WotC Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Video Game Announcement Trailer

An announcement trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance premiered at The Game Awards on Thursday evening.

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Developed by Tuque Games, the studio acquired earlier this year by Wizards of the Coast, the game will be a sequel of sorts in the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance action-RPG series for the Xbox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube. This game, however, will go to Icewind Dale and feature four-player co-op as you take on the roles of Drizzt Do'Urden, Cattie-Brie, Wulfgar, and Bruenor. The game is due for release in 2020.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh, it will. A DnD logo on anything will sell and they know it. I just wondering how the heck Tuque games was acquired by WotC in the first place, I guess they had a few millions to purchase a studio and were poorly guided. It's quite sad to know exactly where this is going and not being able to do anything about it. Buyers will be displeased, fans will be pissed, WotC corporate will say (again) "no more videogames" and we'll get a videogame drought once again.

Not really I don't think the last disaster had that many people using it on steam.

D&D logo on videogames is usually an indicator of low quality if anything.

 

[Mercule]

Wow. There is nothing -- not one thing -- appealing about that trailer. In fact, everything about it makes me want to stay away.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Eh... I grew up playing games like Wizardry, Ultima, Zork, etc... and still play games that would be considered to have "bad" graphics. The the graphics in this game are disturbingly bad. They just look plain awful. You can defend it all you want, but I don't see this game appealing to very many gamers. It'll be in the $5 bin pretty quickly.

I don’t especially care either way, I just...don’t see what y’all are so negative about, here. It looks like a normal video game.

 

[ddaley]

I don’t especially care either way, I just...don’t see what y’all are so negative about, here. It looks like a normal video game.

I play quite a few video games... ranging from old school games to modern day games, such as Division 2. This does not look like a "normal" video game... I wonder if you have some vested interest in this particular game.

 

[Zardnaar]

I play quite a few video games... ranging from old school games to modern day games, such as Division 2. This does not look like a "normal" video game... I wonder if you have some vested interest in this particular game.

Trailer looked about 10 years out of date graphically and 15 years out of date content wise.

But apart from that it was reasonably normal. Just looked and sounded bad.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I play quite a few video games... ranging from old school games to modern day games, such as Division 2. This does not look like a "normal" video game... I wonder if you have some vested interest in this particular game.

Lol seriously?

 

[Sacrosanct]

D&D logo on videogames is usually an indicator of low quality if anything.

I don’t know. It seems hit or miss. We’ve had really good ones like BG series, gold box, Neverwinter Nights, and even ToEE was good. Then you’ve got stinkers like Menzoberanzan, Blood and Magic, Dark Sun, DragonStrike, and Sword Coast Legends.

So if patterns repeat, Larion’s BG game will be good, and this one will suck lol

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t know. It seems hit or miss. We’ve had really good ones like BG series, gold box, Neverwinter Nights, and even ToEE was good. Then you’ve got stinkers like Menzoberanzan, Blood and Magic, Dark Sun, DragonStrike, and Sword Coast Legends.

So if patterns repeat, Larion’s BG game will be good, and this one will suck lol

I wouldn't be overly confident as to which way each will go. But, yeah, a bit of a crapshoot. Making WotC an actual video game publisher is the long-term project to bring quality control in-house, but that's a long road.

 

[Dausuul]

The trailer for "Theros: Beyond Death" is about ten times more exciting and twenty times better-looking, and that's a trailer for a freakin' card game.

I was hoping Wizards would prove the naysayers (among whom I count myself) wrong about the decision to buy Tuque. So far, though, it's naysayers 1, Wizards 0.

 

[Aebir-Toril]

The main problem with the graphics, apart from anything else, is not that they're "not detailed enough", because there are many great games with simple graphics, such as Breath of the Wild, among many, many others.

The primary problem which I see is that the character models have perhaps the worst motion animations I have seen in a "serious" release for a while. Heck, Mr. D's (I'm not getting into the various spellings of his name) body is completely divorced from the motion of his arms, which are divorced from the motion of his head in the trailer. The only way I would be able to accept such awful animations and, top be frank, plastic-like graphic quality with nothing original to tie it together in a modern game would be if extreme character customization was offered.

