After making its grand return to traditional platforms including Steam, Dark and Darker received some negative backlash for its “misleading” free-to-play label. Free-to-play players were left with a severely limited experience, but now developer Ironmace is rolling out a huge change.
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Those who want to try out Dark and Darker before they buy will get a much broader experience, as they can now equip high-tier items that were previously limited to Common rarity at most. With this change, introduced in a hotfix today, June 10, players on a free-to-play account will be able to equip and wear gear up to Legendary level. Even when equipped, however, they’ll still be limited to Normal mode and will have its own matchmaking system to discourage cheaters who abuse the free-to-play model.
Ironmace also apologized in the hotfix's patch notes, stating that "it was never their intention to mislead their players and that they are learning from player feedback." The hotfix also included numerous gameplay changes and balance adjustments, as well as removing the gear score from Poor and Common rarity utility items. Poor and Common-level gear will also have a lower gear score in order to attract more new players to the new and updated Normal mode.
The response to the hotfix on Steam has been overwhelmingly positive, judging by the comments, but it’s too early to tell whether these changes will impact how players experience the game as a whole or whether they’ll change their negative reviews. At the time of writing, Dark and Darker is still “Mixed” on Steam, with 50 percent of the playerbase willing to recommend the game. That’s already a two percent improvement from earlier today, so the impact is clearly visible even this soon after the patch.
