Dark and Darker guide – seven tips to bring light to the dark world

We will start the Dark and Darker guide with the basics, naturally. So, what’s the objective of the game? Simple: move through the dungeon avoiding or eliminating traps, monsters and other players before finding an exit portal and teleporting back to the tavern. To do so, you’ll need to keep your eyes and ears open, as well as pick out a route through the labyrinthine depths, all while keeping an eye on your map and the slowly shrinking circle confining you in.

Each Dark and Darker class you pick will have different strengths and vulnerabilities – never underestimate how deadly an arrow or a sword can be. But don’t just focus on running away from every fight, because there’s also valuable loot to be had – and escaping with that is a lot more valuable than just getting out alive.

You’ll want to familiarise yourself with the controls first; fortunately, you’ll have a chance to run around and practice in the tavern and other areas. Keep a careful eye on where your sword or weapon swings, because the hit-detection in Dark and Darker is surprisingly advanced. Get used to jumping and running, but don’t rely on it, because leaping into a trap is a pretty ignoble way to go.

Finally, pick a team or go solo. We recommend trying out a solo run your first few times, as that’ll let you get to grips with the dungeon and ideally not drag down another time while you’re getting used to things. Don’t expect to win your first go around, as part of the learning experience is playing Dark and Darker yourself and learning all the intricacies of the systems you’re presented with. Get ready to delve and be ready to die at least a few times first.

This tip mainly encourages you to get to grips with the basics. Movement takes a lot from hardcore mil-sim games like Arma, so if you’re used to smoothness and a degree of forgiveness like in other first-person games, this can come as quite a shock.

Melodramatic title aside, we can’t emphasise enough that Dark and Darker owes much more to Escape from Tarkov or Arma than it does to The Elder Scrolls or Heroes of Might & Magic. Even the strongest Barbarian is incredibly fragile to a few good hits, and getting ganged up on even by simple, weak mobs can spell disaster. Treat each encounter carefully, and you’ll maximise your chances of success.

Focus instead on approaching each fight as a one-on-one bout. Tempt individual mobs into chokepoints – thankfully the dungeons of Dark and Darker boast plenty of cramped corridors and rooms you can close off and tackle each enemy at once in. And watch out for traps! You’re just as susceptible to a tripwire as you are to an axe in the skull.

Naturally, this also means that occasionally, honour has to go outside the window. You may feel bad the first time you hack off the head of another player as they’re looting a chest. But trust me, they’d do the same to you…probably. If you see an opportunity to sneak in a hit before they know what’s what, take it.

The three-player teams in Dark & Darker are not just a group of friends or equally skilled players. Like a party in a roleplaying game, you can’t just take an entire team of fighters and expect to roll over everything through sheer force of will. By hosting a varied party, you increase your chances of a successful extraction tenfold.

Most parties consist of at least one magic-user, a tank (fighter or barbarian) to hold the line and another melee or ranged close to take attacks of opportunity.

So know your role. If you’re a wizard, for example, remember that you need to prepare spells in advance. Announce to your party – if Krafton has the good grace to provide voice chat – that you are taking time to meditate (where you refresh and recharge your mana) before going into another encounter. Keep people abreast of what spell you’re using and where it’s being fired off.

And if you’re playing as a ranger, it’s probably better to focus on backline players than try to pick off the other fighter your tank is duelling. Remember, a warlock or wizard with a lucky fireball can decimate a party, but an arrow in the neck can just as easily swing the battle back into your favour.

So you’ve slaughtered every other party in the game and made your extraction but…oops, you got less EXP this time than the last time when you didn’t kill anyone! What’s going on? Well in Dark and Darker, other players are an obstacle, not a goal. Ideally, you’ll avoid fighting anything with a real person guiding it and instead focus on monsters and, even better, LOOT.

Yes, like any good fantasy hero, you too can steal everything that isn’t nailed down – whether that be jewels and trinkets, or weapons and armour. Virtually everything can be taken back to the Tavern and sold off to your primary merchant, The Collector. That gold can then be reinvested into stronger weapons and armour, which then let you tackle greater dungeons and challenges.

Quite often you may be faced with the opportunity to extract early. At higher levels the rewards may outweigh the risks, but early on you’d do well to consider it. Extraction equals EXP, and at early levels, you lack a core aspect that makes your character the capable dungeoneer they are – perks. These perks can drastically up your chances of survival, and the best way to get them is to not only get out alive, but also with as much loot as you can drag.

Yes, you have a time limit in the form of that ever-shrinking circle of death. But you also have the luxury of being able to pick your battles. Remember, loot picked off a dead player who blundered into a trap is just as shiny as picking it up yourself. There’s no shame in waiting and seeing if an encounter is worth jumping into. And remember the precision of the game’s hit-detection, because rushing in hoping to preempt another player’s strike can just as easily result in them ducking your swing and taking you out instead.

Sound and spacing are two key aspects of Dark and Darker. You’ll be able to hear other players speaking, walking and fighting – and unlike monsters, they’ll more than likely be highly mobile. Don’t expect everyone to head to the middle of the circle either – plenty of times we’ve been shocked to find a party wandering into a room at the outer edge, hoping to pick up some loot before making a run for a portal.

Not only that, but ambushes can come from the place you least expect it, especially if you’re playing solo. A common tactic used by rogues on solo runs is to wait for someone to open a portal – which requires a good few seconds of interaction on an altar with a scroll atop it – before taking the portal right as it opens. Keep your eyes open, and be sure to wait in case they’ve used their invisibility.

The menu system in Dark and Darker offers a huge variety of options to let you explore and understand your character. For example, you can examine your stats in real-time, checking such vital information as your movement speed, your health and your attributes. As we’ve said before, Dark and Darker takes a lot of inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, so knowing your stats ensures you can maximise your combat potential.

Strength, of course, enhances your combat power and health. But vigour also governs your health and your healing capability. Agility affects not just your movement speed, but also your speed of equipping items and interacting with objects. It’s all well and good being able to whack someone and kill them in one hit – but if you’re caught with your pants down opening a chest, all that brawn isn’t going to do you any good.

You can also highlight certain traps in your map by picking out icons resembling small spikes standing out from walls. Bear in mind that these are not precise, but they will let you know the rough area where traps have been placed.

One point we’ve seen floating around is the absolutely vital nature of research. That’s not to say you’ll be a complete failure if you go one step at a time, but there’s no shame in a little bit of forethought. For example, examining the movements of each enemy type ensures you know where they can strike and their blindspots, while the massive resources such as the Dark and Darker wiki feature in-depth breakdowns that may seem a bit intimidating at first, but which offer all the information you would need about class builds, perks, loot tables, damage and more.

Naturally, there’s also a bit that’s lacking – but thanks to more than a year of early access on PC, you can expect there to be a dedicated community to draw on. There’ll more than likely be changes for the mobile version of the game, and if there are, we’ll be here to cover and update them as necessary!

That’s all that we have prepared for the Dark and Darker guide, and if you have tips for other players, leave them in the comments below. Someone will surely appreciate it.