The upcoming video game Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance has excited fans by allowing them play as some of the most popular characters of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. In fact, the protagonists of the game are the heroes of R. A. Salvatore’s best-selling Icewind Dale trilogy. In Dark Alliance, players will be able control the human warrior Catti-Brie, the dwarven Fighter Bruenor Battlehammer, the human Barbarian Wulfgar, and the legendary (if controversial) drow Ranger Drizzt Do’Urden.
Dark Alliance is the latest entry in a series that began with Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (which was itself a spinoff of the incredibly popular Baldur’s Gate games). Like its predecessors, this is an action RPG that allows players to hack and slash their way through hordes of enemies as they advance the plot. It will also allow up to four players to enjoy online co-op –something lacking from many fantasy games. Beyond its basic mechanics, the game ties into some of the most popular stories from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
The most famous of the game’s characters, Drizzt Do’Urden, is polarizing within the D&D community. He (along with the other characters) debuted in the novel The Crystal Shard, the first book in the Icewind Dale trilogy. Drizzt was a drow who fled from his people’s evil culture of black magic and routine murder, making a new life for himself in the region known as Ten Towns. Many fans resonated with this antihero who had renounced the evil ways of his past to make a better life.
Unfortunately, many D&D players tried to play their own version of Drizzt, leading to an over-saturatation of Drizzt knockoffs. Still, even those who dislike him will have trouble denying that his magic scimitars, Ranger spells and his otherworldly panther Guenhwyvar make him a perfect character for a hack-and-slash RPG.
The other characters also feel like a natural fit for the medium, all the more so because they already know one another within the books, allowing the plot to draw upon their existing relationships. Bruenor Battlehammer is a dwarven Fighter friend of Drizzt’s who, along with the rest of his people, protected the residents of Ten Towns from various outside attacks, wielding his axe with deadly precision.
Bruenor adopted a human child, Catti-Brie, raising her to become the great warrior. Her archery skills are on full display in the game, giving her advantages as a ranged combatant. Wulfgar is a human Barbarian who was captured in battle by Bruenor when the barbarian tribes attacked Ten Towns. Despite the circumstances of their meeting, the dwarf treated this youth like a son and raised him alongside Catti-Brie, even forging Wulfgar’s warhammer for him.
All of these characters have previously appeared in video games, but Dark Alliance allows fans to play cooperatively as this classic team of heroes, fighting across the same arctic fantasy realm fans know and love from the books. This is a great way to bring the Forgotten Realms to life and to recapture the wonder of the heroes’ classic adventures.
About The Author
