Neverwinter

Cryptic Studios has announced an October 4th release date for their new dungeons and dragons game Neverwinter. If you've played D&D games on the computer at all that name should ring a bell as one of the most successful D&D themed franchises in history.

Cryptic is known for MMO type games (City of Heroes / Villians, Star Trek Online, and Champions Online) Neverwinter will be their first foray into non online games. That fact makes me very nervous about this property. Its no secret that in the 3 years since 4th edition was released no D&D themed game has done the system justice. I find this odd since one of the most common criticisms people have about 4th edition is it feels like a video game more then a role playing pen and paper game.

This dragon looks scary enough

One thing that is a point in favor for cryptic they are introducing a feature called "the foundry"

" Players can create and share their own adventures using The Foundry creation toolset, " http://crypticstudios.com/

The addition of a creation toolkit may help this game last many years after it stops selling copies at Walmart. The same way the creation tools in Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 did.

Dont jump!

The last D&D game was a big disappointment. Daggerdale felt more like a torchlight clone (which is itself a clone I know) than and true D&D game. It was pretty bad even for downloadable console content. Its probably no mistake that wizards released the Neverwinter campaign source book a few months before this game came out. they are probably hoping if its a success it will boost the source book sales as well.