New Neverwinter game announced

Atari Europe has announced a new Neverwinter game, created by Star Trek Online developer Cryptic Studios and due out on PC during the last three months of 2011.

Neverwinter is described as a "co-op role-playing game inspired by R.A. Salvatore's upcoming book trilogy".

"Once a bustling location, Neverwinter has faced a great many disasters in the past hundred years," says the official blurb.

"Rule of the city remains unclear following the unfortunate demise of the last Lord of Neverwinter and factions still battle for dominance after the all-consuming Spellplague took a high toll on the population.

"Even Neverwinter's dead are beginning to rise from their graves and march upon the city they once called home."

The original Neverwinter game, Neverwinter Nights, was a 2002 BioWare created third-person RPG published by Atari.

Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment created the sequel, Neverwinter Nights 2, which was released in 2006.

Cryptic COO Jack Emmert had this to say: "We're beyond thrilled to develop a brand new version of Neverwinter.

"It's been years since the original became a gaming icon and we're honored to work with such a great franchise.

"We've been working closely with Wizards of the Coast and R.A. Salvatore to create an authentic D&D adventure filled with compelling fiction and exciting gameplay."

Gamers will choose to become one of five classic D&D classes and team up with friends or the AI to form five-person co-op groups.

There's an "extremely user-friendly" content generation system called Forge, too.

Book one in Salvatore's Neverwinter trilogy, Gauntlgrym, will be released on 5th October this year, and "lays the groundwork for the Neverwinter storyline".

Atari's launched a website for the game, from which you can follow using Facebook and Twitter.