Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance Gets Re-Released for Modern Consoles

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is returning to consoles after 20 years. Interplay and Wizards of the Coast has announced that Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, a real-time hack and slash game set in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms, will be re-released for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Because of backwards compatability, the re-released game can also be played on the Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S. The game will be available on digital storefronts starting tomorrow, May 7th, and will cost $29.99. PC and mobile versions of the game will be released later this year. A trailer for the game can be found above.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, a spin-off of the popular Baldur's Gate franchise of video game RPGs, was a widely-acclaimed game when it was first released in 2001. The game made full use of the then-cutting edge graphics capabilities of the XBox and Playstation 2 and featured several classic D&D monsters such as the beholder and a white dragon. A sequel, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2, was released in 2004 and a third game in the series was cancelled after Interplay went bankrupt. Unlike the original Baldur's Gate games, the gameplay of Dark Alliance and its sequel focused mostly on hack and slash combat, although players could customize their characters and increase their spell power and feats over the course of the game. Co-op modes were also available and will remain available on the re-released versions.

The re-release is likely timed to coincide with the upcoming release of Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, a new hack and slash video game also set in the Forgotten Realms. While the original pair of Dark Alliance games featured original characters to the D&D franchise, the upcoming Dark Alliance stars famed drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden and his companions. Wizards of the Coast and its old video game partners have also re-released several other classic Dungeons & Dragons games in recent years, including Planescape Torment and the "Enchanced Editions" of the original Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate games. In addition to the upcoming new Dark Alliance game, Dungeons & Dragons also announced a new partnership with G4 that includes collaborating on the annual D&D Live event this summer and a 4-part D&D series that will air on G4 after the network's launch.