‘Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance’ Rolls a Natural One

Looking for a Group It’s safe to say that many in the nerd community passed their time during 2020 building community through tabletop & video gaming. Pairing these pastimes is Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. Development on this multiplayer dungeon-crawler began well before the pandemic. In a post-quarantine summer, however, has Dark Alliance missed its attack of opportunity? Over the years, the world’s most prolific tabletop RPG has had many digital forms. Dark Alliance’s main selling point is to offer playable versions of the popular adventuring party from R.A. Salvatore’s Icewind Dale series of novels. Players can select the dark elf rogue Drizzt Do’Urden, dwarven fighter Bruenor Battlehammer, and two humans: the ranger Cattie Brie, and Wulfgar the barbarian.

Your D&D party: Legolas, Gimli, and a pair of Burning Man trustafarians.

Each character is a hybrid of archetypes from D&D and action-brawling video games, with their own moveset, equipment, and character sheet. Together, the group must stop various factions — the titular Dark Alliance — vying to possess a dangerously powerful artifact across a multi-chapter campaign. As you slaughter your way through this fantasy aesthetic, it invokes D&D’s mechanics of combat and leveling up. Icewind Delve Combat in Dark Alliance comfortably translates to the staples of modern action games. Light, heavy, and special attack combos mix with dodging, blocking, and parrying to make up yo…