Beyond Divinity is the 2004 not-quite-sequel-not-quite-Gaiden Game to the original Divine Divinity by Larian Studios.
Set 20 years after the first game, it follows a Paladin who finds himself soul-forged with his complete opposite, an evil Death Knight, thanks to a powerful demon's twisted sense of humor.
Gameplay-wise, Beyond Divinity is quite similar to Divine Divinity but with a twist that you have two characters under your control most of the time (this idea would later be revisited and expanded in the Prequel Divinity: Original Sin).
Tropes found in the game:
- Big Bad: The demon overlord Samual.
- Chained Heat: The protagonist is forced into Synchronization with a stereotypically villainous Black Knight by a demon, and they work together with the shared goal of not only separating themselves from their rather disliked counterparts, but to get back at the demon who did it to them.
- Crutch Character: The Death Knight wears his own armor and thus is powerful in the beginning, but has to be safeguarded from harm as the game progresses if you want to keep him around because of his hilarious remarks and the fact that he's soul-forged with the protagonist, so if either dies, it's Game Over.
- Downer Ending: The game ends with the sarcastic Death Knight, your only companion and ally throughout the game, revealing that he is in fact Damian himself. Despite your best efforts, he escapes to plot his next scheme, leaving your character to wonder just what the hell they even managed to accomplish. The ending becomes even worse when you consider that — if certain characters in the game are to be believed — you could have saved the entire world just by dying, literally at the beginning of the game. At that point, Damian was still soul-linked to you, thus your death would be his as well, thus he would never leave his little personal dungeon, thus, no threat.
- Dueling Player Characters: After the final boss fight, the Death Knight turns out to be Damian himself and fights you to the death.
- Enemy Mine: The premise of the game.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Towards the end, you find out that the Death Knight you've been working with the entire time is Damian. And now that he's no longer soul-forged to you, he's free to continue his evil, going on the become the Big Bad of Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga. And the whole mess in that game could have been avoided if you had just simply let yourself die.
- The Reveal: The dark knight is actually Damian, who was the baby at the end of Divine Divinity.
- Sealed Evil in Another World: After Lucian the Divine's son Damian turned to evil, Lucian removed his memories and stranded him in the demons' home dimension rather than kill him. It doesn't work for long: he's the Death Knight, and you unwittingly help him return to Rivellon.
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: If the Death Knight has got all of your good stuff when he turns on you, he can be nearly impossible to beat. If you remove all of his stuff just before the final boss fight right before the big reveal and manage to keep him alive, he's incredibly easy to beat.
- Synchronization: This is punishment for letting the human escape, and the death of one will result in the death of the other. As such, Death Knight attempts to break out of the prison, in order to find someone powerful enough to remove the curse.
- Teeth Clenched Team Work
