My main issue is with the "those few it had" statement. For a console game Dark Alliance had pretty expansive character building options, it's an RPG any way you slice it. It compares pretty favorably in level of depth to plenty of modern "RPGs" even, being less complex than a CRPG is a pretty low bar. This is why I find the idea of "well it wasn't really an RPG anyway" pretty darn misleading.
It's not like the series was ever about dialogue choices or deep roleplaying though; your stats were (almost) completely combat oriented; causing more melee damage / carrying more loot (STR), more ranged damage / passive damage resistance (DEX), more HP / faster HP regen (CON), more EXP per kill (WIS), more MP / faster MP regen (INT) and increase sale / reduce buying prices at NPCs (CHA). That's it, Charisma is literally just for money.
Where the real character building was in the Spells and Feats, which acted like Diablo II's skills (except in a straight list rather than a tree; Champions of Norrath used a skill tree though). Because they were meant to be played exclusively with a controller, the combat felt more action-y than Diablo-style games (built to be largely mouse-driven) and ended up more like a Zelda game, in a way. The only game that has come close to capturing that feel over the years (and believe me, I've looked) is Victor Vran, and it still wasn't quite "there."
My thinking is that they'll likely come up with completely different interpretations for skills/spells/feats from 5e, throw in any applicable feats, and tie it to character progression for that hamster wheel feel (though I would
vastly prefer the way DA 1&2 handled it where nothing was level gated except the points you spend).
