The writer recently did a freelance writing stint at BioWare, working on a specific section for a game in the Dragon Age series. If you were a betting person, your money would be safe if you put it on Kennedy’s involvement being something to do with death, containing dark humour, and possibly passing through a metaphorical mirror.
“Dragon Age 4 - we can neither confirm or deny,” Kennedy laughs. “This is what people assume I was working on and nobody at BioWare has said ‘that is a crazy assumption’, but, equally, neither have they said, and neither have I said, that’s what I’m working on. It is confirmed to be a project in the Dragon Age franchise and I did work with Dragon Age writers...
“They hived off a bit of the lore for me to go and do a deep dive on, and develop a bunch of typically gothic, miserablist, surreal, Kennedy stuff. I think it would not be surprising if it were about death, and I think that element will survive if nothing else does - it will be related to the body of my work.” The section Kennedy is developing will be a playable part of the story, not just background lore, which means he’s fleshed out characters, written dialogue, and worked on the backstory.
After six months with BioWare, he’s now back at it as a lone agent, making another game about death: Cultist Simulator. Well, death and longing. Just as people miss loved ones who are gone from their lives, we sometimes miss things we never had. And that longing might lead us to wonder, ‘What’s on the other side of the ocean?’