Earlier today, GameInformer reported that Shadow Realms, a 4v1 action RPG in development at BioWare Austin, had been canceled. Shortly after, BioWare Austin GM Jeff Hickman confirmed the news.
Shadow Realms was first announced last year with a big, very silly, live action trailer campaign, and was described vaguely as having an episodic "BioWare story" when I played it at PAX Prime.
During that "fan event" (so named despite no one in the room having played it outside of the devs), I had a pretty good time in one match as the Shadowlord, who floats around harassing the adventurers with bombs, traps, and possessed monsters. I left curious, however, as to how the episodic story would be packaged and delivered—it seemed like quite a design challenge to make a five player game with BioWare's signature decision-making and characters.
It's a problem I suspect BioWare Austin was well-suited to solve, but it isn't happening. Still, Hickman's list of other BioWare projects is nothing to sneeze at.
