Anfang des Jahres kam das Gerücht auf, dass BioWare ihr Online-Actionspiel Shadow Realms komplett umkrempeln wird und der Titel dann auch für Konsolen erscheint. Doch jetzt ist bekannt, dass BioWare Austin die Arbeiten an dem 4v1-Multiplayerspiel abgebrochen hat.

Es wurde kein genauer Grund für den Stopp bekannt gegeben, jedoch gibt es andere Projekte an denen gearbeitet werden muss. Der Entwickler setzt sich nun wieder hinter Star Wars: The Old Republic, auf das etwas Großes in diesem Jahr warten soll. Zusätzlich wird für diejenigen, die sich für die Alpha angemeldet haben, derzeit ein Weg gesucht, ihnen dafür zu danken. Im Folgenden findet ihr die englischsprachige Nachricht von Jeff Hickman, dem General Manager bei BioWare Austin, bezüglich Shadow Realms:

Today I’m sharing some important news about Shadow Realms and our BioWare Austin studio.

We’ve made the decision to not move forward with development of Shadow Realms. We fully recognize that this news is disappointing to some of our fans, so I want to explain more behind this decision.

While the team did amazing work on the game concept and we got lots of great feedback from our fans at events and through other game testing, right now there are other projects for the team to work on within the BioWare studios for the coming year and beyond. We’ve got an incredibly talented team here at the Austin studio, and they are excited and already deep on new projects within the BioWare family, ones that will make some great BioWare games even better.

These include additional ongoing enhancements to the award-winning Dragon Age: Inquisition, as well as the next game in the Mass Effect series and other new IP.

But the biggest focus for our team in BioWare Austin will be on Star Wars: The Old Republic. As every Star Wars fan knows, this is a massive year in the Star Wars universe. We have some great plans for expanding this epic game this year, and look forward to sharing the news about those plans with our players in the coming weeks.

For all the people that registered for the Shadow Realms Closed Alpha, we’re working on a way to say thank-you for signing up. To all those players that gave us feedback at Gamescom and PAX, and those that shared their thoughts and impressions in the past months, we thank you for being part of the conversation.

Jeff Hickman
General Manager, BioWare Austin