As a party-based isometric role-playing game, Baldur’s Gate 3 features an extensive cast of characters, each with their unique feelings, characteristics, and disposition towards the player’s actions and dialogue choices. Those that accompany you are known as companions, and feature an even more fleshed-out story. Over time, their approval rating will vary, depending on what the player does or does not do during gameplay. This approval score can influence the cohesiveness of your party, what sections of the story unlock, and even cause some companions to leave the group altogether.
Players must walk a fine line with their companions. Ideally, you’ll want to please each often enough that they stick around. But, at the same time, this is the player’s story. Not only will your desires vary from those of your companions, but often the companions want things in direct opposition to each other. Here’s how to check the attitude of your companions and their approval of your decisions in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Updated by Abigail Angell on October 20th 2023: To assist players that are shooting for certain endings, a comment about the agency of companions in regards to their personal quest, and how approval effects their choices, has been added.
What Is Companion Approval?
First and foremost, it’s best to understand what companion approval is in Baldur’s Gate 3. Every party member is a unique character with a different outlook and moral guidelines that affect how they react to the world around them. When the player performs any story actions, like completing a quest a specific way, one or more party members may not agree with the outcome or process. In such cases, a reaction message will appear in the top left corner of the HUD.
The higher their approval rating, the more sympathetic the character is to the player. As such, relationships will improve or degrade over time and may eventually lead to a falling out within the party.
Why Approval Matters
Approval in Baldur’s Gate 3 is not only a reflection of how sympathetic the character is to the player but also how easily the player can influence that character. Companions who have a more positive opinion of the player will have lower DCs for dialogue-related checks. This becomes important if you’d like to convince a companion to use their Illithid Powers or to break up fights.
Additionally, companions with low approval values will not open up about their backstory — effectively removing the possibility for romance or completing a number of interesting side quests. In some cases, a companion may even leave the party entirely when their approval is low. While it is nearly impossible to make every companion like you at the same time, multiple playthroughs to enjoy each of their stories is part of the fun.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, increasing your approval rating with a companion will influence the choices they make on their own. Companions with high approval are more likely to align themselves with the demonstrated values of the player during important moments (such as Shadowheart’s choice about the Nightsong, or Karlach’s decision regarding her heart). As such, high approval is an excellent way to ensure you are headed toward your desired ending for each companion.
How To Check Companion Approval
When playing through Baldur’s Gate 3, players may have a specific party composition in mind, along with a playstyle that fits their desires and game morals. For example, being a villain is entirely possible.
But, no matter which side of the line players falls on, it’s essential to keep track of party approval. To do this, players will open the character sheet tab, navigate to the party member in question, and check their approval indicator halfway down the menu. This allows you to see how a companion feels about you at a glance – each person’s approval begins as Neutral.
Since the game’s release, Larian has also added a way to view approval as a numerical rating. To see this number:
- Open the Party View using the Tab button on PC, or the L2 button on Playstation 5.
- Then, go to the third tab labeled Character Sheet.
- Scroll to the third tab on the individual character’s sheet called Detailed View.
- Scroll down to the section labeled Approval, which is located second to last.
That said, the companion approval system isn’t binary. The characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 don’t simply see good and evil; they see more gray than anything else. While a party member may dislike the player’s actions at one stage, they may approve another in the same questline. Some actions also matter more to a character than others. Usually, the actions related to a companion’s personal questline matter the most.