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DARKBOUNTY
A deathmatch fought in the dark.
A hauler the size of a town, adrift with its cargo still aboard. Sixteen bounty hunters. No lights, no radar, no second chance at a room you already crossed.
Everything that lets you see costs you being seen.
A bounty hunter goes where the law does not.
Long-range contact: an imperial cargo hauler. Dark. Drifting. Still loaded.
Its manifest is worth more than your ship.
You are not the first to find it.
Others are already aboard.
One rule, applied without exception
Every advantage you take is a light somebody else can see.
You bring your own
There is no ambient light on this deck. Your lamp is the reason you can see, and the reason you are visible from across the hold.
It goes through walls
Hearing has no cone and no line of sight. Bulkheads muffle a footstep; they never delete it. You will hear them first.
Costs 70% of your speed
One key makes you completely quiet and nearly immobile. It is the only counter to hearing in the game, and most fights start with it.
The deck is unlit. Not moody — unlit.
No ambient fallback. No brightness slider that quietly undoes it. What you can see is what something is currently lighting — and almost everything that lights this deck is a decision somebody made.
Every ability is priced in the same currency. A shield saves you and glows while it does. A flare lights the room and lights you in it. Firing pins your exact position. Nothing here makes you stronger without making you easier to find.
Bots obey the same darkness you do. No wall-hacks, no free vision.
Lamp on
- You can see where you are going
- You can search a compartment properly
- Anyone across the deck can see you
- You are lit from every angle, including behind
Lamp out
- Nobody sees you by light. Not at range. Not point blank.
- You move without announcing it
- You are nearly blind
- A fixed lamp you walk into gives you away anyway
You will hear them first
Sight needs light and a clear line. Sound needs neither — it is the only sense on this deck you cannot switch off, and the reason a dark room is never actually empty.
- It comes from everywhere. Sight is a cone in front of you; a lamp behind your back is invisible however bright. Hearing has no cone at all.
- Walls muffle it, they do not stop it. Every other sense treats a bulkhead as absolute. Sound arrives quieter and keeps arriving.
- Stealth cannot touch it. A player who is completely unseeable still makes footsteps, still makes gunfire, still makes a blade land. That asymmetry is the ability.
- The server decides what you hear. Volume is computed where the game is authoritative and sent to you. Nothing local to read, nothing to turn up.
What carries, loudest first
Gunfire
Carries far beyond anything you can see. Shooting from the dark buys a kill and costs your position.
Footsteps & dashes
Scale with your speed. A dash scuffs loudly — crossing a room fast is a decision, not a free move.
Doors
Every threshold hisses as it cycles, about as far as a footstep. Hear one and something just moved next door.
Failing lamps
Fittings crackle as they die. Under half a footstep's reach — enough to place a room, not a person.
Headphones are not a recommendation. Sound is spatialised, and it is the only information you get from places you cannot see. Speakers mean playing with a sense switched off.
Walk onto a deck
Two official servers, and whoever else is aboard them. Pick one, see what is running there, and join it — the permanent deck never closes.
Open your own
A game on an official server with your rules: free-for-all or up to four sides, a score limit, and as many practice bots as you want — including none. Tell your friends which.
Practise
Up to twelve bots on a game of your own, at three difficulties. Held to exactly the darkness you are: no seeing through walls, no seeing further than their own lamp reaches.
Keyboard & mouse
WASD move · Mouse aim · Click fire · R click or L Alt brace · Space dash · Shift sneak · R reload · F lamp · QE modules
Controller
Left stick moves · right stick aims · RT fire · R3 brace · A dash · L3 sneak · X reload · Y lamp · LBLT modules
Aim is analogue and exact. Movement is eight-way. Every key rebindable.
Matches
First to the score limit — you set it. Results stand for eight seconds, then everything starts again. Nothing pauses while they do.
Come aboard. Bring headphones.
Free, unfinished, and honest about it. It runs in your browser — no sign-up, no install, no launcher.
A desktop or laptop, with a keyboard and mouse or a controller. Chrome, Edge and Firefox are known to work.
Two servers, both in Europe
Pick one from the menu, join a game running there or open your own, and tell your friends which. There is no offline play: the deck runs on the server, and so does everybody's copy of it.
The alpha can be closed for a while — a bad build, a maintenance window. If you see “Alpha access is closed”, nothing is broken on your end.
Your matches go on the record — wins, kills, accuracy, per mode — under an anonymous account made in your browser the first time you board. Sign in with Google only if you want that record to follow you to another machine. Nothing else is collected.
● Checking the switch…