#rook isnt ever included in codexes and that feels a little ):

[aeipathism]

I feel somewhere in the middle on this - the individual quests and direct interactions felt really good and genuine to me. I came out of it feeling like my Rook was very genuinely friends with and had unique/close relationships with all the companions.

Also, i really loved the work they put into making the companions have relationships among themselves. Banter around the Lighthouse and codexes showing they all interact was awesome and sparked SO much joy

That being said, what did fall a bit flat for me was the inability to just talk to your companions around the Lighthouse etc. Which has been a staple across DA and ME games, so it felt like a weird gap to just... not have that. I can expand on the quests we have, but that structure also gives you a very narrow window for that relationship. Generally, you've always been able to go up to characters in your party and ask inane questions or have an exchange about the current plot. Not scripted events, just a bit of dialogue back and forth. Or even options to insert a comment to some of the banter you can walk into.

The other thing that felt missing were group scenes outside of main plot. In 2 and Inquisition you can have little scenes that cut off pretty early playing cards with companions etc. I'd love a snippet of a dinner Bellara and Lucanis put together. Or arguing over cards because the companions all coming from entirely different factions and cultures is a recipe for no one plays games with the exact same rules. And tbh, the lack of these was disappointing to me Because they really improved on the interparty relationships in terms of banter and environment. Which, with those being another staple in other games, I kept waiting for and was sad not to see it. Let us drop in on a book club meeting! Put Rook in the middle of the discussion voting on cooking duties! We had these snippets and set ups for simple group scenes that we never actually get to see.

Even on just a romance level, you can only interact with your LI in any meaningful way in carefully placed quests and scenes. I kept waiting for when I could go to Emmrich's room and trigger the same scene 5 times in a row like inquisition and just have Rook smooch him on his balcony. Or be able to say you want to chat and have a little no dialogue cut scene of them sitting together with Manfred to serve them tea.

So while I 100% agree that the relationships did feel genuine to me, I did find it a bit jarring to offload so much of that building into Quests or into codexes. Mostly since historically, you've always been able to go chat with your companions, or have 1 or 2 simple group events. It wouldn't surprise me if that's the sort of thing that got cut by EA since voice and animation means more work and those are technically not integral. But I suppose what I'm getting at here is that I do see where some of that feeling/criticism is coming from. And in some cases, it isn't necessarily an issue of catering to specific desires, but just base patterns established by previous games both in DA but also ME.

I can see where it feels a little jarring to have these intimate friendship moments with companions, when you're used to being able to walk up and establish more casual rapport with them. We lost a lot of connectors and middle parts of things that way. It helps the player establish a baseline of what casual conversation looks like, and that makes a bridge to the (brilliantly done!) personal quests where a deeper relationship is indicated.

tl;dr is mostly that I think that all of the points about the companions feeling like they truly care about rook are spot on. but I can also see why that feels disconnected without more build up in casual settings like in previous games. going from met this guy - little personal quest - overhearing some banter and reading codexes - this companion will now Die For You is a jump that can make relationships feel less genuine because the player isn't given a role in that development.

"The Veil Guard didn't actually care about Rook" the Veil Guard was so desperate to get Rook back from the prison they tried to make a ritual dagger of their own to rip the Veil apart and look for them

Rook wasn't their boss, Rook was their home