Cryptic Studios has been quietly hacking away at Neverwinter for a couple of years now, barely showing anything to the outside world. Then this past weekend at PAX East, they came out of nowhere to shock fans and media alike with a polished, fun, and potentially epic MMORPG set in the Forgotten Realms. 

Cryptic Studios has something to prove. While both Champions Online and Star Trek Online eventually found their niche as "freemium" MMOs, each game had a lot of hype that wasn't quite met. It's not uncommon on this website to see commenters claim they'll never buy another Cryptic Studios product.  It's a good thing their next offering will be entirely free to play and published by Perfect World Entertainment.  And it's also a good thing that Neverwinter is absolutely and positively the most exciting MMORPG we saw at PAX East 2012. Polished, fun, and inventive (not to mention a D&D fan's nerd-haven) Neverwinter won our Game of Show with good reason.  Read on to learn about combat, setting, story, classes, character creation, PVP, the Foundry, and so much more.

Read the rest of Bill Murphy and Mike Bitton's Neverwinter: Cryptic's Dark Horse Rising.