Trivia / Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

• B-Team Sequel: Dark Alliance II was developed by Black Isle rather than Snowblind Studios who were busy developing Champions of Norrath for Sony Interactive.
• Executive Meddling: This entire sub-franchise was born due to Black Isle and BioWare's refusal to turn their PC RPG games into Diablo-clones.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Years after its release, the game was no longer available for sale. At least until it got an unexpected port for modern consoles, as well as Windows, Mac and Linux as part of a promotion for Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. Dark Alliance II was also ported one year later.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Shortly before Dark Alliance II was released, Snowblind initiated a lawsuit against Interplay, which argued that their game engine was used by Interplay to develop II and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel without their permission. As part of the settlement, Interplay can no longer use the game engine or the Dark Alliance name, which ultimately led to the cancellation of Dark Alliance III.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Black Isle was working on Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance III around 2004, but the studio was shut down by Interplay.
  • A Windows port of Dark Alliance was initially scheduled to be developed by CD Projekt around the same time as the game's original launch, but it was cancelled. It wouldn't be until December 17 of 2021, a few days past the twentieth anniversary of the original PlayStation 2 release, that Dark Alliance would finally arrive on PC (albeit without CD Projekt's involvement).
  • A Nintendo GameCube version of Dark Alliance II was considered, dependent on sales of the PS2/Xbox versions. However Interplay's financial difficulties got in the way, and the port was quietly cancelled.