Dark Light: Survivor Early Access Review – Bullet Mayhem

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Since the popular game Vampire Survivors came out in 2022, many similar “survivor-like” shooters have emerged. With a new game appearing almost every month, Mirari & Co. is now joining the fray with Dark Light: Survivor. But despite seeming similar to other games in the genre, Dark Light: Survivor offers some surprisingly fresh ideas. It blends modern technology with classic medieval fantasy, creating a unique and interesting experience.

The world of Dark Light: Survivor faces a grim situation. Horrific creatures emerged, nearly wiping out humanity and breaking the fabric of reality. The few survivors discovered advanced technology, letting them build the Phantom Train – a vehicle for traveling between universes. As a Dark Hunter, you’ll journey to these different realities to defeat the most powerful demons.

From a story standpoint, that’s pretty much it. The game doesn’t offer much in the way of hidden lore or character development. It’s mostly a framework for sending you to strange locations and letting you battle a diverse range of creatures – zombies, ghouls, goblins, spiders, and more. The story serves the gameplay, rather than the other way around.

The story isn’t the main point here; it’s mostly a reason to send you to strange locations and let you battle different enemies.

Dark Light: Survivor is a game where you fight waves of enemies to earn experience points and level up. Leveling up unlocks new abilities, ranging from basic improvements like increased health or damage, to more unique options like a shoulder-mounted turret that fires poison grenades. This gameplay loop may seem similar to games like Vampire Survivors, but Dark Light: Survivor adds a key difference: you directly control a pair of weapons from the start, giving you active control in the combat.

As a player, I’ve found that no matter which character I pick, every run starts with a close-combat weapon and a ranged one, which is awesome! It keeps things way more engaging than just standing back and letting my powers do all the work. And it’s not just about having two weapons – they really add to the gameplay because you can upgrade them throughout the run. My starting sword might become a massive, slow-swinging Zweihander, or that little pistol could turn into an Uzi or even an assault rifle. Honestly, these weapon upgrades are a great thing because the magic system doesn’t really let you mix abilities in cool, creative ways, so the weapons definitely make up for that.

In Dark Light: Survivor, players can progress in three different ways. The first involves collecting Voidstones by defeating bosses throughout the game’s three levels. These Voidstones unlock new characters, weapons, levels, and runes. Runes are used in the second progression system; players earn them based on their performance in each level. Runes are fairly simple – they let you begin a run with a favorite weapon and a few small stat improvements.

One of the most significant ways to improve your characters is through skill trees. Each of the three playable characters has a unique skill tree that lets you spend in-game currency to gradually increase their power. For example, the knight specializes in close combat, with skills focused on boosting damage and defense. The gunslinger, on the other hand, improves at ranged attacks, gains speed, and can even make bullets bounce. Finally, the magic-user starts strong with elemental damage, prioritizing magical abilities over simple physical attacks.

In addition to the constant improvements you receive, each skill tree offers a few special abilities you can unlock. While it’s tempting to get them all right away, you can only have one active ability equipped at a time. For instance, playing as the knight, I had to choose between a Shield Bash that stuns many enemies – creating space during tough fights – and magical swords that spin around me, attacking wildly. Both were enjoyable and completely changed how I played each time.

Generally, playing Dark Light: Survivor is quite enjoyable and engaging, though I do have a few minor issues. The biggest problem is that it gets hard to see what’s happening when you’re surrounded by a lot of enemies – it’s difficult to tell them apart and prioritize which ones are most dangerous. Another issue is that the game doesn’t give you enough information when you find new weapons to easily decide if they’re better than what you already have. For example, you might see a new gun with lower damage numbers than your current one, but it’s unclear if it’s still an upgrade because there’s no overall ‘damage per second’ stat for comparison. While the game does use arrows to show if an item is an improvement, this feels like a quick fix, and the user interface could generally use some improvement.

My biggest issue with Dark Light: Survivor is simply that there isn’t much to do yet. It only has three maps, and once you’ve finished them, there’s not a strong reason to keep playing unless you’re determined to complete everything. However, it’s still in Early Access, and the developers plan to continue working on it for another year to a year and a half, so they have time to add more content. The game’s idea of traveling through different universes is exciting, and I hope the developers fully explore that potential.

My main issue with Dark Light: Survivor is that it simply doesn’t have enough content.

Overall, Dark Light: Survivor is a solid Early Access title. While it currently lacks a lot of content, the developers are already planning to add more levels, which addresses the biggest issue at launch. Aside from that, the game just needs some polishing and refinement. If you enjoy survivor-style shooters, Dark Light: Survivor is worth checking out.

This game was reviewed on PC.

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2026-06-02 18:48