The story of the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance will be tied to some of the best-selling D&D novels of all time, as players will have to stop one of the most powerful villains in the tabletop game from returning to power. Dungeons & Dragons is best-known for being a tabletop game, as well as inspiring a number of excellent video games, but there have also been lots of best-selling D&D novels released over the years.
One of the most popular D&D novels is The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore, which fleshed out the Icewind Dale region and introduced Drizzt Do’Urden, who started out as a member of an ensemble cast but became the star of his own long-running series out of books that continue to this day. Drizzt has had cameo roles in many D&D video games, but he is taking center stage in the upcoming Dark Alliance, alongside his fellows in the Companions of the Hall, as they fight to protect Icewind Dale from destruction.
The initial trailer for Dark Alliance was shown during The Game Awards 2019, but it revealed nothing about the story. It was revealed that Dark Alliance would focus on multiplayer, especially in regards to couch co-op, but nothing was mentioned about the storyline at the time. Screen Rant recently attended a digital press event for Dark Alliance and the upcoming Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign setting, where the meaning behind the name of the game was explained.
The villain of The Crystal Shard novel is a sentient magic item called Crenshinibon, which granted its wielder incredible power, while slowly taking over their mind. Crenshinibon might be the most powerful magical item in Dungeons & Dragons, as its bearer gains power equivalent to that of a high-level wizard by simply bonding to it. Drizzt just barely managed to defeat Crenshinibon’s wielder at the end of The Crystal Shard and it was buried beneath a mountain of snow after causing an avalanche, where it resided for several years before finding a new wielder. Dark Alliance is set after the events of The Crystal Shard, as the titular alliance is composed of an army of evil beings who are searching for Crenshinibon in order to use its power, and it’s up to Drizzt and his friends to stop them. The storyline of the game doesn’t totally gel with that of the timeline from the novels, but the video game can deviate from the source material if it’s intended to be a standalone product.
Wizards of the Coast has promised that more D&D video games will be released in the future and it makes sense for them to star some of the most iconic characters in the franchise. As the tabletop game grows in popularity, it’s possible that these characters could one day make their way to the screen, so it makes sense to introduce them to unfamiliar audiences through the D&D video games as a testing ground for things to come.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is due to be released in 2020.
