Elsewhere in the Q&A, Ironmace said it hasn't "fully decided" on whether to commit to battle passes or cosmetic item shops in Dark and Darker. What Ironmace does actually reveal, though, is that sales from Dark and Darker won't be enough to sustain servers and keep the studio operating on their own Dark And Darker Gold, so monetization will be necessary in some form.

"There is absolutely no P2W" Ironmace reassured a fan in the Q&A, revealing they won't extend monetization to cover game-changing items and bonuses. Despite the vagueness of monetization matters, the promise of no pay-to-win mechanics will come as a huge relief for Dark and Darker players.

There's undoubtedly a lot left undecided by Ironmace right now about monetization, but it's clear that in the modern gaming industry, sales alone aren't enough to keep a studio going. Here's hoping the Dark and Darker dev settles on a method that both keeps the lights on and satisfies its players. 

The Dark and Darker playtest has been extended by three more days to compensate for some of the issues players experienced when it started. 

As announced via the game's Steam page(opens in new tab), the playtest - which started on December 16 and was initially set to end on December 23 - has been prolonged and will now end on December 26 instead. The reason behind these extra three days is due to the game's developer IronMace wanting to make up for the early network issues, instabilities, and rollback issues players were experiencing at the start of the playtest. 

As documented on the game's Twitter account, shortly after the playtest went live, players began reporting server issues and bugs in the game. Thankfully, the developer quickly solved the situation and rolled out a hotfix that ironed out some of the teething issues Dark and Darker was having. Unfortunately, things didn't stay smooth for too long, and three more hotfixes had to be rolled out. It seems like things are going well right now, though cheap Dark And Darker Gold.