Things get a bit less harrowing in a well-balanced trio of Fighter Dark And Darker Gold, Cleric, and Wizard, (or Barbarian, Rogue, or Ranger) but even so, death is only a couple missteps away in Dark and Darker's classically claustrophobic dungeons, which make me miss the open air of other PvPvE romps.

If I do escape, I immediately sell all my loot in the merchant menu and shove the gold coins in my stash while I take on the next run wearing only what I brought out on my back. This is where Dark and Darker is most similar to Escape From Tarkov; buying incrementally better gear from merchants and working towards permanent class upgrades is a familiar grind. I'm not one to throw around the word "Sisyphean" but the threat of my loot boulder tumbling down the hill seems even greater than other extraction games. Instead, I strive towards level-gated perk slot upgrades and swapping my active skills for the Fighter and Rogue characters I'm levelling.

Dark and Darker's first-person melee combat is a bit like Skyrim—slash, step back, slash, block, get hit with an arrow despite blocking, repeat. It means I spend a lot of time doing that W and S waltz with a skeleton buy Dark And Darker Gold while knowing I may stumble backwards into an enemy player (or hell, just a closed door) and have my run cut short. Weapons have a series of automatic combos indicated by your reticle—diagonal right, diagonal left, then a thrust for the sword a Fighter starts with—so it's above the monotony of yon Tamriel melee, but not as skill-based as Chivalry 2.