Dark and Darker mobile preview

It took three runs in Dark and Darker mobile before the game started to click. This was my first experience with the sword-and-board take on the extraction genre and I wasn’t sure how the experience would flow. I had a bit of a rocky start since this beta still had some kinks to work out with some text not translating to English and only partial controller support. During that third run, I started to understand how to work with the systems and pace of the game rather than against them, but also got a taste of the delightful feeling of dread this game can evoke.

For those like me who had no experience with Dark and Darker, it is most easily described as a fantasy Escape from Tarkov mixed with some battle royale mechanics. You create a character, pick a class, and jump into a randomly generated dungeon with several other players. As you explore, loot, and fight AI enemies (or humans), a timer will click down signaling the safe zone will shrink. Just like a battle royale, anyone caught outside that circle will take heavy damage until they get inside or die. Dark and Darker has already found a passionate audience on PC, but I think it could find a second wind in the mobile space.

A rough start

Not quite ready for primetime

Most of my issues with Dark and Darker are technical and should be fixed by, or during, the real beta next month. Setting those aside, it did take a while for this game to grab me. My first two runs were completely uneventful and dull. I wandered through a dungeon, fought some goblins, looted some chests, and then found an escape portal to leave. Combat is very slow and deliberate, with each swing having a huge windup animation and delay, and even basic movement feels very sluggish. The best comparison I could make would be playing Skyrim in third-person but at half speed. I didn’t know what I was looting or why, and I didn’t see much depth or strategy to it all.

It was that third run I mentioned where I finally got the true Dark and Darker experience.

Instead of mindlessly shopping down NPCs, I encountered other players regularly. Fighting another player on mobile made the pace of the combat suddenly make perfect sense. Being able to zip in and out of range would make using touch controls a nightmare and give a heavy advantage to controller players. At this pace, you need to carefully time your approach to bait attacks and counter, much like a fighting game. And that’s before the mobs get involved.

Kiting other players into AI enemies while I attempted to heal, only for a third party to swoop in from behind was delightfully chaotic. At least, it is until it isn’t. One conceit that Dark and Darker has to make on mobile is heavy auto-targeting. In a one-on-one duel, it would be required for touch controls where you would want the ability to strafe around your target and attack without whiffing. That becomes a double-edged sword when fighting multiple enemies in the tight caves and corridors you will be exploring most of the time. It is never fun to auto-target a trash mob when you have a perfect chance to get a free hit on another player.

This mobile version also includes some handy quality-of-life toggles that take the edge off of systems you wouldn’t notice on a PC, but get cumbersome on a touch screen. The biggest is the ability to use an auto-loot and auto-interact option. With it enabled, I just have to stop and look at a door, chest, or fallen enemy and my character will interact with it without me needing to reach over and tap the icon. It’s a small thing, but in a game where you’re constantly faced with doors and trying to loot as fast as possible to survive, I was very thankful to have it.

After each run your loot is tallied up (assuming you survived and escaped), and your XP is dolled out between your account and character level. There are five classes you can use, including Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger, and Cleric, which all have their own starting weapons, armor, and abilities. For someone who isn’t all that enticed by the loot treadmill or feels too attached to losing any individual piece of gear, it was the light RPG elements that got me to stick to Dark and Darker longer than I otherwise would have. Taking on different quests and building up my collection meter gave me alternative goals to chase and feel rewarded for making progress on even if I failed my run.

I am not primarily a mobile gamer when I have the option which is why I’m always skeptical about ports of “core” games going to the platform. It’s nothing about performance or controls in most cases, but whether or not the game is designed for the way many people play mobile games. Being a competitive online game you obviously can’t pause, but you can still somewhat tailor your runs based on how long you have. You can go in for just a quick smash and grab and try to escape on the first teleport stone that appears, or push your luck for closer to 10 minutes sticking it out to the end.

Dark and Darker Mobile may not feel like a perfect fit at first, but its controls and flow of combat will make sense after a few runs if you give it a chance.

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