Tuque Games

Tuque Games was a Canadian game development studio founded in 2012 in Montreal. It focused primarily on action games and RPGs for PC and game consoles. It was best known for the titles Livelock and Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance.

The studio’s first major project was Livelock, a twin-stick action shooter set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world. In this world, humanity has almost been wiped out and its future depends on mechanical beings containing human consciousness.

Livelock offers several playable characters with different abilities and fighting styles. Alongside single-player mode, co-operative multiplayer is also a key feature, allowing players to fight together against groups of enemy machines.

A pivotal moment for the studio was its collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, the owner of the Dungeons & Dragons brand. Wizards of the Coast acquired Tuque Games in 2019, making the studio part of a group working on video games based on the D&D universes.

The studio’s biggest project subsequently was Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, released in 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Dark Alliance is an action RPG set in the world of Forgotten Realms. Players can take on the roles of four well-known heroes – Drizzt Do’Urden, Catti-brie, Bruenor Battlehammer and Wulfgar.

Each character offers a different fighting style. Drizzt relies on rapid attacks with a pair of weapons, Catti-brie uses a bow, Bruenor is a resilient warrior with a shield, and Wulfgar dispatches enemies with powerful blows from his warhammer.

The game is strongly focused on co-operative play, battling large groups of enemies, acquiring better equipment and gradually upgrading each hero.

Dark Alliance features characters created by the writer R. A. Salvatore, best known for his novels about the dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden. Players thus encounter a host of characters, monsters and locations familiar from the Forgotten Realms universe.

Following the release of Dark Alliance, the studio underwent a rebranding. In 2022, Tuque Games was renamed Invoke Studios and continues under this name as part of Wizards of the Coast.

Thanks to the games Livelock and Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, Tuque Games is primarily associated with co-operative action games and the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Its history continues today under the name Invoke Studios.