The game formerly known as Moonbeast has officially shed its skin and re-emerged as Darkhaven, and the best part is that we finally get to touch it. The team at Moon Beast Productions just dropped a playable demo on Steam, and it’s a lot more than your standard five-minute vertical slice.
This project carries some serious weight because it’s being steered by Diablo veterans like Erich Schaefer, Phil Shenk, and Peter Hu. These are the minds that basically invented the loot-hunting loops we all stay up too late playing. But instead of just making “Diablo 2 but shinier,” they’re leaning into some wild dynamic worlds and terrain destruction. Imagine a world where you can actually dig through walls, redirect lava flows, or watch a Lich invasion permanently scar the landscape. It’s basically what happens when you mix the dark, gritty soul of an ARPG with the sandbox freedom of something like Minecraft.
Now, a quick heads-up: the devs are being incredibly transparent about the fact that this is a pre-alpha build. They’re calling it unfiltered, which is developer-speak for “it’s got some rough edges, but the heart is there.” You won’t find a polished, bug-free experience here, but you will find a persistent sandbox where you can play as the Witch class, grind up to level 8, and experiment with three different skill trees. They want players to see the foundation early so we can help break things while they’re still in the workshop.
If you’re the type who lives for bold, expressive loot rather than just chasing tiny 1% stat increases, this is probably your new obsession. The demo is live right now to coincide with their Kickstarter campaign, which is looking to fuel the rest of development. It’s a bold move to put such an early version of the game in the public’s hands, but honestly, in an era of over-polished trailers, seeing the actual gameplay mechanics this early feels like a breath of fresh, albeit monster-infested, air.
