BioWare has more or less mastered sci-fi role-playing with Mass Effect and done well in fantasy with Dragon Age, so what’s next for the EA-owned studio? Something current and in episodic chunks.

The studio announced Shadow Realms at Gamescom 2014, and the action role-playing affair sees the studio returning to its roots in PC-centric development while also trying to recreate the feeling of playing a great game of Dungeons & Dragons.

But this isn’t your traditional fantasy world. Shadow Realms takes place in a more modern kind of setting, with subways and suburbs alike, in which certain folks find special powers awoken within them. You’ll explore real locales like Paris, but also a parallel world called Embra, which has more of a fantasy slant to it.

Dungeon crawling action and extensive player customization are both promised, plus Shadow Realms will offer something new for the genre: a 4-on-1 mode wherein a team of heroes battles against a player-controlled Shadowlord that can command minions and set traps within the world. It sounds a bit like the upcoming shooter Evolve mixed with, say, EA’s own Dungeon Keeper.

BioWare is taking an episodic approach with Shadow Realms, but it sounds more like there will be a steady stream of new stuff launching regularly, rather than delivering a big pack of content every couple of months. Origin users can sign up for potential alpha access, which begins soon, with the official launch coming in 2015.

Source: Shadow Realms