Dungeonborne, the sport that after regarded set to compete with Dark and Darker on the fantasy hack-and-slash extraction recreation entrance, is falling by the wayside. Developer Mithril Interactive introduced at the moment that new account registrations and in-game purchases shall be halted on February 28, and the sport itself will go darkish on May 28.
We obtained our first have a look at Dungeonborne in February 2024 and located it in a little bit of a tough state, not solely sudden on condition that it was nonetheless in comparatively early improvement at that time. It was additionally similar to Dark and Darker—shut sufficient that Mithril Interactive made a degree of noting that it had “completely zero affiliation with Nexon,” which had sued Dark and Darker developer Ironmace over alleged copyright infringement.
But Dungeonborne introduced one factor to the desk that gave it an actual benefit over Dark and Darker: It was on Steam, and Dark and Darker was not on the time, due to that Nexon lawsuit. That made Dungeonborne readily accessible to a a lot bigger viewers, and gave it a possibility to essentially eat Dark and Darker’s lunch.
It did not work out that approach. Dungeonborne launched into early entry on Steam in July 2024 and whereas it managed a formidable peak concurrent participant depend of greater than 39,000 out of the gate, these numbers shortly tanked: As recorded by SteamDB, its peak concurrent participant depend over the previous 24 hours is simply 22. A seeming lack of assist from builders certainly did not assist that state of affairs: After asserting a season 1 roadmap and releasing a pre-season patch on the finish of September, updates stopped till at the moment’s announcement.
Somewhat satirically, Dark and Darker continues to rumble on. The recreation returned to steam in June 2024, simply forward of Dungeonborne’s last open beta, and has maintained stable concurrent participant counts ever since—its most up-to-date 24-hour peak was simply shy of 12,000.