However, from what I have read, this does not seem to be the case.

As more information has come out, the game has dropped to the murky bottom of my "games to check out or recommend" list. I'm sorry, but, as an avid player of many games myself, I simply can't accept those animations, or the graphic quality in this age, as nothing original has been done.

 

[Sacrosanct]

If you have to put a seizure warning at the start of your ad, not a good sign

 

[Hurin88]

I don’t know. It seems hit or miss. We’ve had really good ones like BG series, gold box, Neverwinter Nights, and even ToEE was good. Then you’ve got stinkers like Menzoberanzan, Blood and Magic, Dark Sun, DragonStrike, and Sword Coast Legends.

So if patterns repeat, Larion’s BG game will be good, and this one will suck lol

Don't forget DDO. Some people didn't like it, due to the fact that it took some chances in its dungeon structure, but my friends and I played the heck out of it, and loved it. Nothing like having Gary Gygax narrate a dungeon for you!

 

[Hurin88]

The primary problem which I see is that the character models have perhaps the worst motion animations I have seen in a "serious" release for a while. Heck, Mr. D's (I'm not getting into the various spellings of his name) body is completely divorced from the motion of his arms, which are divorced from the motion of his head in the trailer. The only way I would be able to accept such awful animations and, top be frank, plastic-like graphic quality with nothing original to tie it together in a modern game would be if extreme character customization was offered.

That's what I was most disappointed by as well: the animations. They are terrible. The moment when Bruenor raises his shield and tilts his head is telling. It's almost like I'm watching the guy in Dire Straits' Money for Nothing video in 1987 again.

 

[slygeek]

Is this a joke? How did they think a heavy metal track would inspire the RPG community? Who grew up loving games like Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy and Elder Scrolls. Are they retarded?

And what's with the acid trip through Icewind Dale? Looked like Drizzt was having a seizure.

PASS

 

[SkidAce]

Is this a joke? How did they think a heavy metal track would inspire the RPG community? Who grew up loving games like Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy and Elder Scrolls. Are they retarded?

And what's with the acid trip through Icewind Dale? Looked like Drizzt was having a seizure.

PASS

A. I grew up with those games and love heavy metal.

B. That trailer is awful.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Is this a joke? How did they think a heavy metal track would inspire the RPG community? Who grew up loving games like Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy and Elder Scrolls. Are they ?

And what's with the acid trip through Icewind Dale? Looked like Drizzt was having a seizure.

PASS

Had they chosen an actual heavy metal track, it could easily have worked. The overlap between the target audience and people who enjoy metal is pretty damn big.
They chose a terrible sub genre of metal (seriously metalcore is closer to just really angry sounding 2000’s rock than it is to other metal sub genres) and made a dumb trailer with it.

 

[SpellJammer16]

I cannot stand the trailer or the music. I sure hope any in game cut scenes are not like this.
I'm not going to base my decision on the trailer though as I usually find them misleading.
Let's see some gameplay footage!

Hoping BG3 will do it for me so I am looking for a 4 player coop game to play with the kids (we already played D&D Heroes) but this might be too bloody. Currently waiting for Minecraft Dungeons to be released in the spring. Gameplay trailer:

 

[Mercador]

D&D logo on videogames is usually an indicator of low quality if anything.

For us, yeah, but consider the "Stranger Things" flock as well.

 

[Aebir-Toril]

Had they chosen an actual heavy metal track, it could easily have worked. The overlap between the target audience and people who enjoy metal is pretty damn big.
They chose a terrible sub genre of metal (seriously metalcore is closer to just really angry sounding 2000’s rock than it is to other metal sub genres) and made a dumb trailer with it.

The metal they chose to utilize is more like "bro metal" or "chaos metal" than anything else. It's experimental no-wave somesuch, and it doesn't fit.

 

[Mercador]

Lol seriously?

Astroturfing is a thing

But I think you are just more positive than the majority here. As someone that had to review Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor 20 years ago, I have to be skeptic. Moreover when the owner's studio is boasting a AAA game studio without tangible proofs. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. I wish I'm wrong and we'll get a fun Drizzt hack&slash game but I feel we'll get a reskin of their only other game, à la Diablo Immortal.