BioWare Austin Announces Shadow Realms Cancellation

BioWare Austin has announced today in a blog post that it’ll no longer be continuing its development of Shadow Realms. The BioWare Austin team will instead be focusing on Star Wars: The Old Republic, while some members work on different projects.

The developer’s general manager Jeff Hickman explained in further detail as to why the action RPG was cancelled. In short, more pressing projects took priority over Shadow Realms, which require the attention of the BioWare Austin team as well as other BioWare studios. According to Hickman, some of Shadow Realms developers are already deep into development with other titles, such as Dragon Age: Inquisition and the next Mass Effect game, and even as-of-yet unannounced new IP projects.

Meanwhile, the remaining BioWare Austin team will be focusing on Star Wars: The Old Republic, who apparently already have plans on expanding the game throughout 2015. Hickman adds the studio looks “look forward to sharing the news about those plans with our players in the coming weeks.” BioWare Austin is also working on a way to say thank-you to all those who signed up for Shadow Realms Closed Alpha, and to those who provided feedback on the title.

Shadow Realms was originally slated to release on PC later on this year. The game was set during the modern day, where heroes possessing magical powers are pulled into the the parallel world of Embra, and are flung into a centuries-old battle. Gameplay-wise, the game promised a four-on-one story-driven action experience, with six different classes to choose from – all of which sporting their own abilities. Deep combat customization was also promised, which would have offered players a chance to build their characters according to their play-styles, and would have enabled them to utilize a wide range of powers regardless of what their class was. Further information on the title can be found on the official Shadow Realms website.