BioWare’s Shadow Realms brings 4v1 action to PC in 2015

By Adam Rosenberg Published August 13, 2014

biowares shadow realms brings 4v1 action pc 2015 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

BioWare’s been teasing something for Gamescom 2014, and now we know what it is: Shadow Realms. It’s an online action RPG inspired by tabletop classics like Dungeons & Dragons, but with the twist of being built around 4v1 action. A given match pits four humans, who draw from six different classes, against a single fifth player, who controls the Shadowlord.

Heroes and Shadowlord alike level up along their own lines of progression, though the focus for each is very different. The humans are essentially treasure hunters, venturing into areas on Earth and its parallel world of Embra in search of loot and adventure. The six classes are: Warrior, Assassin, Wizard, Cleric, Ranger, and Warlock. Each corresponds roughly to what a D&D fan would expect them to, but you can find more detailed explanations right here.

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The Shadowlord serves in a role that is more akin to Dungeon Master. While the player controlling it wanders around the map from a third-person perspective and can attack the humans directly, it’s also able to remain invisible, taking direct control of AI-driven monsters, casting spells, and setting traps from the shadows.

Related: BioWare wants you to know “You’ve Been Chosen”

The game features a story that will be delivered episodically, though it’s not clear how that narrative is going to play out against what amounts to a one versus many hunt-style multiplayer game. The good news is that Shadow Realms is in the hands of creative director James Ohlen, former lead designer on Star Wars: The Old Republic. Say what you will about that MMO, but the BioWare-class story fit very well into the framework of a massively multiplayer game.

Shadow Realms is expected to release on PC at a later point in 2015, though a note on the official website from producer Dallas Dickinson confirms that a limited number of players will be invited into the closed alpha “soon,” with an open alpha planned for fall 2014. Whether that alpha runs into an eventual beta, and subsequent final release, remains to be seen. There’s been no mention of pricing on this one, but our expectation for now is that it’s some form of free-to-play.

We’ll stay tuned for more details soon. Gamescom 2014 attendees will be able to check Shadow Realms out on the show floor. Everyone else will just have to wait for the alpha, which you can sign up for on the game’s official website.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…

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Digital Trends: Nightingale is much different than anything you worked on at BioWare. What are some of the biggest lessons you took from BioWare for this game?
Arynn Flynn: One of the things we made sure we did, having learned some things at BioWare, was that around the topic of worldbuilding. We created a world of our own creation, full of interesting characters and relatable elements. That's why we chose a contemporary fantasy setting. When you do something more like high fantasy or sci-fi, you have to establish the rules of that universe more fully, so players understand them. With contemporary fantasy, we get more relatability from the get-go, and from there, we can layer on great worldbuilding, interesting characters, and stories to engage with.
What are the biggest challenges you've encountered switching from creating traditional RPGs to a survival game?
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When you think about it, great role-playing games also offer choice, right? And so we're trying to adjust a lot of the lessons we learned about giving players meaningful choices but put it closer to the gameplay and things that are important to survival crafting players. It's been an interesting challenge for us, but hopefully, players will really appreciate what we did.
How has the recent success of games like Valheim and V Rising influenced the development of Nightingale?
The success of Valheim and V Rising is very encouraging and is really great for those wonderful teams and inspiring for our developers. Unlike Valheim, which has the rich Nordic lore to draw upon, and V Rising, where pretty much everyone knows what vampires are, we have to establish a lot more background information so players can appreciate the Victorian gaslamp setting.
That's why we chose alternate history, where a lot of our world's history is present, but we added in the complications of magic and the Fae. That ultimately become the fun of worldbuilding again.

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When you open a portal and go through it, what's on the other side is reflective of what you played with the Realm Cards. It's also very social because if we were playing together, you could put a card down, I could put a card down, and they will be mixed together. So it encourages cooperative play and becomes the way we offer more agency to our players.
So, does that make it a survival game where you're supposed to be constantly moving, or can players settle down and build if they want to?
We definitely want you to settle down so you don't have to move your estate. I think a lot of players will want to do that and keep growing it. One thing players can do is go through realms and bring back resources to continue building their estate. Or, you can leave your estate behind to build another one in a new realm with some friends. Both options are available to you.

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