Dragon Age’s Zevran Wasn’t Intended To Be Bisexual

Zevran, the charming, bisexual assassin who stole our hearts – and pants – from Dragon Age: Origins, wasn’t originally intended to be bisexual, but gay.

Dragon Age: Origins released back in November, 2009, just under 11 years ago. Little did anyone know that the award-winning fantasy RPG from BioWare would kickstart a series that so many love and cherish, nor did anyone realize just how well-loved the characters would become.

One such character is Zevran Arainai, an assassin from the legendary Antivan Crows, who is a companion of the Warden in the first game, a quest giver in DA2, and is oddly missing in Inquisition. Zevran is a character that was met with conflict – some felt that he was too much of a stereotype of the ‘overly sexual bisexual’, whilst others loved him.

Regardless of your thoughts of him, it turns out he – as well as Leliana – wasn’t actually intended to be bisexual. This new information comes from David Gaider, lead writer of the Dragon Age games, and transcribed by Tumblr user Felassan, during Summerfall Studio’s playthrough of Origins.

The playthrough revealed a lot of new information that hadn’t been revealed before – such as Dragon Age 2’s Mage Hawke cut side-quest of having to deal with being tricked by the demon in their head, as well as Awakening being worked on before Origins had even released – but Zevran and Leliana not being bisexual has officially blown our minds.

Zevran, who Gaider wrote for, was intended to be gay due to Gaider having read that gay men were recruited into organizations like the CIA and KGB due to them having ‘no family ties.’ He thought that was interesting, but James Ohlen, Senior Creative Director of BioWare, felt that all the work that would go into Zevran would be better suited if he [and Leliana] were bisexual. The reasoning for Leliana being bisexual was not talked about, but Gaider summed up that both of them were “bi out of convenience.” Of course, that doesn’t mean these characters are no longer bisexual, but that originally they were not.

Gaider left BioWare back in 2016, and is now currently working alongside ex-Beamdog developer, Liam Esler in creating Chorus – a video game musical.

About The Author

Aimee Hart

[She/They] Aimee Hart specializes in queer fandom, video games and tabletop, having started her career writing for numerous websites like The Verge, Polygon, Input Magazine and more. Her goal now is to boost LGBTQ+ voices in the video games industry.

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