games and are completely optional distractions. So I'm just guessing that's how it'll still be.. I'm also assuming there will still be a karma system so you most likely won't be able to gather all companions together in one playthrough anyway.

Personally I cringe at the thought of 12 companions. That many means they will probably have the depth of fallout 3/Skyrim companions. Which is to say, incredibly shallow. I hope I am wrong, that some of those companions are just animals/robots and so they focused more on humans.

Wish people would get his name right it's Codswallop!

I have no complaints. I'm cautiously optimistic. Bethesda, in the past, has not done a stellar job creating good characters in the Fallout world. Sorry, but they just haven't. They focus a lot more on the lulz and the pewpew explosions than character motivations. But, that said, it looks like this time they might be taking things a bit more seriously than they did in Fallout 3. Maybe. I hope.

One word... MEMORY!

I think a lot of time the characters were shallow because to give them more depth would have needed a lot more memory to store the conversations. Until we see Fallout 4 running we won't know how deep the characters will but I have hope because just looking at Mr Howard talking to Codsworth after waking up 200 years later made me go WOW! Why? Because you could see on his face that he was having trouble trying to figure out what had happened even before he says "Codsworth, is that you?"

People have said the graphics are crap but I disagree... Making the world live rather than ultra pretty visuals that eat up memory is what made Fallout 3 and New Vegas fun to play even today. People still make the mistake of confusing 4k with good gameplay.

TL:DR The extra memory in the new platforms will allow Bethesda to make better companions.

Because people can and will complain about absolutely anything and everything.

Except I'm yet to see any genuine whining. All I've seen were some reasonable speculation threads mostly filled with praise for the seemingly new direction of companions.

Seriously, starting a thread to moan about a nonexistent problem just reeks of hypocrisy when you all are saying people will complain about anything.

some of us don't see Bethesda games as a console cartridge type game, we see it as more of a ol school p&p game world, where the GM can bring in his own stuff or pick up a third party game off the rack at the local hobby stire

Is that in response to my argument that mods aren't a shield from criticism, or the idea that anything is fair game for criticism when you're selling something?

I'm sure I'll try one of them, probably Piper, just to see how well developed they are but I don't imagine I'll fool with vanilla companions too much in Fallout 4 unless they really surprise me. The fact of the matter is after playing with modded companions like Skyrim's amazing Inigo mod, I've lost my ability to tolerate the blank slates that pass for companions in Fallout 3 (which I've been replaying since the Fallout 4 announcement).

I've become spoiled.

Never played a modded Bethesda game before, but I don't think expecting characters to have, you know, CHARACTER, is being spoiled.

To be honest I forgot FO3 even had them. Beside Dogmeat and JerIcho can't think of a single one.

Scathing eh? Don't recall such thing. I would be more concerned by the development of the tag alongs than how many. I get sick of pack mules

Something that's only just occurred to me:

The 1000 names they've recorded for Codswollop. When Todd announced that, I just thought "oh great, a gimmick for the robo-butler at the beginning of the game".

But have they done the same for all of the 11(?) speaking companions? That makes much more sense. There's the romance thing, and probably some way to involve them with the settlements. I guess there'll be a small story arc for each.

Apparently the companions were added right at the end of Fallout 3 development. They tried to have loads for Skyrim to give people choice, but everyone complained that they were utterly bland and pointless (which I agreed with).

So 12 is a good number. It's a feasible number to try to do something with each of them, but it's more than last time. Because new game = more stuff!

While far from perfect, I do think Skyrim and TES games in general need a lot of followers. Tamriel needs to feel more lived in since it isn't post-apocalyptic in setting, and with 10 distinct playable races (for now), I think it makes sense to have at least 20, one of each gender per race. Even then though, the existence of guilds makes it so that you should be able to travel with guild mates, as most guilds are very fraternal in nature, so that ups the number needed considerably, as I think the base 20 shouldn't be tied to specific factions, and in most cases it makes sense for you to be able to travel with any member of a guild, especially once you become the leader.

I don't think 50+ well written companions is an impossible goal to strive for. It just takes people willing to spend the resources. And every companion need not be Othello. Some can be more flat than others. One merc you hired in the pub may not want to talk to you about himself that much, while another could go on and on about her exploits.

I personally love the new graphics. But either way graphics aren't a make and break deal with me. Even if I hated them, it could be fixed via mods.

You might really have a point with the memory thing, I recall one of the consoles having a terrible time just with the base game. Not sure how much of an improvement this gen has over the previous console though. You have to factor in larger zone areas (because of fewer load screens), and better graphics.

See there? It's okay! I really don't remember anyone being angry. I'm not angry. I can't imagine how many more companions we would need but I do remember some complaining that they could only take one with them at a time.

edit: I can't type

Eh... Fallout 4 is as large as Skyrim. Skyrim has 45 followers. So they make less companions than in Skyrim which could mean, that they focus on quality and not quantity this time. Actually New Vegas has 8 companions in a world way smaller than FO4.

12 companions in the main game, is not much different than what we had in Skyrim. I be thinking some of the additional memory resources have been put into making them seem less robotic. Remember, there will also be DLC following release and that means more companions most likely later on....

Skyrim had 45... 12 IS much different from Skyrim. This is around 1/4.

8 certainly seemed a lot if you'd "collected" them all and sent them to the lucky 38, where they'd stand around awkwardly like the first half hour into a party:

"So, erm, how do you know the Courier?"

"Well, I asked him to find my wife's killer and put on my beret, so I could shoot them from the mouth of a dinosaur"

"Okaay. Excuse me, I think I might have left my drink over there... Oi! You in the hat! Find your own whiskey!"

My point in general when it comes to mods is that while Bethesda should not be outsourcing Patching the damn game to modders (even though that's what its business model actual is in reality*) the fact remains that that same comunity is the one who came up with overhauls like SKYUI and Someguy Series and Niner and Russle and Robco certified and Underground Hideout (that had features that turned up later in the sink)and Real time settler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0bJ7CbTm0w ?) and Airship-Dev Aveza and Druids Essentials and Helgen reborn and Moonpath and Civil war Overhaul http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/searchresults/?src_cat=35

the reality is that for you to actualy get the most out of a bethesda game, you cant count on Bethesda, but you have to rely on the moders to add all of the stuff that for us gets left out of EVERY DAMN VIDEO GAME EVER MADE. (yes including pong)

*Seriously just installing What I consider basic functionality and patches for the F3 takes almost 7 megabites worth in mods to fallout 3,(and frankly nowadays you should just install and convert it to tales of the wastelands). New Vegas despite on many levels being demonstrably a better game, the combined patch I just installed for it has patchnotes(including all DLCs) that is literally long enough to be a Novel while the Patchnotes for Skyrim alone(not counting the DLCs) weighs in at 163,461 words. **

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/Unofficial%20Skyrim%20Patch%20Version%20History.html Copy past to your favorite wordprossesing software,

**Seriously just think about how mutch work it takes to type and maintain a 160 THOUSAND word document that keeps changing every month, never mind the actual work in patching that is represented by said Novel. Now do you realise why they thought some of the people who do this might deserve some compensation?