Bioware Austin announced a new title, Shadow Realms, last year, and it sounded kind of interesting. The basic idea was to create a kind of online tabletop role-playing campaign, with a four versus one PvP structure played out across episodic missions.
According to sources reported by Kotaku, however, the game’s in for a major restructuring. The online only PC exclusive was originally intended to release this year, but now the expected release date is sometime in 2017.
A “reliable source familiar with goings-on at BioWare Austin” told Kotaku that Shadow Realms was overhauled last October, and will now have a full campaign rather than an episodic story. Apparently the delay is down to a desire to build in Origin integration instead of a standalone client, but that seems like a very long delay for what sounds like a relatively simple switchover.
Kotaku does post that due to EA’s (silly) rules that means titles developed for Origin get increased budgets, Bioware may have more cash to play with than they initially thought. After MOBA Dawngate, which didn’t use Origin, was cancelled, Bioware may have decided that it was best to avoid going down the same route.
Whatever the case, we’ll presumably hear more on the subject from either EA or Bioware at some point soon. Shadow Realms, which was set in a world that mixed the modern day with dark fantasy elements, at least sounded interesting. It may be that Bioware can eke out that potential with a little rethinking.
