Dragon Age 2 - Anders Revealed as a Companion

A forumite, Shepard N7, on the Bioware forums made this thread about one of the characters in Dragon Age - it is: Anders, the Mage. In the thread there is a link to GameInformer's website on which there is a gameplay video featuring this reveal. Here's a snip from the text:

New protagonist Hawke first encounters the mage in the slums of the city of Kirkwall, where Anders has taken up a life of healing refugees from the Blight. Hawke needs the former Grey Warden's help, and Anders is willing to oblige in return for a favor.
On this first quest with the new companion, Hawke uncovers some surprising twists about Anders and his new life. What secrets is the apostate hiding? Why are his eyes glowing eerily in the screenshot above? What other surprises await in Dragon Age II?

More information.

It's nice to see Anders make a return from Awakening. Personally, I've always felt that Awakening's characters got little to no love in the area of character development.

It'd be interesting to see if a player's Awakening choices affects Anders overall state and attitude in DA2.

Anders was my favorite NPC in Awakening.

Originally Posted by mikelhk
It'd be interesting to see if a player's Awakening choices affects Anders overall state and attitude in DA2.

Was there a post-ending save game in Awakening? I don't remember…

I used Anders and Justice for most of Awakening and really liked both, Anders more. Glad to see he is back… since the game starts during the events of DA:O and then goes on for 10 years I wonder how they will handle Anders running off to be in Awakening. Maybe you don't find him until after that game's time-frame…

Justice turned on me BTW… that was cool.

Anders was one of my favorites in the entire series.