Darkhaven, a new multiplayer online ARPG that makes some pretty bold promises, has officially gone live on Kickstarter to raise its $500,000 funding goal, managing to raise $79,906 halfway through the first day of funding. Darkhaven's developer, Moon Beast Productions, explains that the game will have a fully procedurally generated, destructible sandbox world with "Diablo-style progression, skills, and itemization," and free, open exploration with a high degree of mobility in and out of combat. The Kickstarter will run until March 20, 2026, giving the developer a little over a month to garner funding. In addition to the Kickstarter, Moon Beast Productions has published both a development timeline and a pre-alpha demo on Steam.

The pre-alpha demo is touted as the foundation of the game, and it admittedly lacks polish and serves only as a way for players to test out the gameplay mechanics of Darkhaven. Moon Beast claims that the pre-alpha is an "unfiltered version of what we're building, not a watered-down teaser," suggesting players will be able to explore much more of the game world than a traditional demo would allow. The developer has also published a timeline explaining what it had been working on in the time the game has been in development as part of its Darkhaven timeline, in the process revealing that Darkhaven should launch in Steam Early Access close to Q4 2026. The studio also explains that the Kickstarter funding will go towards developing more character classes and skills, adding to the mob roster, building out the game's lore, NPCs, and quests, and adding more biomes and environmental events.Moon Beast has the following to say about the exact details of the pre-alpha demo:

What this demo is (and what it isn't)

This is Pre-Alpha. Not a polished "final-quality" preview—the foundation.
The goal is simple: let you get hands-on with Darkhaven's core gameplay and direction right now, and help us pressure-test what works as we move forward.

Yes, you'll see rough edges, balance will shift, some things are still placeholder, and you may hit bugs.. But! You'll also be playing a demo that's closer to a real pre-alpha than a tiny curated slice.

What's in the demo
Depending on how much you like exploring builds and pushing systems, this demo offers several hours of open-ended ARPG gameplay.

• Character progression caps at level 8
• One playable class in this build
• 6 skills across 3 skill trees
• One major world event can be triggered through the main quest line
• Once triggered, it will progressively (and endlessly) transform your world until you stop it
• You don't have to trigger it until you're ready

If you run into a major issue, please tell us. Even small details help us reproduce problems fast.

Multiplayer note

Multiplayer is our most experimental feature right now.
Online play is not guaranteed, and downtime may happen.
It's enabled so we can test, learn, and improve what comes next.

World resets

Server reboots will reset world shards. Persistent world-state saves are planned, but they're not in yet.