Darkhaven Kickstarter & Demo Live Now After ARPG Hits 140k Wishlists Since Reveal
Moon Beast Productions, an independent studio founded by Diablo veterans Philip Shenk, Peter Hu, and Erich Schaefer, are pleased to announce that the Kickstarter for their next-generation action RPG, Darkhaven, is now live. The team has also today released an unconventionally unfiltered demo for Darkhaven.
Closer to a pre-alpha than a highly polished, bite-sized teaser, Moon Beast have decided not to water down their ambition with a narrow vertical slice, instead allowing players to experience the full, unfiltered version of what they are building as the Kickstarter goes live.
The demo offers several hours of open-ended ARPG gameplay inside a persistent sandbox world. Players can progress the Witch class to level 8, experimenting across three skill trees focused on mobility, positioning, and resource management.
“For us, this is about proving potential… The strange, ambitious, sometimes choatic ideas that we believe can push the ARPG genre forward”, said Erich Schaefer, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer. “There’s dust on the edges, but there’s also real experimentation, and a strong look at our bold new ideas taking shape. Our goal with this demo is to demonstrate two things at the same time. First, that we’re staying true to the addictive core of classic Diablo-style gameplay - progression, itemization, and build synergies. Second, we want to deliberately break from the pack in how worlds evolve, how replayability works, and how much agency players have over the land itself.”
Generating an impressive 140k wishlists since its reveal, Darkhaven is a dark fantasy isometric ARPG set in the aftermath of a great and final collapse of civilization. Ancient empires have fallen, their ruins reclaimed by wilderness, monsters, and predatory supernatural forces. Players are heirs to a legacy of power that is the last hope for this dying world. As eldritch evil worms its way into the world to feed on its remains, it falls to these few to bring the land back from the brink of death.
Designed for solo play, cooperative adventures, and high-stakes PvP-enabled realms, Darkhaven is set in a procedurally generated, fully dynamic, and persistent world. Terrain and structures are deformable and buildable, allowing players to dig through earth, tunnel through dungeon walls, drain lakes to uncover buried ruins, redirect lava flows to reshape battlefields, or rebuild shattered fortresses. Seasons change, weather alters combat and traversal, and world-altering events leave permanent scars. Every action contributes to a shared, evolving history.
“This demo is a sincere love-letter to our fans, past and future,” said Philip Shenk, co-founder and CEO. “An invitation to see what Darkhaven could become, and to help bring it to life through our Kickstarter campaign.”
