Atari announces Neverwinter, a new co-op role-playing game set in the city of the Dungeons & Dragons city of Neverwinter planned for release next year. This follows indications from a couple of weeks ago we referred to as cryptic, which turns out to be coincidentally prescient, as the game is being developed by Cryptic Studios, to be directly based on a new upcoming book trilogy by R.A. Salvatore, who is also creating the story for 38 Studios' upcoming Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The Neverwinter Website is live with hints about character classes and newsletter signups, and here's a bit from the announcement:

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

“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," said Jack Emmert, COO of Cryptic Studios. "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."

In Neverwinter, players choose to become one of five classic D&D classes and team up with friends or computer-controlled allies to form five-person co-op groups. Players also create their own storylines and quests utilizing an extremely user-friendly content generation system, tentatively codenamed Forge.