I mean, putting two companions with highest affinity in mortal danger and having time to save only one is brutal, since most of the time, the characters that die in games are predetermined and players may or may not care about them.

But putting two characters that player spend most time playing with, that makes it lot personal. Even ME2 and the Suicide mission did not force you to make such brutal choice, you could always sent someone you do not like to die.

It’s not binary choice like Wolfenstein either, where at the start you choose one guy who dies from two guys you knew half and hour and that somewhat alters the story.

You sacrifice someone you spend lot of time with and will probably be pissed/sad for the rest of the game he is not with you anymore.

Overall, Bethesda has come long way since Skyrim when it comes to telling stories, most of the time, Bethesda games stories were weakest link, but Starfield manages to put together really good (not great) story