What Makes Dark and Darker SO Good! (And Why You Should Play It)

so there's been a new game all the rage recently goes by the name dark and darker and it's real good A bit janky but really really good it's been eating up most of my free time over this past week and seems kind of like to be a shining example of Indie design done right every so often we'll see a small Studio come along that just so happens to strike the perfect mix of elements to create something that feels fresh and novel even if it is just a slightly new combination of existing ideas which dark and darker is I think the best way I could describe it would be imagine if you took the wonky combat and movement of Morrowind the round based elute and extract mechanics of tarkov and put all of that together in a super dark dangerous and heavily Dungeons and Dragons inspired world that in a nutshell is dark and darker also no coincidence that the abbreviation for dark and darker is D and D wearing the influence on their sleeve and it's for good reason to me this game delivers what I imagined in my head when someone first described Dungeons and Dragons not in the literal sense like not the actual tabletop game and rolling the dice and telling a story no it's not that but more so the picture that that painted of an adventure through a dark dungeon that's full of surprises traps deadly creatures and other players all in the search of loot dark and darker really delivers that uh dungeon diving fantasy they do a great job of it so it all starts with the process of selecting a character currently there are six in the game they are the fighter Barbarian Rogue Ranger Wizard and cleric like DND each of these come with their own distinct strengths and weaknesses so for example the fighter can equip most weapons and armor he's got well-rounded attributes and can Sprint but he's very gear dependent pretty weak early on and he he has no spells that he can cast or take the ranger who's quick with Bose is able to track enemy footsteps and lay traps however the ranger can't equip most melee weapons and has low melee damage meaning they can be in a bit of trouble if you get up close to them and then there's the wizard can cast powerful spells and meditate to refresh those but has very slow interaction speed so that means things like opening doors which is pretty vital and has low health and low physical damage and the remaining three classes have their similar strengths and weaknesses although there is some balancing that needs to be done we expect that to happen because after all the game isn't even released yet they're just doing early testing which is pretty crazy for a game that has become so popular so very quickly now since I've been playing mostly solo I started out with the Rogue I assume that was the best bet they got stealth after all but later on I ended up spending a bunch more time with the wizard and Ranger and while I like all of them for different reasons I felt like I've had the most success solo sneaking being stealthy dealing with groups of other players and dealing with the PB ve on the Ranger and the wizard I've just it hasn't been as successful for me at least on the Rogue but Rogues are very strong in fact I think solo Rogues right now are topping the the kill leaderboards that they have in the game so don't think Rogues are weak they're not I just personally have had way more success going in and solo extracting as a ranger and or the wizard a lot more fun with the wizard they're a lot more tactical it's kind of crazy already I can just see that there's going to be a very very high skill cap for Wizard players because already we're seeing crazy out maneuver plays with haste and invisibility sneaking around and the like fireballing and chain lightning and groups of uh entire groups of players it's crazy stuff lots of interesting Tech and maneuverability even with what is a relatively simple and even janky I would call it combat system in fact I think the game's combat is going to be one of the things that pushes the most people away because so much else around the edges is very very strong but the combat I mean yeah it literally reminds me of like playing Morrowind it is that kind of combat system very simple very basic and Bare Bones but it's adequate it gets the job done as far as I'm concerned so after creating a character your next step is to actually select your skills every single class has a handful of these of which you can pick to have two so on my Ranger for example I've been using the field ration which is a health recovery skill with three charges and quick shot which fires three arrows in quick succession both are really strong abilities and I've enjoyed them for soloing but I also have access to a multi-shot a quick fire ability and the true shot skill and all of them are viable in different scenarios depending on play style and then after you pick your two active skills you have your perks these are basically passive Buffs that will enhance your attacks your abilities and your various spells every class looks to have about 9 or 10 of these perks in total and when you first make your very first character of a class you will get to pick one of them and then once you play the game and level up you hit levels 5 10 and 15 you can then unlock three more passive slots for a total of four slots so on my Ranger I picked the perks that increase headshot damage bow draw speed attack power and bow move speed but sometimes I'll swap those for some of my other options like I've got the option to see recent player footsteps or lay traps faster I can increase my hearing distance lots of really cool interesting abilities and it does seem that even within the confines of each class where while each class has their very specific strengths and weaknesses and they fill certain roles between selecting what two active skills you want and then the 9 to 10 total passives depending on which four you select there does seem to be a bit of variety to cater