The long-awaited Dark and Darker April 14 playtest is here, but only through non-traditional distribution methods, as the devs are asking players to torrent the latest beta.
Previous Dark and Darker playtests were distributed through Steam, but the game's been delisted from Valve's platform in the wake of an ongoing legal battle. In a new update posted to the game's official Discord, the devs say that "Unfortunately, due to the complexities of our situation, especially across international lines, it is taking time to resolve the Steam situation. In order for us to keep our promise to our fans we've had to go old school this time."
By "old school" they mean "torrenting." Torrents have historically been pretty closely associated with piracy, but they're really just an effective way of distributing large files when you don't have the server infrastructure of, say, Steam. So here we are.
You can grab the magnet link to input into your torrent client at the Discord link above, or through a tweet from the developers. The devs will warn you - and I'll echo them here - that you should not attempt to grab the link from any unofficial source, as there's no telling what might get installed on your PC if you download a torrent from an unscrupulous source.
The new client will have a login screen that "may be confusing," according to the devs. You'll just need to put in an ID and password in order to create your account.
With no clear word on the playtest before today, fans were getting desperate.
