Key Takeaways
- Former lead writer on the Dragon Age series, David Gaider, explains why Fenris is unlikely to make cameos in future games.
- Fenris’ lyrium tattoos require him to have a unique character model, something which is too “expensive” to pull off for a cameo.
- Gaider planned to include Fenris in his cancelled fourth Dragon Age book – and would have killed him off.
Dragon Age companions often pop up in future games, making brief cameos, or in some cases, even playing major roles in the sequels. This can be hard to pull off with all the different player world states, but it’s worked nicely so far, bringing back familiar faces throughout the series.
Despite being a fan favourite, Fenris isn’t one of these returning characters and has only ever appeared in Dragon Age 2. The other love interests from that game have popped up elsewhere, or were in games beforehand (except for Sebastian, the DLC guy), which only makes his absence even stranger. However, it turns out there’s a reason for this – Fenris’ lyrium tattoos.
David Gaider Explains Why Fenris Didn’t Appear In Dragon Age Sequels
This comes from David Gaider, the former lead writer for the Dragon Age series, who also wrote Fenris for Dragon Age 2.
“The lyrium tattoos. Interesting concept, but they’re probably why you’ll never see Fenris in a future DA,” Gaider wrote on BlueSky. “He requires a custom body, and the tattoos make that expensive.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, it gets even worse: “It’s why I put Fenris in my 4th DA novel – the cancelled one. Don’t fret, though. He died in it, so this way he lives on.”
I suppose that last point is a silver lining, in a way, but it also means we got very, very close to Fenris being killed off – and not even in one of the games. My thoughts are with the Fenris romancers during this difficult time. Although this does give you free rein to come up with whatever ending you want for him and your Hawke… if they’re still alive, I guess. God, that couple is doomed.
Gaider is doing similar BlueSky threads for all of the Dragon Age characters he’s written, giving us some behind-the-scenes insight. In another thread, he noted how Dragon Age 2 was supposed to give Alistair and Zevran unique face models, but this was scrapped, explaining why they ended up looking like that. So, your favourite character not turning up again isn’t always a bad thing – they might come back just to die again. Or their nose looks completely different. Or they’re ginger all of a sudden – looking at you, Alistair.
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