to different different parts of the strengths of each of the classes if that makes sense it just seems like multiple builds are viable depending on what you're trying to do if you're focusing on PVE if you're focusing on being sneaky if you're focusing on PV PVP or trying to take out groups versus single Target there does seem to be a bit of variety and that isn't even accounting for some further customization that looks to be coming in the game in the form of a skill tree it's just not in the current iteration as we currently sit on play test number three but yes further customization is clearly in the works they already have the in-game UI for it okay so you've picked your class you've got your skills and your one perk to start out now it's time to actually begin dungeon diving so you keep for a match you will quickly get put into a Lobby where it matches you with the rest of the players to fill up 16 total per round and then you are spawned in and this is where the fun begins now I would say that there are two main things that make a dark and darker appealing one everything can kill you and two the game tells you absolutely nothing they are very very figure it out yourself hands-off kind of approach with this game and it's really what has made the experience of going through failing learning and getting better it's made that so much more enjoyable so when you first spawn into the start of a match you will be in a small cell this will be located on the edge of one of the game's three Maps there are three layouts essentially nothing is procedural here not only are the layouts of each of the maps static but also the location of different chest and of the enemy spawns the bosses all of that you can learn it basically it is it is a map that with enough experience you will learn there are just three of these on rotation so the Rome you spawn in has a single point of exit and this will be a door leading into the adjacent room and that room will contain any number of things depending on where you spawned in many times there will be a few basic enemies from skeletons spiders skull bats zombies and maybe even a few traps like floor spikes or wall spikes or even fake chest keep an eye out for those and the objective is simple find a loot survive and extract the problem is with that middle part survival is hard most players in fact die to their very first room that has enemies in it I know I sure did on my first playthrough I stumbled into this open area I saw some Loot on the ground I walk over and then all of a sudden a few zombies just rise up out of the ground some skeleton archers start firing at me and then this big old wraith swoops in and I was dead on my very first Run in under two minutes Welcome To Dark and darker that is basically the experience you will die again and again and again traps will kill you basic monsters will kill you poison clouds and wasp will kill you arrows from archers will kill you the various Elite enemies like wraiths skeletal captains and everything on Floors two and three those will kill you and then of course there are other players they are going to kill you as well you'll get backstabbed by a rogue shot in the face by a ranger from across the room or maybe even through a hole in the door a barbarian will smash down a wall and two-shot you with their ax invisible Wizards will mow you down with their machine gun Arcane missiles or maybe they'll do chain lightning or maybe a fireball lots of ways Wizards can kill you very quickly you are going to die often that is the name of the game and the thrill of the whole thing though is navigating through that hiding sneaking around collecting your loot and even doing doing some killing yourself and to do so that basically requires paying close attention that means paying attention to the environment seeing if there are any doors open any torches that are out which normally shouldn't be which means a player has doused it essentially but mostly by listening this is definitely one of those games like a lot of the extraction looter games that puts an extreme emphasis on audio cues You're Gonna Want headphones You're Gonna Want This cranked up as loud as possible if you don't have headphones honestly if you're playing with the sound off you're just putting yourself at a severe disadvantage obviously there is the sound of player footsteps that is going to be a dead giveaway but the sound of opening and closing doors the sound of monsters chasing something you'll learn what that sounds like which means there is a player something that the monsters are chasing the sounds of torches going in and out the sounds of players queuing up their different attacks or raising their Shields walking and running everything makes a sound those sounds are unique and distinct and when you play the game enough you will learn them and that will give you a ton of information it's it's basically like having 3D Vision more or less that's how these games are designed and dark and darker follows in the footsteps basically of a lot of the other tarkov likes in that sense play listen and learn in doing so you're just gonna get infinitely better at survival and that is actually what I found to be one of the strong suits of solo there's I've seen a lot of complaining in the community already asking for solo queue I don't even know how necessary that is I feel generally at an advantage and I've gotten a lot of extractions because as a solo player I can listen and teams of three it's impossible for it's on okay you could do it but for the most part in my experience it is impossible for a team of three to remain wholly silent and you hear tea EMA 3 you know it's a team of three because you can hear three sets of footsteps multiple different attacks it's pretty obvious and then it's totally up to you what you do if you feel confident if you're well geared if you feel capable of taking on multiple players you can engage you can scope it out to see if they're engaged in another