As it happens, those who considered BioWare’s recent plan to reboot its nascent action RPG Shadow Realms to be the canary in the coal mine for the new IP were correct, as the studio has cancelled all work on the four versus one multiplayer title.
Taking to the game’s official website, BioWare Austin confirmed that the fantastical project has been shelved indefinitely.
“We’ve made the decision to not move forward with development of Shadow Realms,” BioWare Austin general manager Jeff Hickman said. “We fully recognize that this news is disappointing to some of our fans, so I want to explain more behind this decision.
“While the team did amazing work on the game concept and we got lots of great feedback from our fans at events and through other game testing, right now there are other projects for the team to work on within the BioWare studios for the coming year and beyond. We’ve got an incredibly talented team here at the Austin studio, and they are excited and already deep on new projects within the BioWare family, ones that will make some great BioWare games even better.”
In doing so, the studio will now redistribute its resources to continue work on Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect 4 as well as other new properties.
In case you wren’t already aware, Shadow Realms was built around a asymmetric multiplayer experience that pitted four players against one powerful, player-controlled enemy who knew “every aspect of the game.” It was an intriguing, yet complex set-up and it seems to be the case that after the aforementioned plans to bring the RPG back to the drawing board came to light, development soon stalled. It was originally slated to come out on Windows PC.
Tell us, are you disappointed to learn that Shadow Realms has been given the axe? Let us know in the comments below.