Ferret Beaudoin, lead designer of Fallout and Dragon Age, has died.

Bethesda Softworks senior designer dies Ferret Beaudoin. According to a memorial Facebook profile, he passed away “suddenly surrounded by friends and loved ones” on October 15. The cause of death was not disclosed.

The information was shared by the former head of the development of Fallout 76 Jeff Gardiner. “[Ferret Baudoin byl] an eternal optimist and a great friend. (…) I will miss him,” he recalls, “we wrote to each other about all the role-playing games we played. He’s the only one I know who played them more than me and Emil Pagliarulo (Bethesda Design Director, approx. ed.)“

We wrote about any RPG we played. He’s the only one I know who plays more than them. @Dezinuh and I. He completed four runs of the last #Pathfinder @OwlcatGames RPG one.

— Jeff Gardiner ➡️ SOMETHING WICKED GAMES (@jg93) October 17, 2022

The aforementioned Pagliarulo wrote about Baudouin: “He was uncontrollably creative, always full of inspiration and worked hard, because for him it was not just a job. He LOVED making games. Almost every design conversation ended with us agreeing on how to improve the content to make it more fun.”

(3/4) It’s so rare to find someone who does the same thing for so long and doesn’t have an ounce of cynicism. It was Ferret. I will always miss his passion for games and boundless joyful energy of cooperation.

— Emil Pagliarulo (@Dezinuh) October 18, 2022

Baudouin’s real name was Eric, but he was known to his friends as Ferret, a name that can also be found in the credits of the video games he worked on. But he kept the origin of the nickname a secret. “I lived with him in the hostel for three years, and he was my best man at the wedding, but where? [přezdívka] took, I don’t know,” one of the Reddit users admitted, “but I know that he had fun when he visited Ireland. At that time it was fashionable to put a ferret in his pants, and he used it as a cape!”

Beaudoin worked on many famous works. The last time he participated in Starfieldassumed the role of lead designer Fallout 76. Prior to that, he also worked on Fallout 4. Previously, he was a lead designer at Bioware, where he participated in Dragon Age 2 and the Inquisitionand in Obsidian where he stood at birth Neverwinter Nights 2 and KOTOR 2. He spoke briefly about Black Isle Studios’ unfinished games.