Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance has been announced as a continuation of the hack-and-slash Dark Alliance series from the early 2000s, one of many D&D-based games in the works, and it's bringing several familiar faces with it. The new Dark Alliance allows players to take on the role of four extremely famous faces in the history of Dungeons & Dragons: Drizzt Do'Urden and his Companions of the Hall.
Drizzt is, of course, the star of a long series of novels taking place in the Forgotten Realms D&D setting, written by author R.A. Salvatore--who is also lending his expertise to the writing of Dark Alliance, as its main characters are all his creation. While Drizzt's face is the one fans of D&D are the most likely to recognize at the top of their heads, his Companions of the Hall are pretty well-known too: Catti-brie, Bruenor Battlehammer, Wulfgar, and Regis "Rumblebelly," the halfling rogue. As it stands, Catti-brie, Bruenor, and Wulfgar are all set to be playable characters alongside Drizzt in the upcoming Dark Alliance game, but what about Regis?
In a way, it makes sense that Regis would be the character excluded from being a main; of the group, he has the fewest overtly familial connections to the rest, though of course, they all consider each other friends and comrades. Nonetheless, Catti-brie and Wulfgar are both Bruenor's adopted children, and Drizzt is...well, Drizzt. Aside from being the ultimate main character, he's also married (or romantically entangled, at least, depending on when the game takes place) to Catti-brie, and Bruenor was his first true friend on the surface world. On top of all that, Regis has built up a record of slipping in and out of the story throughout Drizzt Do'Urden's saga.
This is probably because Regis has always been the least like an "adventurer" of his friends; where they're each near-relentless in their wanderlust and ability to track down trouble, the halfling rogue is notably fond of comfortable living. He's always the one out of his Companions to search for the least-dangerous solution to a problem and generally doesn't like violence at all. Perhaps that doesn't make for the best combination for someone whose best friends are famous adventurers, but Regis's personality allowed him to develop alternate strengths: over the course of his travels, he grew wise and perceptive, often picking up on things that his friends missed, a great trait for Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance.
Regis also didn't necessarily think of himself as a hero. He could support his friends in battle and sneak attack enemies if violence was called for, but still never believed himself to be on the same level as the other Companions of the Hall. They took on legendary foes, while he preferred fishing and smoking his pipe; by comparison, Regis tended to rely on them quite heavily during their adventures. Still, he's a crafty person, and always ready to do a search of the battlefield (and fallen enemies) once the dust settles after a fight.
The reason for Regis's apparent absence, at least from Dark Alliance's main cast, could very well depend on the time in which it takes place, meaning that the game could be set during one of his periodic episodes of separation from Drizzt and the Companions. If the others' appearances in the Dark Alliance trailer is anything to go by, the game might take place relatively early on in the series' timeline of events. Take Catti-brie's weapons, for instance: in the trailer, she's wielding her bow, which was her weapon of choice--back in the early days, before she picked up arcane magic. In the latest books from Salvatore, she's got both arcane and divine magic on her side, so whenever the game takes place, it's probably not alongside Salvatore's most recent works.
In that case, Regis does dip in and out of the story. At one point, after making Mithral Hall his home with the rest of the Companions, Regis is kidnapped by the group's longtime enemy Artemis Entreri, brought all the way back to his original home in Calimport before Drizzt and Wulfgar can get him back. Later on, despite being a chief advisor to Bruenor, he still takes leaves of absence from time-to-time, or the group goes on adventures while he remains in Mithral Hall. Not every adventure in the now thirty-two volumes of Drizzt's classic adventures keep the entire group together all the time; their journies deviate as new events unfold, though they always come back together once more.
It's possible that, since Dark Alliance is set in the Icewind Dale region, Regis is running Mithral Hall in Bruenor's absence. Not much about the game has been revealed thus far except for its primary characters and very general setting, so Regis could still be present as a D&D NPC, either at the group's home base or elsewhere. The original Dark Alliance games, while having more emphasis on their hack-and-slash element than a deep narrative, did still have a linear story for players to follow, and a limited number of NPCs who can be interacted with as part of that story. So, despite Regis's exclusion from the main cast, that doesn't mean he won't still be present in some way.
The original games didn't really allow for NPC interaction outside of those who were involved in the actual quest at hand, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem even if Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance's single-player and co-op modes stick to the same formula. Regis might be a quest-giver or otherwise involved in the game's plot; considering the fact that Salvatore himself was consulted for the game, there's a good chance the original author could think up a way to include the final member of the Companions of the Hall.
Sure, Regis might not be in the game at all, but even if that's the case there should at least be some sort of explanation for why he's not there. After all, Regis might not be a constant presence within the Companions of the Hall, but he'll always be a permanent member.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is coming to PC and consoles in the fall of 2020.