Two Dark And Darker Knock-Offs Are Holding Steam Playtests This Week

gamespot.com:

A PvPvE dungeon crawling RPG with extraction and battle royale elements? Why does that sound familiar?

By Cameron Koch on

Dark and Darker may have been the game to popularize extraction-style dungeon crawlers, but it certainly won't be the last. Two extremely similar games, Greed is Good and Project Crawl, are both holding Steam playtests this week.

All three titles, at first glance, appear almost identical. Like Dark and Darker, players in Project Crawl and Greed is Good can team up to venture into a dangerous dungeon in search of treasure, in the process battling to overcome both monsters and teams of other players as a shrinking battle royale-esque circle forces players into closer proximity as a match progresses.

It's clear Greed is Good and Project Crawl look to have been heavily «inspired» by the work developer Ironmace has done with its own first-person slasher, mimicking everything from Dark and Darker's user interface to its map. In Greed is Good's case, even things as specific as Dark and Darker's «interact» and weapon attack animations look to have been copied. Additionally, as pointed out in a video by Dark and Darker content creator Onepeg, many of Greed is Good's spells and class abilities are almost carbon copies of ones seen in Dark and Darker, even going as far to, in many cases, have the exact same name and function as ones from Ironmace's game. Even the way players extract from the dungeon is the same--via blue or red portal stones.

That being said, there are some differences worth noting. Project Crawl, for example, looks to feature more robust character creation options, while Greed is Good has elected to go the hero-shooter route when it comes to playable classes. Greed is Good also features a number of