Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard [PC]

In an industry chock-full of sequels and licenses and sequels of licensed games, it's difficult to break away from the pack. It's looking like 80s Hollywood around here, but it's not such a bad thing, since the sequels aren't quite the cynical cash-ins we saw in the theaters some twenty years ago. And believe it or not, this new RTS (untitled, for now) is taking risks in multiple areas, from fundamental design ideas to the very license it's based upon.

So we'll start with Eberron. That's the new gaming universe Wizards of the Coast is launching this summer, still set in the D&D franchise, but having nothing to do with Forgotten Realms (which has become the de facto D&D environment these days). Eberron isn't just a new territory, but a significant step away from standard swords n' sorcery. Instead of the usual medieval setting, with magic restricted to mages and warlocks and whatnot, the world of Eberron is something like Atlantis filtered through Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun--a place where magic fuels technology; elevators, teleporters, flying vehicles, all powered by magic. Eberron takes Arthur C. Clarke's notion, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and makes it literal. There are still knights in shining armor, elves, and other fantasy tropes, but we're now far removed from Camelot, and Ten Towns, for that matter. The cities of Eberron are metropolises, full of skyscrapers, but with a flowing, organic style that suggests non-technological origins.

Before we get into who's killing who, let's talk about why for a sec. The planet of Eberron has this ring of meteors around it, like Saturn, and these space rocks, called "dragon shards," fall to earth every so often and are used to fuel all this magic technology mentioned above. The rocks are infused with the magical energy that gives those elevators and flying cars their go power. As it turns out, one particularly ginourmous meteorite lands on the planet surface, the biggest magic rock anyone's ever seen. Whoever gets their grubby hands on it will have an incredible amount of power, perhaps enough to rule the world. There's a complication, of course. It doesn't fall in the most convenient of places. It falls in X'endrik, an ancient, dark continent that one of the game factions calls its home: the Shadow Elves (whom we'll get to in a bit). They've decided to guard it and poke it for a while to see what they can do with it. Meanwhile, the Alliance, the "good guys," are desperately trying to retrieve the dragon shard before the Shadow Elves unlock its true potential.

The Alliance is led by the Order of the Silver Flame, a human group. The Silver Flame is an actual entity that lives in Eberron and represents the "positive" force. The good side, in other words. The Order represented in the game consists of a few classes including priests, wizards, engineers, footmen, and rogues. There are no peasants in this game, however, no farms you can simply build and get food from. The engineers are actually retired soldiers who've volunteered to help the Order with its current problem. They can fight as well as build. The rogues play an integral role in collecting resources that are refined at the player's base of operations. They're tasked with exploring the area, finding and disabling traps that block the way to resources, and opening up strategic possibilities. We're told there will be a network of caves under the maps, with openings often in some very helpful locations, like behind enemy lines. Underground, you'll find things like healing pools that could become your ad-hoc hospital during the big battles. Of course, the enemy will also want these pools as well, so you may find yourself building up underground, as well.