The new game just announced by n-Space and Digital Extremes could well be Neverwinter Nights 3:

…Sword Coast Legends will allow parties of up to four human players to cooperate in adventures managed in real-time by human Dungeon Masters.

According to the developers, Sword Coast Legends will promote a storytelling relationship between Dungeon Masters and player characters that transcends the adversarial roles of typical 4v1 multiplayer. Much like traditional tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, the goal is to create a mutually satisfying play experience tailored to a particular group’s tastes. If a party of players is looking for a particular challenge, the DM will be incentivized to provide it, but she’ll also be equipped with tools which allow her to help the players out of jams and advance the story. Dungeon Masters will be rewarded for creating and conducting engaging adventures.

Not to worry, though: the game will still feature a single-player campaign (although details about it have not yet been released), though the developers do name-drop Baldur’s Gate and Dragon Age: Origins.

Also, the game will evidently ship with some form of toolset:

In addition to the real-time interaction interface, Sword Coast Legends will also include campaign mode tools allowing Dungeon Masters to create larger customized scenarios.

And darn if it doesn’t look gorgeous:

Sword Coast Legends’ official website — whereat you can already pre-order the game — has this to add to the above:

Set in the lush and vibrant world of the Forgotten Realms, Sword Coast Legends offers an all-new way to enjoy the time-tested magic of playing Dungeons & Dragons as a shared storytelling experience. With a deep narrative developed by a team of long-time industry veterans and a partnership with Wizards of the Coast, the single player campaign of Sword Coast Legends brings the world of Faerûn home like never before.

Sword Coast Legends also brings the roleplaying dynamic between players and Dungeon Masters to life with DM Mode, a first-of-its-kind real-time experience in which Dungeon Masters guide players through unique customizable adventures. In DM Mode, the Dungeon Master engages players and empowers them to have fun in a way that suits the party best while creating a tailored, non-adversarial 4 with 1 experience that any RPG or pen-and-paper fan will enjoy.

The project director is evidently Dan Tudge, who for a time managed the Dragon Age: Origins team at BioWare. He left BioWare in 2009 and took on a role at Disney, whereat he oversaw the production of Tron Evolution.

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Of course, n-Space doesn’t really have a lot of experience with epic-scale RPGs. Digital Extremes also hasn’t really taken on fantasy RPGs before; they’ve mostly worked on first-person shooters in the past. So…it’s not impossible that the game turns out to be a bit of a dud. But on the other hand, it could turn out to be a really well-put-together fantasy RPG with a robust toolset…the sort of thing that might be to the interest of some of you Dragons and Dragonettes.