BALDUR'S GATE: DARK ALLIANCE to hit PC after twenty-year wait

The 2001 action-RPG Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is to arrive on PC later this year after spending more than twenty years as a console exclusive.

The original game was an action-oriented spin-off from the Baldur's Gate CRPG series from BioWare, although they were not involved in the Dark Alliance project. Snowblind Studios (now part of Monolith) developed the game and its highly-acclaimed (for the time) engine, and the game was published by Interplay via their Black Isle subsidiary. The game is less talky and cerebral than the mainline CRPG series, instead focusing on combat as the resolution to most of the game's challenges. Despite this, it still uses a simplified version of the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition ruleset to handle gameplay.

The game was well-received and sold over a million copies in its first year on sale, which at the time was considered a great success. Polish developers CD Projekt began developing a PC version of the game as their very first project, but Interplay, in financial difficulties at the time, went bust and the port was cancelled; CD Projekt used the expertise and experience gained to help develop The Witcher for release in 2007. Black Isle did release a sequel to the game, Dark Alliance II, in 2004.

The game has since been reissued for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S and Nintendo Switch, with a PC version now slated to follow in a few months. At over twenty years, this marks one of the longest waits a game has had to endure for a port to a platform that existed when it was released, although it is not a record: Final Fantasy III (1990) had to wait for twenty-four years for its port from the Nintendo Entertainment System to PC in 2014, whilst Chrono Trigger (1995) had to wait twenty-three years for its port.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, a spiritual successor the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series, is set for release on 22 June this year. Baldur's Gate III, a semi-sequel to the original CRPG series, is currently in Early Access and should get a full release in late 2021 or (more likely) 2022.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: DARK ALLIANCE gets release date and trailer

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance has gotten a surprisingly imminent release date. The game will launch on 22 June this year.

D&D: Dark Alliance is a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001) and Dark Alliance II (2004). Like those games, this is an action title set in the Forgotten Realms world and emphasising combat over roleplaying. The game sees the players taking control of the infamous Companions of the Hall - drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden, human archer Cattie-brie, dwarven warrior Bruenor Battlehammer and human barbarian Wulfgar - in a struggle against an army of invaders that swarmed into Icewind Dale in search of the infamous magical artifact known as the Crystal Shard. These characters and events were made famous in R.A. Salvatore's bestselling novel series, The Icewind Dale Trilogy, although the game does not appear to be a 1:1 adaptation of the novels, featuring as it does both beholders and wights (which are nowhere to be found in the books).

The trailer makes some bold choices with bombastic visuals, a heavy rock soundtrack and very generic-looking action. Hopefully the game will be better than it appears.

The game will launch on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, X-Box One and X-Box Series X, as well as, pleasingly, PC (the original Dark Alliance games were not released on PC).

BALDUR'S GATE: DARK ALLIANCE reboot announced

Wizards of the Coast and Tuque Games have announced a reboot of the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance action game franchise from the 2000s.

The new game, now just titled Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, is a co-op action game where up to four players can take on the roles of the infamous Companions of the Hall: Drizzt Do'Urden, Bruenor Battlehammer, Wulfgar and Cattie-brie, characters made famous in R.A. Salvatore's long-running Legends of Drizzt series of Forgotten Realms novels.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001) and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (2004) were successful action games for the original X-Box. They were ostensibly spun off from the Baldur's Gate CRPG series on PC, but in practice had very little to do with them.

The Baldur's Gate series is returning next year with Baldur's Gate III, a turn-based CRPG from the renowned Larian Studios (the creators of the acclaimed Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel). Presumably the new Dark Alliance game dropped the original title to avoid brand confusion.