Dark and Light PC Steam Review

Dark and Light had been on my radar for quite a while, as a fantasy open world survival game, I was excited to see why the game received such mixed reviews and what the controversy is all about.

Storyline

Dark and Light is a Sandbox game, meaning there is no original questing, the only thing resembling quests in the game is the starting “quests” which make you learn a little bit about the game.

Snail games, the developers of Dark and Light, also stated that there will not be a direct narrative shoved into your face with cutscenes and such, but only parts of story hidden in the environment and item descriptions but a lot of that is still unavailable.

Gameplay

Dark and Light is an online, fantasy, sandbox, survival RPG with a focus on magic and taming wildlife.  And just to get it out-of-the-way yes there is lag and bugs but it is not game breaking by any means.

When you start the game you will have to choose a server to play on which can host up to 70 players at the time, this was a letdown for me as I am not the biggest fan of server-based games because you lose your progress when you go to another server.

After choosing a server and a fairly long loading screen you will have to choose 1 of three races and customize your character to obviously make them as ugly as you like, Your race also decides your starting point in the game which is currently one of three towns on the map.

one of the more unique things that I also quite like about this game is that there are vendors and other npc’s in the towns where you can buy and sell items and use some specific tools only found in the towns.

So as you go and explore the world you will have to craft and collect items to survive the brutal and unforgiving world of Dark and Light, it can get a little frustrating at times as the game does not explain too many things to you and definitely does not hold your hand, as you will die a lot when starting off.

Another really cool feature is the skill system of Dark and Light where you gain knowledge by crafting and collecting resources which unlocks more crafting possibilities and more skills to unlock.

Now, as expected there are still quite some bugs in the game like teleporting and attacks simply not connecting, and this really does take away from the fun that you can have with the game, and there is plenty of fun to be had with Dark and Light, as long as you are able to look past these bugs and other problems the game still does have.

Graphics

Dark and Light definitely is a very good-looking game, Graphically it is pretty standard Unreal Engine 4 stuff, but the design of the world and creatures, and a wide variety of biomes, from snowy mountains to dense forests full of vegetation and creatures is what makes everything look so good.

All this combined makes the world of Dark and Light truly feel alive, and this really encourages exploring the varied and awesome looking world of Dark and Light.>

Sound

The sound design of dark and light is fairly good most sounds are clear and I did not really notice any inconsistencies apart from some sound bug, but I kind of expected those things so it did not bother me.

What did kind of bothered me was that most games these days just have alright to pretty good sound design, I would love to see more games put more effort in sound as it does have a lot of impact on the player and it can really help players getting invested by the game.>

Replayability

Dark and Light does have a lot of replay value, with a lot of progression and a large open world to explore there is always something to do, you can try to upgrade your base or gear, tame a stronger and better creature or go out and explore the world.

So if you are able to look past most of Dark and Light’s problems, you can really lose a lot of time to it.