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As a PvPvE take on the all-too-familiar medieval dungeon crawler experience, extraction is an essential part of Dark and Darker. While the game's target is to loot gears and trinkets, all of them are lost if you fail to extract and escape the dungeon in time.
To extract in Dark and Darker, you must find an Escape Portal marked with a blue headstone. Alternatively, you can go deeper into the dungeon for a bigger reward with a bigger risk.
How to use Escape Portal and extract in Dark and Darker?
From Escape from Tarkov to Warzone 2's DMZ mode, the PvPvE loot and extract mechanic has become a fan-favorite over the last few years. Developer-publisher Ironmace has taken that all-too-familiar formula and reimagined it as a medieval dungeon crawler filled with monsters and mages.
Currently, in an invite-only playtest phase with a release window of Q4 2023, the game tasks players to travel deep into the dungeon and escape with the best gears and trinkets.
How to find an Escape Portal
To extract from the dungeon, you need to find an Escape Portal. Marked with a blue headstone, the portal will let you extract all of the loot from the dungeon to sell or carry over in the next game.
The Escape Portals spawn randomly without any specific location, so it might be a bit hard to find for someone unfamiliar with the title. However, as you approach them, you will hear a low rumbling sound and a notification, which will pop up on the top-right of the screen.
How to use Escape Portal
Using the escape Portal is quite simple, get in front of it, aim the crosshair at the scroll, and press F (which can be changed in the keybind settings). While initiating a portal is easy, it does take a bit of time to activate.
You can always activate the portal, find more loot, and return to extract, but other players can also steal the portal.
Tips and Tricks for extracting in Dark and Darker using Escape Portal
While Dark and Darker is a fairly easy game to understand, the unpredictable nature of what to expect in the dungeon's depths makes it enticing. Let's look at some notable tips and tricks to keep.
Escape Portal vs Down Portal: Which one to choose
There are two kinds of portal headstones in Dark and Darker, the blue ones pertain to the Escape Portal, while the red ones are the Down Portal. The Escape Portal lets you safely exit the game with all of your loot intact, and conversely, the Down Portal will take you deeper into the dungeon with better loot and stronger enemies.
While the Escape Portal takes a while to get going, Down Portals are instantaneous. If you get stuck in a situation where you can't afford to lose time, such as the plague closing in, go for the Down Portal and escape to a lower level.
Once opened, the portal will remain until used
Speaking of opening Escape Portals, while they take a bit of time to get going, they will remain operable until used. With this mechanic, the game gives the option to plan ahead.
You can initiate a portal, explore for loot or enemies to slay, and then finally return to an open portal, instead of waiting and wasting your time.
Guard your portal, for they can be stole
While exploring and gathering loot is indeed a strategy with investing, it means leaving your portal unguarded. An unguarded portal can easily be stolen by nearby players and help them extract from the dungeons instead. As such, it is up to you to explore, gather more loot, guard your portal, and extract the trinkets.
Dark and Darker is currently available to playtest via invite only on PC. To try it, head to the game's Steam page and request an invite.
