BioWare Cancels Shadow Realms RPG Development

[Dragonlayer]

"We're abandoning our new IP to churn out more sequels."

And the community, oddly, is ok with this? I'll never understand the current state of gaming, I guess.

Because elements of the community like the properties getting sequels. It's an utterly insane thing to acknowledge I understand, but that's just the wild and wacky reality we have to deal with!

OT

Never even took a look at this but anything that means more attention and resources diverted to the next Mass Effect is alright with me.

 

[Xerosch]

Yeah I was really disappointed with the reveal of that IP. The teaser trailers looked like it would be a psychological, paranormal horror game but it looked like a generic multiplayer crap. I am happy that it's been cancelled.

I thought so as well. But why aren't they keeping what they've built so far and just make it an RPG? I guess with a decent amount of lore and different mechanics, this could be their inofficial 'World of Darkness'-thing. On the other hand: Man, was I disappointed when I saw the first trailer for this.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Yeah I was really disappointed with the reveal of that IP. The teaser trailers looked like it would be a psychological, paranormal horror game but it looked like a generic multiplayer crap. I am happy that it's been cancelled.

This. Very, very much this.

The teasers showed a lot of promise, but the reveal...man was that a complete and utter let down.

I'd actually forgotten that the game existed not long after it was announced and with Evolve + Deep + a myriad of other asymmetrical games coming out recently, this just seemed like more and more of a poor decision on Bioware's part.

 

[jklinders]

It was an interesting concept, but I doubt that it would have executed as planned. I was actually looking forward to the concept of a team of 4 players dogpiling on a 5th and how they were planning on balancing that out. But it looked like a specific player balance would be needed to play it out properly and I really don't see how an arena style matchmaker was going to get any longevity without some other kind of (single player) content thrown in.

I suspect their alpha testing showed something along those lines.

Edit:

There are some great arena style games out there with matchmaking but they all involve more than five players. the scale that Bioware was going for was very odd here. It was like they wanted to do a multiplayer game but not too much of a multiplayer game. Since this is all multiplayer though...just odd.

 

[Jandau]

I had pretty much zero interest in it once I found out it was coop only, so I'm hardly shedding any tears over it. Though the setting did sound cool and I wouldn't mind having them use it in a proper game...

 

[marscentral]

I wasn't thrilled by the 4v1 design, but I was intrigued by the setting and willing to give it a try. So I'm a little disappointed to see it cancelled.

 

[Mikeybb]

Aspects of the design looked interesting and the shadowlord gamemaster like gameplay element could have been fun, so I'm a little disappointed to see it go over those reasons, but all in all It doesn't feel like a great loss.

No doubt they'll hold on to the ideas and try to repurpose them with a more engaging setting.

 

[Shocksplicer]

It sounded fucking awful, so good for them.

 

[Kahani]

its first new franchise since 2011's Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"New" in this case apparently meaning "a franchise they've had for a decade and not actually new in any way".

After all, they tend to focus on a single-player game with great characters and an epic storyline

Their most recent games have been The Old Republic and Dragon Age Inquisition, one an MMO, the other desperately wanting to be one. Before that was Mass Effect 3, with forced multiplayer if you actually wanted to be able to win it. They've made great character-driven single-player games in the past, but that's certainly not what they're focussing on any more.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Die and sell off the IPs to people who even try to make a good game already.....

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Shadow realms sort of looked like a mess to be honest, so I'm not too sad to see it go. Though we'll never know how good it could have been now of course.

I'm happy to hear they're gonna be working more with SW:TOR, it's still my go-to mmo and it's improved quite a lot over the years. Yes naysayers, it actually has a thriving community.

Recently they were slow with updates and bugfixes though, with the exploits in the new raids and all...

 

[DarkhoIlow]

The initial reveal and gameplay was very "meh" to me. In a way I'm happy this happened because Bioware shouldn't make multiplayer games in the first place..they are known for their singleplayer experiences.

 

[Jupiter065]

Bioware, just make an RPG in the Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra universe already. It'd fit your game style like a hand in a glove.

 

[Atmos Duality]

*yawns* Oh noes.

8 years ago, this might have been cause for serious worry, but since Bioware is under EA's thumb, I've come to lower my expectations appropriately.

The Shadowlord gamemaster thing sounded like a nice callback to the GM mode from Neverwinter Nights 1, but apart from that there was absolutely NOTHING to catch my interest.

 

[Mortuorum]

The game's idea, of super heroes in a modern setting, was actually pretty decent. It would of made on hell of a ARPG with like seven or eight powers available to choose between and level up. But that 4v1 shit is becoming a little too common and nothing made this one stand out like Evolve. Getting some expansions for Inquisition or more work put into Mass Effect 4 is a worthy trade.

Yeah, with Evolve now out, it sees like there the potential market for 4v1 is already saturated. The setting for the game was compelling though. If they turned that into a single-player RPG, I'd buy it.

As you suggest, more Mass Effect (and maybe that Mass Effect trilogy remastered for the new consoles they;ve been promising) would be a better use of resources.

 

[Estelindis]

I hadn't heard anything about this since the teaser trailer, which looked really intriguing, so I was disappointed to hear of this cancellation. Now that I know more about the direction of the project, I'm not bothered. Multiplayer isn't really my thing.

 

[Colt47]

Shadow realms sort of looked like a mess to be honest, so I'm not too sad to see it go. Though we'll never know how good it could have been now of course.

I'm happy to hear they're gonna be working more with SW:TOR, it's still my go-to mmo and it's improved quite a lot over the years. Yes naysayers, it actually has a thriving community.

Recently they were slow with updates and bugfixes though, with the exploits in the new raids and all...

Right now, after completing DA Inquisition I'm hoping that they are planning on addressing all the bugs and crashes that have been happening over the last few weeks. On the PS4 version I've had floating lootable goods in the Wastes to the point of being impossible to loot, multiple times where the controls would lock up due to a failed cutscene transition, an impossible to complete quest due to judging the npc key to the quest (instead of just getting rid of the quest entirely from the log when that happens), and even two crashes on the final boss fight. How did this game win GOTY?

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Bioware, just make an RPG in the Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra universe already. It'd fit your game style like a hand in a glove.

Bioware has already done Jade Empire. They'd probably be better off letting some other developer do it...if they can somehow wrangle a licence for the IP.

 

[Nimcha]

Yay! This sounded completely uninteresting. More SWTOR and Mass Effect is great news.

For me anyway.

 

[kuolonen]

snip

Sure it may have crashed and burned, but in making it and getting feedback on it, BioWare would have learned new mechanics, etc. that they could have used to spice up their other games and avoid what I like to call the "CoD syndrome" (more of the same with a cool new feature).

I must say, you have a very optimistic view of EA, if you think new IP crashing and burning would in any way had lead to happy ending. After that the next time we would have seen new IP from bioware would probably have been somewhere in the next century.

OT: Never had any taste for any kind of multiplayer with RPGs, so I wont shed single tear for this. Really lost interest second I heard it was Co-op, and only now remembered it existed. Maybe it would have been fun for others, but community response seemed to mostly be a resounding "meh".