On June 22, the new Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance was released, a coop action RPG in one of the world’s most well-known fantasy universes. MeinMMO author Benedict Grothaus played alongside colleague Benedikt Schlotmann and was disappointed. Nevertheless, the two played for many hours because they just couldn’t stop. Sounds strange? It was.
What is Dark Alliance? The new action RPG tells the story of the dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden and his group who save Icewind Dale – a story that fans of the Forgotten Realms probably know, and which others might not be familiar with. But that’s not so important.
You play as one of four heroes in various missions either alone or in a coop of four, primarily defeating goblins and other enemies while trying to thwart dark machinations. A classic “Good vs. Evil”.
The focus is on cooperation and combat. Each character plays differently with their own abilities. However, this very cooperation is a significant problem.
What am I reading here and from whom? To begin with: This is not a technical review of Dark Alliance. On one hand, there are already plenty of those (such as from our colleagues at GamePro and GameStar), and on the other hand, neither Benedikt nor I intended to evaluate the game objectively.
We are both huge fans of the world and played Dark Alliance as such. Dungeons & Dragons has been part of our (gaming) lives for over 10 years.
About the authors: Benedikt passionately played all parts of Baldur’s Gate and is a fan of the Forgotten Realms in which Dark Alliance is set. I, on the other hand, have been playing the pen and paper for many years now in three different groups simultaneously. At least one session per week is the goal.
So what is this then? Well, a report on how a seemingly promising game can still captivate despite its problems – if you let it. At the same time, it serves as a warning to all interested parties to thoughtfully consider how to evaluate a game in advance.
We played together for about ten hours over two (or actually three due to the day change) days.
The combat system is great, but fighting is not fun
This is the game’s major weakness: Everything in Dark Alliance relies on killing enemies. For this, we are given cool combos, unique abilities, and powerful ultimates. Especially in coop, extremely strong team attacks are possible.
As much as the game emphasizes combat and fighting, it is disappointing that the system fails to convince. The biggest weak points are:
- Aiming is difficult, often attacks go awry and it is unclear why.
- The focus on melee makes coordination challenging.
- Enemy attacks are not particularly transparent – sometimes they deal damage seemingly without actually hitting.
- Your own attacks are similar; sometimes they apparently have no effect even if they hit.
- Every fight is somewhat the same. Ordinary monsters are not very varied, but are frequently encountered – this quickly becomes monotonous.
- Bosses are more challenging, but sometimes either buggy or can be “cheesed”, i.e., simply pushed into a corner and beaten until they are dead.
Many attacks cannot be canceled, and it is unclear how long they actually take to execute. Particularly with Drizzt, the rogue, I often found myself having to watch the elf spin a few pirouettes, preventing me from dodging an attack.
Quite often, Benedikt had to help me up after a massive troll club knocked me against the wall again. In my solo tests, I loudly cursed similar situations.
We noticed these weak points primarily in coop; alone it seems to play at least somewhat better, although still not perfectly.
What are the developers doing about it? In an initial patch, connection issues have already been fixed, which were partly responsible for making fights and especially the hit feedback feel so bad (via Steam).
However, the big problem is that the system likely cannot be improved without a major rework. I don’t see how the abilities and talents can be changed such that fighting feels better.
Both enemies and all characters would probably need a complete overhaul – and whether that would still be the game that Dark Alliance wants to be, I can’t really say. But I’m also not sure if it has to, because …
… then it was 4:30 AM
Why did we still play all night? In our first session, we only played one mission to see how Dark Alliance feels in coop – it took about an hour. In the second session, we completely lost track of time.
When I suggested to Benedikt after – I believe the fourth – mission to play another round, we both only then realized that it was already half past 4. We completely forgot the time, even though we kept complaining about the combat system.
Reasons for this are the environment and the story. Even though Dark Alliance fails to convince with its gameplay, the storytelling is really well done. Each level tells its own story, and the environment hides details like impaled corpses or old statues that somehow belong to the story – and we always wanted to know how they fit in.
Spoiler Warning: Here are a few snippets of the story from Dark Alliance
The story itself is quite black and white (Drizzt and his crew save the world), but excitingly told. Out of nowhere, a dragon appears and insults the goblins, some pseudo-ogres complain about how dwarves taste, and an apparently important wizard has his soul or something stolen. Why? I don’t know, but I want to find out.
Visually, Dark Alliance is also gorgeous. We stood for several minutes at a cliff just admiring the mountains. Together with the story, the game then did pull us in quite a bit, at least until we became too tired.
Will we play it again? Probably yes. When, we do not know yet, but it was at least fun enough that we will give the game another chance at some point. At the latest when there are signs that the problems have been resolved.
The setting has a certain charm that somehow lingers in the back of our minds and gnaws at our conscience: “Take another look, it wasn’t that bad – and you had fun!”
A game for lovers and nerds
We cannot make an unconditional recommendation due to the combat system and the problems with it. Nevertheless, you should at least keep an eye on Dark Alliance if you:
- Like coop games
- Generally enjoy Dungeons & Dragons or Forgotten Realms specifically
- Are looking for a pretty fantasy RPG with a lot of action
- Are interested in diverse classes
- Have friends you can play with
The last point is probably the most important. Playing Dark Alliance alone was really exhausting – it was only in coop that we both had real fun. You often see something similar in reviews. Therefore, I stick to my opinion that I had during the initial play with the developers:
We played the new ARPG Dark Alliance – Seems perfect for a cozy coop evening (but only there)
