In news that's only surprising on account of the fact that the game lasted as long as it did, Tuque Games' co-op hack-and-slasher Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance will be shutting down servers and be removed from sale on February 24, 2025. The game will still be available to play single-player, but as things stand there will be no more online functionality as of that date, which is pretty much a death knell for a game largely built around co-op dungeoneering.
In an update to the Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Steam store page (via Polygon), the developers wrote:
"We will be shutting down the Dark Alliance servers on 2/24/2025 and it will no longer be available to purchase starting that day. The base game and all DLC are still available to play in offline single player by anyone who currently owns it."
Right from those early trailers, which were packed with squirm-inducing music choices, Dark Alliance felt like a game with an identity problem. It took the 'Dark Alliance' name from the well-liked Baldur's Gate spin-offs that originally came out in the early 2000s, but didn't really have anything to do with those games. Instead of top-down Diablo-like play (which the D&D setting is absolutely crying out for), Dark Alliance was a third-person co-op action game set in Icewind Dale, and starring the Forgotten Realms Drow bad boy Drizzt Do'Urden among other familiar faces from the setting.
In some ways this aesthetically pleasing arena-based stomp through fantasy climes felt like a more action-oriented, story-light Dragon Age: The Veilguard, minus all the bonkable companions and super-polished combat. The game got off to a shaky launch with tons of connectivity problems and bugs, and despite the dev patching the game up over the years and bolstering it with an expansion, the player base never really picked up.
That's not to say that Dark Alliance didn't have its supporters. In fact, our own Andy Kelly gave it a very respectable 82, which means that, according to Metacritic, PC Gamer holds the proud title of 'highest review score given to Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance in the world'. Kelly was enthralled by the game's environmental and character art, as well as its combat. He also said he had a great time playing through much of the game solo, so maybe there's a bit of fun to extract from this should it see a steep price drop (which it really should) before it goes off the market in February.
It's a shame the devs never delivered the split-screen update they said was forthcoming, because that could've given the game a lease of life beyond its doomed online multiplayer.
