Dark and Darker struck by DDoS attack

Developer Ironmace has announced on Discord that Dark and Darker servers have been under attack for the past day. The developers are actively trying to mitigate the threat and the connectivity issues that players are experiencing. The announcement was immediately met with support and further inquiries from a seemingly tireless fanbase, but Ironmace is remaining tightlipped about the specifics of the attack.

Related: Are Dark and Darker servers down? Dark and Darker server status

Dark and Darker servers went down midday on January 14 for another brief patch, as planned maintenance — Ironmace has continued to implement patches based on player data, tweaking some classes while nerfing others. The DDoS attack reportedly began after this maintenance, although the developer has not discussed the attack at length in any medium as of publication. The studio is expected to make additional information available once the attack has been fully mitigated.

There is only a little player can do except deal with longer queue times and the occasional dropping from a match. If players are dropped from an ongoing match, they’ll be able to reconnect, if the match is ongoing, once the connection is re-established to the server. However, whether or not their character will still be alive for them to take control is another issue entirely.

The presumed DDoS attack has resulted in the lowest number of concurrent Steam players during a playtest, dipping as low as 34,726 for the title, which has comfortably held over 100,000 players during its early alpha testing. Based on playercount, the attack struck twice at 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM PST on February 14. The current playtest for Dark and Darker is scheduled to end on February 16 — an additional extension is unlikely. However, it could be valuable in shoring up insecurities in the network for Ironmace.