Dungeonborne, the game that once threatened to steal Dark and Darker’s crown, is closing in May

Dungeonborne, the game that once looked set to compete with Dark and Darker on the fantasy hack-and-slash extraction game front, is throwing in the towel. Developer Mithril Interactive announced today that new account registrations and in-game purchases will be halted on February 28, and the game itself will go dark on May 28.

We got our first look at Dungeonborne in February 2024 and found it in a bit of a rough state, not entirely unexpected given that it was still in relatively early development at that point. It was also very similar to Dark and Darker—close enough that Mithril Interactive made a point of noting that it had “absolutely zero affiliation with Nexon,” which had sued Dark and Darker developer Ironmace over alleged copyright infringement.

But Dungeonborne brought one thing to the table that gave it a real advantage over Dark and Darker: It was on Steam, and Dark and Darker was not at the time, thanks to that Nexon lawsuit. That made Dungeonborne readily accessible to a much larger audience, and gave it an opportunity to really eat Dark and Darker’s lunch.

It didn’t work out that way. Dungeonborne launched into early access on Steam in July 2024 and while it managed an impressive peak concurrent player count of more than 39,000 out of the gate, those numbers quickly tanked: As recorded by SteamDB, its peak concurrent player count over the past 24 hours is just 22. A seeming lack of support from developers surely didn’t help that situation: After announcing a season 1 roadmap and releasing a pre-season patch at the end of September, updates stopped until today’s announcement.

Somewhat ironically, Dark and Darker continues to rumble on. The game returned to steam in June 2024, just ahead of Dungeonborne’s final open beta, and has maintained solid concurrent player counts ever since—its most recent 24-hour peak was just shy of 12,000.