Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes, Champions Online, Star Trek Online) has revealed some slivers of information and a trailer for the upcoming multiplayer game Neverwinter.
Set in the well-known city in the Forgotten Realms universe, Neverwinter is dubbed as a co-op RPG and attempts to take the pen & paper experience to the PC. Again. If you don’t have any friends to co-op with, you can still solo the game with AI companions. So far, so Neverwinter Nights.
However, it does seem to have a more confined and action-oriented feel to it, as well as some better graphics. Perhaps they’re trying to turn the NWN experience into more of a full 3D environment type of game? There’s also something called “The Foundry” that will give dungeon masters all the tools they need to build dungeons, castles, entire cities, and basically craft a small world for a party to quest in.
That sounds pretty sweet actually, and perhaps this is what will become the go-to videogame version of classic tabletop D&D for those people who don’t care about the free-to-play Dungeon & Dragons: Online? If Neverwinter does away with the MMO aspects and offers players the ability to just play D&D with premade quests and dungeons, while offering the ability to craft your own D&D experience, that might just work.
