Another alpha test of Dark and Darker, a new battle royale in the fantasy genre, took place from February 6 to 16. The project attracted the attention of top streamers like xQc and Kamet0, and a large number of viewers helped the game break into the Top 10 on Twitch — and this happened despite the tough competition coming from Hogwarts Legacy. Read more about Dark and Darker's success in the Streams Charts review.
Game Description
Dark and Darker is a first-person PvPvE role-playing game by IRONMACE studio. The project is still under development, but since Fall 2022 the developers have already had a few public alpha tests. Dark and Darker is essentially a battle royale with the economic system of the shooter Escape from Tarkov, but in the fantasy style of Dungeons & Dragons.
In Dark and Darker, players go alone or with a team to a magical dungeon in search of treasure. The path to valuable loot is not easy but full of secret corridors, traps, monsters, raid bosses, and... other players. In addition, you must escape from the dungeon in time, as after the start of the game its corridors and rooms are gradually filled with flesh-eating insects. Escaped players will be able to sell the found loot to merchants and purchase items for future raids, but if the player dies, he loses all his possessions. By the way, there are six classes to choose from in Dark and Darker — warrior, mage, archer, thief, healer and barbarian. Each has its own gameplay features and roles in the squad, so you can experiment a lot with the composition.
Hundreds of Thousands of Viewers During the Alpha Test
The first public alpha test of Dark and Darker took place from September 24-28, 2022. The game's Twitch category had over 106K Peak Viewers. Later, similar tests were run three more times. During the last one, which took place from February 6 to 16, the Peak Viewers number grew to 274K, and the number of Peak Channels in the category was more than 3.1K. According to the developers, about 2 million players joined the testing.
Dark and Darker on Twitch accumulated 22.1 million Hours Watched between February 6 and February 16, ranking seventh among the platform's most popular categories during the time period. In particular, the game surpassed such titles as Apex Legends, Fortnite, Minecraft, Dota 2, and others.
Many top Twitch streamers paid attention to the game during the last test. For example, the Canadian streamer xQc, whose broadcast on Dark and Darker was watched by more than 57.7K Peak Viewers. LIRIK, Kamet0, stylishnoob4, fps_shaka, elxokas, sodapoppin, stylishnoob4, and others also broadcast their dungeon runs. The latter two accumulated the most Hours Watched among all Dark and Darker broadcasts — over a million on each channel.
We should note that the last alpha test of Dark and Darker actually coincided with the release of Hogwarts Legacy — one of the most anticipated games of the year based on one of the most popular franchises in the world. But for this circumstance, Dark and Darker's viewership numbers might have been even higher, as almost all of the platform's top streamers chose to explore the mysteries of Hogwarts Castle instead of an abandoned dungeon with treasures. Let's see what numbers Dark and Darker will show at release time. The title is expected to be released by the end of 2023.
Why are Top Streamers Interested in the Game?
Dark and Darker has several aspects necessary for entertainment content creators. First of all, it has good replayability and quite varied gameplay (although it still has a lot of bugs). There is no auto-targeting or targeting system, so when attacking enemies, you need to aim well, or you can accidentally damage your partner (or heal the enemy). Secondly, exploring the dungeon is interesting itself — there are a lot of hidden treasures, traps, as well as secret passages and mechanisms. You can attack monsters through bars or ambush other teams in dark corridors.
Finally, the process of playing Dark and Darker itself is pretty fun and guarantees a lot of rofls or funny situations, and that's great for streamers.