another fight with another team or if they're engaged in a PVE fight in which you could third party and pick them off or you could just turn around and run away all of these are viable options and all of these in my opinion are one of the primary perks to playing solo is you have an advantage if you're able to be patient obviously the disadvantage though is if a team or three finds you and Corners you for the most part you're dead unless you're a wizard who can haste invis and run away or one of the faster classes like a rogue or Ranger who's capable of closing doors quickly laying traps going invisible whatever but even then if team of three gets on top of you for the most part unless you're a wizard you're probably going to die or you can just outplay them and take them out which is certainly a possibility I will say for all of the ragging I've done on the combat and I know I haven't been very descriptive it's just a very basic every single weapon type in the game will have a variety of sort of combo attacks where basically you have one two or three swings and as you chain these these will attack in different directions and different types be it stabbing or slashing or smashing or whatever at different angles and then once you learn the attack pattern of the weapon type that you are using that's it like that is the extent of the combat system now the skill essentially comes how you manage your timing of things when to engage and moving in and out of range of stuff you can outplay other people basically by out ranging or outmaneuvering their abilities but in terms of the action of just left clicking it's pretty basic it's pretty straightforward it's really mostly about positioning and timing and trying to do that better than your opponent to land hits and Dodge theirs that's more or less there is skill there but it is a very rudimentary combat system very simplistic it's not don't think like chivalry or more to how levels of complexity even though it looks on the surface possibly like that because it's like a simple attack things the complexity in that sense just isn't there but that does not mean just because a system is simple and or clunky does not mean there's not room for skill and does not mean there's not room for outplaying people because there certainly is there you can absolutely outplay people even with this fairly clunky simple combat and that's probably the only thing that I would say is a major criticism of the game is the Simplicity of it but it could also be one of the strengths if you think about it that is something that could appeal to a larger audience a very very simple basic you swing the weapon it attacks in a certain pattern are you close enough to hit or are you not that's it that that's the system so as I mentioned earlier there are currently three maps in the game I wouldn't be surprised if they add more eventually throughout the course of development but right now there are three each of them have a different layout and Main rooms but more or less the structure is the same in a dungeon with a lot of small tight corridors interconnected hallways there are a few larger rooms on every map they're kind of more set piece areas and then doors leading in and out of those with the occasional hidden passage or wall here and there one thing I do really like about a few of these Maps is there is a ton of verticality there are even a few large rooms that have like three to four tiers of them so quite a bit of height verticality that you can take take advantage of especially if you happen to be playing a wizard or a ranger being on the top level while there's a team below you that's good fun yeah so as you're going throughout all along the way beyond the dangers of enemy NPCs traps and other players is the loot to collect you will find loot on corpses in chest by breaking barrels crates and vases there's Loot on the floor on bookshelves on tables there's a loot everywhere some of it you can use so there are weapons and armor to find these will come in various Rarities from Gray up to Orange I think is the highest tier that I've seen this gear will come with different stats and bonuses so the games got your basic RPG stats like strength agility willpower and then there's knowledge and resourcefulness which that has to do with the speed in which you like interact with things open doors and then also some of the items will come with perks and additional bonuses giving like a percent boost to either offensive or defensive stats and then there are consumables like potions bandages health kits campfires and throwables as well as Treasures these are items that are of high value for trading you can sell them to the games vendors basically to get a currency that lets you buy stuff that they sell so you're in the dungeon You're trying to survive you're collecting Loot and then comes the Battle Royale mechanics uh every few minutes a circle of what I assume are locust or some dungeon bug grows smaller forcing you and everyone else on the map into an Ever shrinking area funny enough with how dangerous and deadly pretty much everything else is in the game the circle mechanic is an exception it is on the Lighter Side compared to most Battle Royale games that I've played not that this is a battle royale it just has that Circle mechanic which kind of just puts a sense of urgency into the dungeon diving and exploring but yes there is a circle mechanic it will continue to close it does so in stages getting smaller and smaller each time until the final stage where it will engulf the floor entirely how do you deal with this well through the portals in each match after a certain amount of time portals will start sprouting up that have two different variants there is the escape in The Descent portals so opening an escape portal will teleport you safely with all of your loots back to the tavern and the down portal basically takes you further into the dungeon although I don't want to spoil this particular part of the