While Baldur's Gate 3 arrived in 2023 as seemingly the perfect Dungeons & Dragons adaptation from tabletop to video game, its predecessor Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is being shut down and removed from storefronts just three years after it launched.
The game's Steam page was updated to announce servers will be taken offline and the game removed from sale on February 24, 2025.
"We will be shutting down the Dark Alliance servers on February 24, 2025 and it will no longer be available to purchase starting that day," reads the note from developer Invoke Studios. "The base game and all DLC are still available to play in offline single-player by anyone who currently owns it."
Dark Alliance launched on June 22, 2021 as a promised "exciting, action-driven, hack-and-slash adventure filled with iconic monsters, legendary characters, and epic loot," but was received poorly by players and critics.
"Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is a tedious co-op adventure with lots of goblins and even more bugs," IGN said in our 4/10 review, and the game sits at a "mixed" rating on Steam with only 50% of reviews being positive.
Invoke Studios, which was known as Tuque Games at the time but later rebranded, is now working on another entry in the D&D franchise. Details are still slim, but publisher Wizards of the Coast confirmed it as an Unreal Engine 5 title and said it will be "a triple-A game derived from the Dungeons & Dragons universe."
Wizards of the Coast is all in on D&D video games at the moment, likely due to the astounding success of Baldur's Gate 3, as five games are currently in development.
Alongside Invoke Studios' new game comes a D&D survival role-playing game life simulator from the Disney Dreamlight Valley developer, a virtual reality game from the creators of Demeo, a co-op game from Payday 3 developer Starbreeze, and a mysterious entry from Hasbro.
Baldur's Gate 3 arrived in July 2023 and became the surprise hit of the year, with players obsessing over its seemingly infinite number of playstyles and story outcomes. It was incredibly successful commercially, pulling in $90 million for Hasbro and even more for developer Larian. Somehow, it's more popular this year than last.
In our 10/10 review, IGN said: "With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur's Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
