South Korean developer IRONMACE announced on February 24th that it will be conducting the next alpha playtest of Dark and Darker on its official Discord channel. The planned period is from April 14th to April 19th.
Dark and Darker is a first-person PvPvE roguelike game. Players challenge the dungeon with a party of up to three people. The goal is to return with treasure from the escape portal while rejecting enemy NPCs and other players. This work has a battle royal element where the safe zone gradually narrows, and a roguelike element where you lose items and start over when you die. Carry valuable items and aim to survive in the dungeon. This game system, which is said to be the dungeon version of “Escape from Tarkov”, seems to be well received with its fantasy world view.
The scheduled period for the fifth playtest, which will be implemented this time, is shorter than usual. Until now, the test was conducted for about a week, but this time it will be a five-day test. However, in the 3rd and 4th playtests, the period was extended by 3 days (that is, about 10 days in total). It is quite possible that the test period will be extended this time as well.
Also, in this playtest, it seems that new elements will be added, and it will be carried out to adjust the elements. The Discord announcement didn’t go into specifics. However, some predictions can be made with reference to interviews with developers.
On February 2, 2023, Mr. Onepeg, the distributor, conducted an interview on Twitch for Terry, Park Terence Seung-ha, CEO of the developer IRONMACE.done. In the interview, they were discussing the previous 4th edition. In the stream, Terry mentions the Karma system. And in the 4th playtest that started on February 16th, the karma system was added.
Among the elements mentioned in this interview, one that has not yet been implemented is the new profession Bard (bard). He mentioned that the new occupation may be implemented in the fifth playtest.Official DiscordAccording to this playtest, “pretty substantial additions” will be adjusted. I wonder if the new occupation applies to this additional element. Speaking of fantasy bards, it’s a job that gives buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies, and it’s common that it’s hard to do damage alone. It may be a profession that requires the cooperation of multiple people.
In addition, the distribution also mentioned the scheduled start date of early access distribution of this work. Terry said it could be the end of April or May. However, considering the period of playtesting this time, it will be difficult to start early access immediately after the adjustment. The official Discord announcement does not mention that it will be the last test, so it may take a little longer.
“Dark and Darker” will be released for PC (Steam). The fifth alpha playtest will be held from April 14th to April 19th. There is no language support notation on the Steam store page, but in the previous playtest, the game supported Japanese display, and a Japanese server was added.
