Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Interview

Last week, we got a chance to see some gameplay and read a few hands-on previews for Tuque Games’ upcoming action-RPG Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. Now, we can follow that up with another preview, one from VentureBeat, that doubles as an interview with Tuque Games’ founder Jeff Hattem. This interview of sorts touches on the game’s setting, features and some of the enemies we’ll be facing.

Here’s an excerpt:

“There’s a certain level of authenticity that we want to respect with the game. I think we’ve found a happy medium of supporting players who want to progress through the game as well as being true to the IP and the characters of the world.”

Verbeegs haven’t had much representation in 5E D&D. They made their comeback in the Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, which debuted in September. I asked if Tuque picked the verbeeg not just because of their connection to Icewind Dale and the early days of the Companions of the Hall but also because Wizards had just reintroduced the giants to D&D.

“It came more from the fact that we wanted to support where this is in the timeline. We’re about 100 years behind of the event currently in 5th Edition, so we set the game sometime after the events of The Crystal Shard book. [It] featured the verbeeg. They were a key type of monster, so we wanted to showcase them to be true to the books,” Hattem said. “And we also thought that, what was cool was they hadn’t been reimagined for 5th Edition, so we thought it’d be cool to give them our own spin on how they’re being represented.”