Over on the OtherSide Entertainment forums, OtherSide programmer Jeff (they all seem to go by first names on the OtherSide forums) popped in to comment on a pair of issues that have been rather hotly discussed thereat over the last few days. The first issue is that of the potential link between Underworld Ascendant and Shroud of the Avatar:

…we are definitely not targeted at the “one big shared world” idea.

…which is either a flat-out denial that Ascendant and Shroud are connected in any meaningful sense, or is at least confirmation that if they are set in the same universe, they won’t share assets and infrastructure to any significant extent.

Of course, the other — and somewhat related — question Jeff sought to address via his forum engagement was the question of whether Underworld Ascendant will actually be a single-player game.

I don’t think there is much danger of this project becoming MMORPG-like. Although we do continue to discuss potential multi-player features, everything we talk about is in service of and secondary to the core gameplay which is focused on the Underworld, living dungeon, exploratory and scary gameplay.

Im pretty positive I can promise there will be no rat quests or heavy rails if we can at all help it.

From my POV, I would like to see ways to share your experience with friends *where such does not detract or distract from the primary play*.

And if that second remark came across as alarming, the clarification arrived a few posts later:

Personally, one of my biggest frustrations with single player RPGs going all the way back to the first Elder Scrolls games has been an inability to share what I’m doing with others on a social level. I like playing with my character’s look for instance… but if I cant ever show it to anyone then it gets pretty thin.

Anyhow, the takeaway here is that it’s really too early to say with certainty whether or not OtherSide Entertainment will incorporate multiplayer or online features into Underworld Ascendant, although the weight of community opinion (at least) seems to be coming down firmly on the side of the offline experience.