Dark Country is an upcoming digital CCG (collectible card game) with a gothic horror setting. A public beta is planned for June, 2020.
This article will explore everything we know so far about Dark Country. We’ll explain the story, character races, game modes, roadmap and more.
If you’re a fan of Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and other gothic CCGs, you may like Dark Country. Read on to find out more.
Dark Country: A Cross-Blockchain Game
The developer of Dark Country intends for it to be a cross-blockchain game. Each player will be able to own and trade cards on the blockchain network of his choice. The initial plan is to provide support for WAX, Ethereum, EOS, and TRON.
Players will even be able to move items from one blockchain to the other using an “NFT migrator.”
Dark Country Story
Dark Country takes place in a nation plagued by an evil curse. The King made treaties with numerous countries. But after making these treaties, he double-crossed all of the nations of the world.
He knew the country was going to be invaded and conquered. So in desperation, he decided to perform an ancient ritual called The Ancestral Guard.
He expected all of the nation’s fallen soldiers to be revived. But in the process of bringing them back to life, something horrible happened. Now undead monsters roam the land and the country has fallen into chaos.
Playable factions
The player can control creatures from one of four factions: The Ancestral Guard, Resolute Rangers, Cunning Crusaders, or Destructive Horde.
Ancestral Guard
The Ancestral Guard is an army of awakened soldiers from the Dark Country’s past. These warriors have a deep connection to nature and the elements. They are especially skilled at melee combat.
Resolute Rangers
The Resolute Rangers are the living citizens of the country. Forced to deal with the chaos their own King has brought upon them, they have banded together to beat back the undead menace.
Many members of the Resolute Rangers were prominent doctors, lawyers, deputies, or merchants before the undead outbreak.
Resolute Rangers are especially adept at healing, melee combat, and siege tactics.
Cunning Crusaders
The Cunning Crusaders is made up of criminals.
The members of this group welcome the breakdown of law and order that has now occurred. They seek to profit from the opportunity by looting and pillaging wherever they can.
The members of this group are especially good at fighting solo, hiding in the shadows, and making opportunistic attacks.
Destructive Horde
The Destructive Horde is a mixture of the risen undead and ancient monsters unleashed by the King’s ritual. The members of this group seek to annihilate the living through dark magic.
Although the members of this group have ancient powers that are difficult to combat, they are susceptible to natural magic used by the Ancestral Guard.
Game Modes
At launch, Dark Country will have three game modes: Classic CCG, Auto Battler, and Living World CCG.
Classic CCG
In Classic CCG mode, players will build decks using the cards they own.
This is similar to the gameplay of current “paper” collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon.
Auto Battler Mode
In Auto Battler mode, gameplay will consist of a series of rounds. In each round, players will be able to first build up their armies before engaging in a series of automatic attacks.
The developer of Dark Country is using the popular Hearthstone Battlegrounds format as a rough template for developing Auto Battler. However, this format will probably be tweaked considerably to make it suitable for Dark Country’s unique mechanics.
Living Board CCG
In Living Board CCG mode, players will compete for control of land.
Some land will produce mana. For this reason, players will want to control as much of it as possible. Land will also be categorized by terrain. Players will need to modify their decks based on what type of land they expect to be fighting on.
Living Board CCG mode will combine elements of turn-based strategy games like Civilization and XCOM with traditional CCG concepts.
Dark Country Esports
Once Dark Country is launched publicly, the developer plans to create an Esports program. 10% of all proceeds from the initial batch of cards will go to fund this program. The funding from this will provide prize money to the winners of Dark Country tournaments.
Weekly tournaments
Dark Country will have weekly tournaments that award exclusive collectibles, titles, and other perks. This will give more casual players a place to compete.
Cash prizes may be offered from time to time in weekly tournaments, but the rewards will remain small when compared to other types of tournaments.
Regular tournaments
The more serious players will compete in “regular tournaments.”
The developer has not yet announced how frequent these larger, more lucrative tournaments will be. But the plan is to make them less frequent than once per week and more frequent than once per year.
Regular tournaments will often provide large cash prizes. This may eventually allow some players to make a living from playing Dark Country.
Annual championship tournament
Each year, a championship tournament will be held. The majority of the prize pool for the year will be handed out at this tournament. This should be a major event that players spend months training for.
How to get Dark Country cards
The developer of Dark Country has designed a 100-card Exodus set exclusively for early contributors. Each rare pack from this set contains 5 cards, 1 of which is guaranteed to be rare.
Each of the other four cards has a 65% chance of being common, 30% chance of being rare, 4% chance of being epic, and 1% chance of being legendary.
Rare packs are available for $1.95 each. A Starter Bundle is also available that includes 10 rare packs, 1 legendary pack, and a life-giving booster for $19.99.
This card set will only be available until January 24. Packs cannot be opened until March, 2020.
Any of these products can be purchased directly from the developer’s website.
This game does not yet have a playable demo. So keep in mind that purchasing collectibles from a game that is in this early of a stage always carries some risk.
Dark Country Roadmap
The developer claims that packs will be openable in March. In April, a select group of early contributors will be allowed into a closed beta. The public beta is planned for launch in June.
Conclusion
It’s too soon to tell whether Dark Country will be a fun game. But fans of gothic horror CCGs may want to keep up with its development.
We’ll be keeping an eye on it as time goes by. And when a public beta becomes available, we will playtest it and update this article with whatever new info we find out.
What do you think of the idea of a gothic horror, blockchain-backed CCG? Let us know in the comments below.
