When is the next Dark and Darker playtest?

It won't be long until you're back in the dungeon.

Image via Ironmace

Dark and Darker kept putting up great numbers during its latest playtest in February 2023, having peaked at over 90,000 concurrent players. The game works like a child of Escape from Tarkov and Dungeons and Dragons, setting players and any allies they can find loose inside a dungeon to collect loot and get out before a circle closes in. Unfortunately, the latest playtest ended on Feb. 13 and players have been eager to try the game again since then.

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Throughout the alpha, players from across the world joined in to fight alongside and against each other in a search for loot and to become champions. Here’s all the information you need about the next Dark and Darker playtest.

Next Dark and Darker playtest start date

Image via IRONMACE

The next Dark and Darker playtest is scheduled for April 14 to 19, one of IRONMACE’s developers said on Discord. IRONMACE hopes to test some “substantial additions” for this next playtest, which required a bit more time than before.

“The recent playtest also gave us a lot of clues on how to proceed with development,” krapst78 said on Discord. “We realize we still have some important questions that need to be answered.”

Screengrab via Discord

What time will the next Dark and Darker playtest start?

At this moment, there’s no exact time for the upcoming Dark and Darker playtest in April 2023. All that we know is that the playtest will run from April 14 to 19, allowing thousands of players to once again try the game and see what the developers have implemented since the February playtest.

The expectations around Dark and Darker keep growing after the game was an absolute surprise hit during the holidays because it was released during a period when a lot of people had some time off. The game’s Discord was constantly filled with players eagerly looking for teams to explore the dungeons with.

Dark and Darker will presumably fully release at the end of 2023, should everything go to plan. The future of the game, however, is somewhat in danger after it was taken down from Steam due to a cease and desist followed by a DMCA takedown by Nexon, who is suing IRONMACE for alleged theft of intellectual property. IRONMACE’s CEO Terence Seung-ha addressed this topic in February, when the allegations emerged, and said that Dark and Darker’s code was built from scratch.

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Christian Harrison
Christian is a freelance writer of five years who's been with Dot Esports for over 15 months covering Fortnite, general gaming, and news. Some of his favorite games include Yakuza 0, The Witcher III, Kingdom Hearts 2, and Inscryption.
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Leonardo Biazzi
Staff writer and CS:GO lead. Leonardo has been passionate about games since he was a kid and graduated in Journalism in 2018. Before Leonardo joined Dot Esports in 2019, he worked for Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte. Leonardo also worked for HLTV.org between 2020 and 2021 as a senior writer, until he returned to Dot Esports and became part of the staff team.