Monday Atari and Cryptic Studios announced Neverwinter, an online role-playing game for the PC slated for a Q4 2011 release. As the name indicates, the game will be based on the popular city residing within the fictional Dungeons & Dragons realm. The game's storyline is also "inspired" by the upcoming Neverwinter trilogy from New York Times best-selling author, R.A. Salvatore.
"Once a bustling location, Neverwinter has faced a great many disasters in the past hundred years. Rule of the city remains unclear following the unfortunate demise of the last Lord of Neverwinter and factions still battle for dominance after the all-consuming Spellplague took a high toll on the population," Atari said in a press release. "Even Neverwinter's dead are beginning to rise from their graves and march upon the city they once called home."
Although additional details weren't provided, players will generate a character based on one of five "classic" D&D classes. They will then team up with human or AI-controlled allies to form a five-member co-op party (ala Guild Wars?). "Players also create their own storylines and quests utilizing an extremely user-friendly content generation system, tentatively codenamed Forge," Atari added.
R.A. Salvatore's first Neverwinter book, Gauntlgrym, is slated to hit shelves in October, and will lay the groundwork for the PC game. According to Atari, the novel "previews the settings, characters and monsters from the PC game and details the events that lead up to this highly anticipated PC gaming experience."
Developer Cryptic Studios is known for many popular MMORPGs for the PC including Star Trek Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, and Champions Online.
