Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance dropped on Steam on Tuesday night and the reviews, well, the reviews are… really something.
According to the product description, Dark Alliance promised to be an “explosive action brawler filled with real-time combat and dynamic co-op.” In reality, it has been described as “clunky and horrible for a hack and slash action game.”
In less than 24 hours, the game has already been hit with so many negative reviews that D&D has been forced to address the issue on Twitter, asserting that developers are “listening to all of your feedback and working through updates that will keep making the game better.”
Thank you for those who are choosing to adventure with us on Dark Alliance. We are listening to all of your feedback and working through updates that will keep making the game better. Please continue to share your thoughts with us here. pic.twitter.com/ATXOocKPnl
— Dark Alliance (@DarkAlliance) June 22, 2021
While some people are reporting positive experiences with the game (though, these reviews are few and far between), a vast majority of reviews seem to echo the same issue: the game doesn’t work.
“IF IT WORKED, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance would be a bland third person dungeon crawler with some neat ideas and quite a few rough edges. IF IT WORKED, it might be a 2.5 / 5 star game. But it doesn’t work. The AI is outright broken,” one Steam reviewer wrote.
“Game is extremely, extremely unfinished and unpolished. Vermintide did everything better years ago. Don’t waste your money,” another added.
A third reviewer went so far as to reference Jesus himself in an effort to warn other players against this game.
“Jesus christ do not buy Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance. It’s a 3/10 at it’s best. My Friends and myself tried it two different times on two different days and both times we found the game to be uninspired and not fun to play. It loves none of it’s ideas and feels less than half baked. Even if it did at least pay attention to it’s own ideas, what’s left is still a half baked combat system, terrible scaling, blank characters, and a lot of minor jank. Not even worth a sale imo.”
At the time of publishing, the game has an abysmal 44% rating on Steam out of a whopping 1,035 reviews.
Overall, the game just feels incredibly unfinished. But if you’re wanting specifics, it crashes, has connectivity issues with online play and is basically just a really poorly designed game.
…also ARROW KEYS TO TARGET DIFFERENT ENEMIES. ARROW KEYS. I WON’T EVER LET THIS GO BECAUSE IT IS THE WORST, STUPIDEST DECISION EVER MADE.
— Terrence Jarrad (@hailtonothing) June 22, 2021
Additionally, the in-game AI doesn’t even recognise you unless you’re within a certain distance of your target, which means you’re basically just shooting blanks.
Don’t believe the reviews? Take a look for yourself.
Upper Echelon Gamers went as far as to claim they “cannot actually tell what is a glitch and what is intended.”
Australian YouTuber SkillUp featured more bugs, including segments where the AI simply refused to move or respond.
If you’re interested, you can buy the game on Steam for $59.95. I’m not going to stop you, I’m not your boss. It’s also available on Xbox Game Pass across PC and consoles, so that might be the better shout.
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