We have AI, it's awesome, but imagine if you enhanced it with a dungeon master.'ДЇrom that starting point, BioWare built out the capabilities they wanted their DM to have: spells that affect the heroes, the ability to spawn monsters, controlling the overall monster makeup of a level, spawning tricks and traps. 'James Ohlen, our creative director, said that, we still don't have that thing we had in D&D-a dungeon master sitting at the edge of the table creating things and changing things and being dynamic in the game. The idea for Shadow Realms really grew from that dungeon master role.

The shadowlord is essentially another player class, who spawns with the hero party as a phantom and runs around manipulating the environment. There will be at least six classes in the game-warrior, cleric, wizard, assassin, ranger and warlock are the ones BioWare has listed so far-which can be specced differently, have different specializations, and varying equipment thanks to a loot system.

'I've read probably the first 30 episodes now, and each one has this awesome cliffhanger moment where you're making a choice and the episode's done.' 'As you're getting your story missions, they're developing the backstory of the game, and you come to these cliffhanger moments,' Hickman said. 'Story with choice, story that hopefully evokes emotion in people, betrayal, saving your love, romance options.' that story will be told through singleplayer experiences, but the bulk of the game will be spent in the 4v1 shadowlord mode, where four players team up to take on a quest, and one player fills the D&D role of a dungeon master trying to stop them. 'You're going to get the feel of a BioWare game and a BioWare story, just like any other,' he said. But as Hickman explained, the story and adventure parts of the game will be separated. The classic BioWare storytelling will definitely show up in Shadow Realms, which mixes a modern day Earth setting with the more classical fantasy world of Embra. We talked about Shadow Realms' D&D roots, how the shadowlord will affect the story, and BioWare's take on episodic storytelling.

Shadow Realms' reveal didn't give us much beyond the broad strokes of its story and the gist of its action RPG combat, but our interview with Hickman helped sketch in some details.

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