Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance - Official Gameplay Trailer and Previews
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Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, Tuque Games fast-paced co-op action-RPG featuring R.A Salvatore’s Companions of the Hall as playable characters now has a Steam page, release date (June 22, 2021), and a rather unorthodox gameplay trailer. Here it is:
And if you’d like to see some proper gameplay that doesn’t make the game look like some not at all funny joke, here’s IGN’s hands-on preview:
And here’s what PC Gamer has to say about the game:
Structurally I'm reminded of Vermintide. You've got a hub from which the party can gather and prepare, as well as selecting missions, and then when they're on the job it's all about pushing forward through the mass of enemies. No faffing around with inventories or character sheets. Developer Tuque is also a fan, but one place they differ is the kind of rewards the party gets back at camp.
Unlike Vermintide and most action-RPGs, Dark Alliance doesn't give you mountains of random loot. Instead, you'll find equipment belonging to different gear sets, each with distinct attributes that will inform how you play. This way, gear is tied to builds in more obvious ways, and there's less disposable junk. Each set also contains items with different rarities, with the rarer ones looking flashier and having bigger numbers.
I didn't really see elements like the story and the wider world. There was a cheery introduction to my mission where a bunch of giants played instruments around a campfire and sang a bawdy song, suggesting a playful nature, but beyond that, I have no idea. I do know there will be seven quests in total, each with three missions each.
The demo convinced me I could have a fun time in Dark Alliance, whittling away the hours grinding through it on late nights with some friends. But it also showed the game to be a much more modular, grinding experience than I think of the original Dark Alliance games as being. Outside of an opening cinematic and some light, in-mission dialogue, I didn’t get much of a sense of the greater Forgotten Realms world the game is pulling from, or why my friends and I would potentially be hacking and slashing our ways through it.
What's immediately striking about Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance is how fluid the combat feels. Chaining together attacks in different directions has an incredible flow to it, creating a graceful but impactful combat system that changes based on input direction and attack type. This system is supported by interesting abilities that can be used to create meaningful synergy. Each character has four abilities total, though only two can be slotted at once, along with a third ultimate ability.
