Ironmace’s Dark and Darker, which is a high-fantasy take on games like Escape from Tarkov and The Cycle: Frontier, is tough as nails and dying results in you losing all your gear. Extracting is needed to bring back your spoils and here’s a quick guide on how it works.

Extracting in Dark and Darker

In other high-stake games, extracting usually requires you to reach the extraction point to bring back your loot. Here in Dark and Darker, you’ll need to activate a blue headstone to leave the dungeon and bring back all your loot. When you find one, simply interact with it by pressing ‘F’.

Once you activate the blue headstone, just walk through the blue portal and you’re out.

The problem is, these blue portals are not available at the start of the game and the location of these extraction points are usually random. You’ll have to wait a few minutes before the first portal spawns in the dungeon. While waiting – stay alive and get as much loot as possible.

The game usually tells you if a blue headstone has spawned at the upper right corner.

As the match progresses, more blue portals spawn as the play area shrinks (similar to battle royale games).

There are red headstones as well and activating them will not teleport you out of the dungeon. It’s actually the opposite as it transports you deeper into the dungeon, accessing a harder floor.

That’s about it. Dark and Darker is surprisingly satisfying and matches are rather quick as most matches last just around 10 minutes. The foundation of the game’s core gameplay is in place, but there’s a lot of missing features and further polish is needed.

Dark and Darker is still in its early stages of development but the folks at Ironmace hosted so far two alpha playtests for players to test out the game’s current state

According to the game’s Steam page, Dark and Darker is aiming for a Q4 2023 release.

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