game for you just because it was a really fun surprise on my first time through a down portal let me just say I was not prepared for what awaited me below but let's assume that as you're starting out the first few times you actually make it and survive to an escape portal that you'll actually just take it which is exactly what I did well in that case congratulations you survived at least for now so you're gonna be taking all of the stuff that you have on your character with you and then anything that you don't want to actually physically use for your next round you can either sell off to one of the 12 merchants in the game they sell an assortment of items that are on a rotating stock some of them will buy any gear or Treasures that you don't want to keep giving you gold in return that lets you buy whatever it is you do need you will regularly be purchasing consumables for sure things like health potions and bandages as well as any gear for new characters because yes you're gonna die a lot you might not even make it to an escape portal you're first through playthroughs in which case your inventory gets wiped all of your gear that you collected and any items is gone and you start with a basic fresh character any currency or extra gear that you find and take out by extracting at that point again you can use it or you can put it in a stash which will then be accessed by your refresh character whenever you do happen to die and then you do this again and again and again and that is the loop what's often referred to as the tarkov-like loot survive extract repeat that whole thing that whole process is very enjoyable I think largely because all of the dangers and the stakes are so high that there is a level of tension every round and it feels very rewarding when you extract even if I just go in and I encounter only one player even just going through that process and getting out with like half of an inventory of stuff and getting to extract even that feels very rewarding because you feel accomplished simply by not dying because yes you will die very very often and then I will say something else that's really been enjoyable about this game is just trying out new classes or play Styles and builds like I said I've leveled up a rogue Ranger and Wizard and I've enjoyed all of them as you play you kill you extract you're gonna gain experience this levels you up and that unlocks those additional perk slots at which point really starts to boost your capabilities and the different ways you can play I do still want to try the other three classes uh solo as well the Barbarian the fighter and the cleric not exactly convinced that the cleric is going to be able to do much of anything they definitely seem like a primarily support class I don't know how successful they will be solo but I want to try them out because it's been going through the process of leveling up trying the different skills and trying the different passive perks it's been really fun to see what works and what doesn't and seeing what you can go in and find Success With or even just survive with on top of that like I mentioned earlier there is still an entire progression system that's not even in the game this looks like a skill tree of sorts and that will be coming presumably in later updates but they already have the UI for it so clearly they've got plans for additional customization and additional tailoring of builds so if I were to boil dark and darker down I would say this the pros of the game are it has fantastic immersion and sense of adventure like I said before it really feels like a true DND experience it is such a great job of delivering and executing on the dungeon diving fantasy it's really awesome I think it's been fun to try the variety and Tinker with the different classes and builds and the whole Loop of bringing this DND fantasy into the tarkov go in loot survive extract that just feels really good and it's really fun my biggest cons super clunky simplistic combat and class balance seems way out of whack now the good news is that the game hasn't even launched yet so where they're at is at this point they've done a few round of what they're calling Alpha play tests we are currently on number three these have lasted anywhere between a few days to a week I think the first one took place in September and now we're on number three here in December speaking of which this current one was supposed to end on the 23rd but the developer has extended it to the 26 which is really cool no doubt partially due to the game picking up steam big time um with each passing day the peak concurrent player count has kept Rising as of this recording it's surpassed 55 000 players it looks like today it's going to go up above 60 possibly 65 000 players this game is getting really popular really fast and remember this is for an alpha play test of an indie game that isn't even out yet dark and darker isn't scheduled to release until quarter 4 2023 so somewhere between 9 and 12 months from now that is a lot of time to add polish content and general improvements and I really think the game is already in a really good spot yeah I would say if you even slightly like the premise of a DND tarkov loot extract game and have any tolerance for janky combat everything else about this game is great it's a lot of fun and I think it has a lot of potential given that it it's not even launching for like another year so I'm really excited I've really enjoyed dark and darker and I'm looking forward to see where it goes uh so far from what I've played this really feels like a winning formula that's gonna do it for me today guys thank you for watching hope you enjoyed it I'll see you next time

Channel: Force Gaming

Views: 139,686

Keywords: dark and darker, dark & darker, dark and darker gameplay, dark and darker review, What Makes Dark and Darker SO Good! (And Why You Should Play It), should you play dark and darker

Id: cnsL06KchBU

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 24 2022