The Dark and Darker failed to connect error is a common problem. Players report encountering two different pop-up messages that prevent them from playing the popular multiplayer game by Ironmace: one that reads “failed to connect to the server” and another that says “the connection to the server terminated abnormally.” Both issues are irritating and the game doesn’t particularly tell you what this is happening. That said, there are some solutions you can try to fix the issue or at least find out whether the servers are down or what the server status is in general. Here’s how to fix general server connection issues with Dark and Darker on PC via Steam.
How to fix Dark and Darker “failed to connect to the server” error message
Normally, to fix any connection errors with Dark and Darker, you need to wait for the online servers to come back up.
Typically, players are unable to connect to the game servers during maintenance. Since Dark and Darker only released in full on June 8, 2024, many hotfixes and patches are slated to arrive within the next few months. Every time a new patch is introduced, the servers need to go down so that the update goes through. Usually, these hotfixes arrive on Thursday to minimize these interruptions throughout the week, but in some cases they are deployed on off-days.
While the game itself doesn’t share when the servers will be back online, the developers share more information on its official Discord. We suggest heading to the “announcements” channel to check the latest updates, particularly when they are scheduled to happen, as well as the “server-status” channel that will give a direct status report on the servers. Sometimes, a patch goes wrong and it takes a hour or longer for it to go through without any issues, so it’s a matter of being patient, so that Ironmace can resolve the issue.
Dark and Darker was delisted from Steam in 2023 due to pending litigation from Nexon.
