Bioware has announced 'Shadow Realms' at Gamescon, here is an detailed look at what to expect from the new RPG game. 

Bioware only announced the game this past week, but speaking after the EA press conference BioWare Austin General Manager Jeff Hickman revealed that alpha invites will be arriving in players' inboxes next month. "I've never put a game into a player's hands as early as we're putting this game into players' hands," he told PC Gamer.

"This game brings us back to our roots in the realm of classic Pen and Paper RPG, but also delivers something that's completely new and innovative for our fans," said Jeff Hickman, General Manager and Vice President at BioWare Austin.

He continued, "Shadow Realms is a new BioWare RPG that has the hallmarks of all BioWare games with a rich story, a unique world setting and deep combat progression, but built as an interactive experience that evolves the genre and broadens the appeal to online gamers all over the world."

The BioWare storytelling focused on conversations where players have to make choices, will definitely show up in "Shadow Realms." The wolrd mixes a modern day Earth setting with the more classical fantasy world of Embra.

Hickman explained that the story and adventure parts of the game will be separated. "You're going to get the feel of a BioWare game and a BioWare story, just like any other," he said. "Story with choice, story that hopefully evokes emotion in people, betrayal, saving your love, romance options."

However the bulk of the game will be spent in the 4v1 shadowlord mode, where four players team up to take on a quest, the shadow lord being akin to the role of a dungeon master trying to stop them.

"As you're getting your story missions, they're developing the backstory of the game, and you come to these cliffhanger moments," Hickman said. "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."

BioWare plans to use the Shadow Realms alpha to get feedback on the 4v1 shadowlord gameplay-the feel of the action RPG combat, difficulty, balance. "When we get to the point where the players and us think it feels good, we'll put the progression system in, and the loot system, and the story," Hickman said.

BioWare is still experimenting with how long each story episode should be, trying to find the right mixture of story and gameplay. The developers also want each adventure sequence to be replayable with different hero combinations, specializations, and shadowlords. Finding that balance is part of the reason BioWare is releasing the Alpha test so early along in the development process.

"James Ohlen, our creative director, said that [despite how amazing some RPGs are now], 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. We have AI, it's awesome, but imagine if you enhanced it with a dungeon master."

From that starting point, BioWare built out the capabilities they wanted their DM to have: spells that effect the heroes, the ability to spawn monsters, controlling the overall monster makeup of a level, spawning tricks and traps. "That was the pretty straightfoward stuff," Hickman said. "Then you get into: can we allow him to change the world? In its simplest form, as players are passing through [a level], the shadowlord says: there's two doors in the room. That door will open, that door will not. Or there are two destructible walls, or whatever-he makes a choice and says that one won't open, that one will. By giving the shadowlord those kinds of things to do, we can change the flow of the environment."

Hickman also hinted that BioWare has ambitions about how the shadowlord may even be able to affect the story. "The shadowlord is part of the story. As of right now, he can't change the story directly, but he definitely has an impact on the story in some ways...[that's something] we're going to continue to experiment with."

Producer Dallas Dickinson  also posted a welcome message to players on the official website of the multiplayer video game. "You're going to learn a lot of details about our game in the coming weeks. Studio Creative Director James Ohlen has written a great piece about how we tell stories at BioWare, and how we are pushing that tradition into the future with our Episodic Story."

Like Hickman said in his press release, Bioware will be releasing tons of details in the coming weeks, so check back regularly for updates.