Dark and Darker Mobile is an upcoming RPG game from PUBG publisher Krafton that aims to provide players with a unique mobile experience. It is an extraction game that combines elements of battle royale games, dungeon crawlers, and RPGs to keep the gameplay fresh and give players a sense of “one more run.”
“You’re a novice adventurer who enters a dungeon,” said Joonseok Ahn, executive producer and head of production for Dark and Darker Mobile. “It’s set in a medieval, low-fantasy world. It’s all about competition and dungeon exploration.”
You can choose from six different classes for your character: Warrior, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, Ranger, or Barbarian. Each class has different stats and skills that shape their fighting style, with some classes focusing on melee attacks, others on ranged attacks, and still others on magic. However, classes that have similar styles overall will have innate skills that change the way they engage in combat.
“There are active and passive abilities. For example, if you block with a shield as a Warrior, you gain an advantage,” Ahn said. “We also differentiated the armor of each class. For example, a Warrior or Cleric will wear something metal, while a Wizard will wear something cloth.”
The gameplay involves diving into dungeons to gather as much loot as possible and escape. You can form a party of up to three members by teaming up with friends or recruiting AI-controlled mercenaries to facilitate you. You can meet and recruit mercenaries of different classes, and they will level up with you as you explore dungeons. You can then level them up, allowing them to learn modern skills or escalate their equipment level.
Monsters roam the corridors of each dungeon, and killing them will reward you with more loot. But be careful, as your fellow players are also trying to secure that loot. They can surprise you and attack, leading to PvP battles to the death.
“That’s the biggest selling point we have for Dark and Darker Mobile — it’s a competitive, progression-based dungeon crawler,” Ahn said. “We started from the premise that there are no swordplay-based extraction games in the classic medieval RPG genre. We believe we’re pioneering the genre.”
Monsters and companions aren’t the only threats. Each dungeon has its own unique traps to watch out for, and you’ll also have to contend with the Darkswarm, a constantly encroaching darkness that will kill players caught in its path. This is where the battle royale elements come in. The Darkswarm will shrink unpredictably, forcing players to adapt on the fly. And as it shrinks, it forces players into smaller areas, making PvP encounters inevitable.
When it comes time to face off against other players, it’s not just about brute force. You’ll need to strategize, consider the weapons you and your opponent are wielding, and how you can exploit the environment to your advantage.
“We have a physics-based combat system. You see that in a lot of console and PC games, but not so much in mobile games,” Ahn said. “For example, there are interactions with the terrain or objects. So if you’re swinging a big weapon, you can get stuck in the terrain.”
As you explore each dungeon, you can find escape portals that allow you to evacuate with the loot you’ve collected. You can also stay in the dungeon to collect more loot, but if you die, you lose everything. This risk-reward system underpins the choices you’ll have to make during each run.
Ahn emphasized that community feedback was key as he and his team continue to refine Dark and Darker Mobile. The game has undergone two rounds of beta testing, and the team has spoken to regional focus groups to gather as much feedback as possible.
“Our development motto is to gather as much user feedback as possible, so we’ve done two rounds of beta testing,” Ahn said. “We’ll open a developer Discord channel and gather feedback, then incorporate it into our updates. We try to incorporate all the feedback as much as possible to show that it’s reflected in the build itself. For example, based on the first beta test, we’ve incorporated the feedback into the second beta test, which was well-received by users. The developers will be very open to communication.”
Dark and Darker Mobile is set to release this year. After launch, they plan on seasonal updates every 6-8 weeks that will introduce modern classes or maps. Stay tuned to IGN for more information before launch.
