Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard [PC]

The blending of genres happens more and more these days giving us no end of fits while trying to classify titles that defy classification. It makes you want to rip that section out of our database and burn it. Don't get me wrong, one of the best things about today's gaming is that so many developers are enjoying the fun of genre wanderlust. The results have been mixed. Many of these adventures tend to be casual meandering into uncharted territory rather than focused attempts at a merging of nations. The real-time strategy genre and role-playing genre have often shared borders but have done so without a true agreement compromises that need to be made. Hope remains. Liquid Entertainment, best remembered for their innovative and entertaining Battle Realms has been hard at work on one of these blends for a while now. Fittingly, their game Dragonshard takes its inspiration from the new world of Eberron in the Dungeons & Dragons universe from Wizards of the Coast. We had the chance to check the game out at an Atari preview event today and were very pleasantly surprised. It shows a lot of promise for those of us waiting for this type of game to be done right.

The world of Eberron is an interesting one unlike those you've seen in previous D&D games. This world was made of dragons. Legend has it that the dragon shards ringing the planet like the rings of Saturn in our own galaxy came from a dragon that was destroyed and broken into millions of pieces. These shards occasionally fall down to Eberron and are imbued with magical energy making them important to the world for their purpose as a "magical battery" or sorts. The shards were purposed for many different inventions including elevators, vehicles, and so on. This magical technology makes Eberron quite unique from other worlds under the D&D umbrella and sets the stage for an epic struggle.

At the center of Eberron's territories (slightly off center actually) sits an enticing gigantic dragonshard. The size and power of this shard calls to the forces that inhabit the planet as three factions begin their journey towards it in order to harness its power as their own. Each of the three factions has a unique campaign that eventually will lead them to the mighty dragonshard. Unlike the campaigns in a game like StarCraft that take place one after another with each campaign following in chronological order, each of the campaigns in Dragonshard take place at the same time. So level 1 of the Order's campaign takes place at the same time as level 1 of the dark elf campaign. Each of these arcs will end at the center in a free for all over the big prize, but because each of the factions starts in a different location with different units, the experience will change. After playing through the first two levels of the Order campaign which will serve as tutorial levels, any of the campaigns can be played in any order. They do recommend that a single campaign be finished all at once or each level from each campaign be played in order to keep chronological continuity.

Many of the units and races of the game will be very familiar to most players of the pen and paper game. The Order of the Silver Flame is an alliance of sorts. Men, dwarves, halflings, and more fill out this organization of races. According to Creative Director Ed Del Castillo, The Order of the Silver Flame will be the most familiar thanks to their units and classes and should be the most typically balanced RTS faction of the bunch. The dark elves are the second race, using more magic than the other races along with other special abilities such as being able to shift into different types of units serving different functions. The reptilian race will begin with fodder units. Tons and tons of units that can be thrown at the enemy mercilessly and will be accompanied by many large behemoth type units giving a nice one-two punch.