The Ps 2 wasn’t a platform famend for its western-style RPGs. You have been brief on choices should you have been the sort of adventurer in search of dwarves and elves and half-elves traversing deep dungeons by torchlight earlier than rising with their loot to commerce within the metropolis, the place you’d go on to get served ale and quests by a busty bar woman in a fuggy tavern referred to as The Regal Horseshoe, The Prancing Pixie, or The Unfold-Eagled Goblin… or one thing.
And whereas I’ve talked fairly lately a few uncommon discover of a western RPG that got here out on PS2, there was additionally an sudden RPG heavy hitter that got here to Sony’s console just a little later. In 2001, Baldur’s Gate: Darkish Alliance arrived on PS2, containing all of the tropes outlined in that first paragraph – busty bar woman and all.
Darkish Alliance went together with the prevalent stereotype on the time that console avid gamers had the eye span of Slaughterfish (which is marginally longer than that of a goldfish, I’ve been instructed) and wouldn’t have the ability to deal with a posh RPG within the vein of the primary two Baldur’s Gate video games. It was a Diablo-style ARPG, with a deal with hacking, slashing, lots of loot, and a closely streamlined levelling and development system.
The pondering, in keeping with Interaction Senior Producer Eric DeMilt, was easy. He instructed me in an interview final yr, “My feeling was, ‘hey, right here’s our largest IP and we don’t have a console providing for it. Right here’s a workforce with actually nice tech that’s actually into this house. Why don’t we speak to them about doing a PS2 and Xbox model?”
It was truly a fairly nice recreation for the time, constructed by a 13-person workforce in a mere six months on a robust in-house engine made at Snowblind Studios referred to as the Snowblind Engine. It had unbelievable water deformation, silky-smooth body charges, and loads of beautiful little touches like individually rendered cash dropped by enemies, which meant that the quantity you picked up in a pile mirrored the quantity you acquired in your stock.
The fight felt nice too, with satisfying squelchiness as battle axes cleaved rats and goblins in two, fireplace spells brought on enemies to go up in convincing blazes, and spell results glimmered . The shoehorning of a leap button and varied platforming parts is, in hindsight, sort of quaint, exhibiting the sport to very a lot be a product of a time when such issues have been deemed essential bins to tick in consoles video games. It’s as if the business-minded field tickers, pondering ‘Console avid gamers are easy individuals. They don’t know what an RPG is, however they do like platforming stuff like Crash Bandicoot or Mario, so let’s have a few of that.’
Darkish Alliance offered over one million copies throughout the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, which was sufficient to warrant a sequel. In reality, at the moment writer Interaction was moving into severe monetary problem. The writer offered off Baldur’s Gate developer BioWare, and needed to cancel new PC entries within the Baldur’s Gate and Fallout collection. Console video games appeared to be a relatively fast and simple strategy to become profitable, and so Interaction started a sequel to Darkish Alliance.
The issue is that Darkish Alliance developer Snowblind was solely contracted for the primary Darkish Alliance, and following the sport’s launch the proficient studio was rapidly snapped up by Sony On-line Leisure to make Champions of Norrath – an action-RPG spinoff from the favored MMO EverQuest. This left Interaction to make use of one among its legendary inside studios, Black Isle Studios, to make Darkish Alliance 2.
This created an enchanting cut up, the place two video games with the same model have been being constructed on the identical bespoke engine on the similar time by two completely different groups. Baldur’s Gate: Darkish Alliance 2 and Champions of Norrath got here out inside a month of one another firstly of 2004, forking off from the compelling ARPG method began by Darkish Alliance in 2001.
The video games may’ve been whole overhaul mods of each other, with the identical fight system, engine, artwork model, even UI fonts. However they did have some key variations. Darkish Alliance 2 (whose sudden PC port I reviewed lately) launched a much more various and compelling roster than its predecessor, full with particular person character quests, dialogue, and so forth. Being a Black Isle recreation, it additionally launched some nods to its PC lineage, with issues like an overworld map you could possibly journey throughout and a few fascinating crossovers with Baldur’s Gate lore (although being a smelly little console recreation, it was by no means deemed match for Forgotten Realms canon).
Champions of Norrath, in the meantime, was a beast each related and altogether completely different. As an alternative of supplying you with preset characters with their very own tales, it allow you to create your personal character from a number of templates primarily based on Everquest races and lessons. So you could possibly be a Darkish Elf Shadow Knight, for instance, a Barbarian Fighter, or an Erudite Wizard, selecting their intercourse, in addition to completely different hair types, faces and tattoos. It was customisation on the expense of characterisation, and whether or not it was higher or not didn’t matter a lot as the truth that it felt so parallel to Darkish Alliance 2.
In some methods, Snowblind’s higher expertise with their very own engine was telling in Champions of Norrath (and its 2005 sequel, Champions: Return to Arms). The sport bumped the co-op as much as 4 gamers (and utilised the PS2’s burgeoning on-line play function), and the EverQuest environments have been just a little extra flashy. The treetop cities, rolling desert dunes and even tropical climes of Norrath felt extra vivid and various than the extra classical fantasy setting of Darkish Alliance 2.
Among the voice expertise from the unique Darkish Alliance, similar to Cam Clarke and Tony Jay, went over to Norrath as effectively, although Darkish Alliance 2 voice expertise like Alan Shearman, Alan Oppenheimer (aka Skeletor from He-Man) was nothing to be sniffed at both. Black Isle’s RPG chops have been additionally mirrored in Darkish Alliance 2’s barely deeper levelling and ability system.
Whichever of the 2 video games you most well-liked (why not each?), their coexistence was weird, just like the convergence of two separate timelines – one wherein Snowblind stored its engine, the opposite wherein Interaction stored the rights to it. And should you ask Snowblind, then these two video games shouldn’t have each existed. When Snowblind acquired wind in 2003 that Interaction was persevering with to make use of the Snowblind Engine to make its personal video games, it launched a authorized dispute, claiming that Interaction ought to’ve obtained consent to make use of the engine. The dispute led to 2005 with one thing of a pyrrhic victory for Snowblind. It was agreed beneath the phrases of the settlement that Interaction may proceed working with already-made video games within the Snowblind engine, however wouldn’t have the ability to use it for future video games.
This exacerbated Interaction’s monetary woes, and meant that they needed to cancel improvement of Baldur’s Gate: Darkish Alliance 3, in addition to Fallout: Brotherhood of Metal 2, the sequel to a different equally styled hack-and-slasher set within the Fallout universe (which, it must be stated, was far inferior to Baldur’s Gate or Champions). The Snowblind Engine’s shelf life didn’t final a lot past 2005 anyway, with the final recreation made utilizing it being Justice League Heroes, launched by Snowblind Studios in 2006.
We don’t know whether or not Interaction genuinely believed it ‘part-owned’ the Snowblind Engine, or if of their monetary turmoil they have been simply attempting to see what number of video games they might launch on it earlier than they acquired caught. Given the latest re-releases of Baldur’s Gate: Darkish Alliance 1 and a couple of on fashionable consoles and PC (at a whopping $40/£30, no much less), it appears like Interaction acquired various mileage out of the Snowblind Engine. You need to surprise of Dawn Recreation Firm, the present holders of the EverQuest IP, are wanting over at these video games and weighing up the same return for the Champions of Norrath video games, which might let at the moment’s avid gamers expertise this fascinating RPG rivalry from the PS2 period.
