The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition

The achievement is unlocked when you recruit your first companion. The first companion available for the achievement is Parvati Holcomb. Speak to Reed Tobson in the town of Edgewater in the Saltuna Cannery as part of the main quest, Stranger in a Strange Land. When you agree to help him in exchange for gaining a power regulator, Parvati offers her assistance. Reed thinks this is a good idea and agrees to let Parvati go along as a guide. You have two choices:

• Sure, I could use the company.
• I don’t need Parvati’s help.

Choosing the first option, pops the achievement. Choosing the second option removes Parvati as a potential companion. There are five other candidates so there are other opportunities to unlock the achievement. Nonetheless, you must recruit all 6 candidates to unlock:

and

Any of the following five companions can unlock the achievement if recruited first:

• Vicar Max on Edgewater joins if you complete the Illustrated Manual sidequest he gives you when meeting him.
• If you intervene in a discussion between Felix and a cop near the Groundbreaker landing pad, he will later wait for you outside your ship and offer to come along.
• Ellie offers to join you when you help her friend Jessie in the Medical Clinic on Groundbreaker
• SAM, a robot, will offer to join if you complete the Cleaning Machine sidequest by finding his missing piece in Roseway on Terra-2
• On Monarch, during the Radio Free Monarch main story quest, you must recruit Nyoka by completing the Passion Pills side quest

You need not enlist any of the companions, even Nyoka. Whereas Nyoka's recruitment is necessary for the Radio Free Monarch mission, this is only required if the player opts to pursue the Phineas questline through the game. If the Path of Halcyon route is chosen instead, Nyoka need not be recruited (but can be if the player completes the Passion Pills side quest for her).

Once any candidate is rejected, the companion is no longer available to join. Thus, the achievement is technically missable. The player, though, must take deliberate action to avoid recruiting all 6 of the companions.

If you are making more than one playthrough, you may, in fact, want to make the deliberate choice of not recruiting any companions. The Lone Master perk provides a +10 bonus to all skills if no companions have been recruited. This is a very effective strategy to use during the Supernova run of a two playthrough approach to the game. However, if you are completing the game in one playthrough, you will need to recruit all 6 companions.