Dark December Ruby

Today, we're looking at Dark December, a free-to-play fantasy dark action RPG released on January 20, 2026. If you've played Undecember, you'll likely be familiar with it, as Dark December is a prequel to Undecember, both set in the same universe.

So if you're a fan of Undecember and enjoy fast-paced, easy-to-learn hack-and-slash action RPGs, then don't miss Dark December. However, as a new title, Dark December differs from its predecessor in many ways, so you're sure to experience some unexpected surprises!

Next, we'll introduce what kind of game Dark December is, delving into its various aspects, including the classes you can play, core game mechanics, endgame mode, and more.

About Dark December

First, Dark December is a fantasy action RPG. In the game, you'll play as a warrior from Syrian Tribe, born into the plans of Twelve Gods, plans never before seen in Undecember.

These grand plans will lead you on an adventure filled with new encounters, challenges, and experiences. You'll need to slay terrifying creatures, collect loot and materials, and craft a powerful character. You can play solo or with friends; all the elements you'd typically find in an ARPG are present in Dark December.

Currently, Dark December is available on Steam, iOS, and Android, and supports cross-platform progress sharing, meaning you can continue your adventure anytime, anywhere, picking up where you left off.

Dark December vs. Undecember

Released in 2022, Undecember is a Diablo-like action-RPG that introduced a brand-new rune-based skill system to the genre, undoubtedly its biggest selling point. At launch, many players were constantly pushing the limits of this system, exploring its mechanics. But eventually, time passed, and the game faded from view, gathering dust.

Then, Dark December appeared. While the two games are vastly different, there are some minor overlaps, such as the return of the backstory and parts of the rune system, but that's about it. They are two completely different games, each with its own unique appeal.

Compared to its predecessor, Undecember, the biggest change in this game is its adoption of a third-person, floating perspective similar to MMOs like World of WarCraft, rather than the top-down, locked perspective of Diablo or Path of Exile.

Class System

Next, let's talk about the core class system that underpins this game. So far, Dark December has introduced three classes: Berserker (Warrior), Morgana (Mage), and Raven (Ranger).

Although they have their own unique names in Dark December, their fundamental operating mechanics are no different from the Warrior/Mage/Ranger classes in Diablo or PoE.

Berserker

First, let's look at this melee master - Berserker. This is a two-handed warrior who charges into battle, turning the battlefield into chaos with unstoppable fury. Choosing this class is definitely a safe bet. Once you unlock his abilities, you can simply gather enemies together, line them up, and unleash massive AoE damage with your two-handed greatsword. You can also spin in place, sweeping away everything in your path.

Generally, Berserkers excel in boss fights, quickly eliminating bosses, but their map clearing speed is slow because Warriors lack the mobility of the other two classes.

Morgana

Next, let's look at Morgana, a poison fire mage who can sweep across the battlefield with deadly storms of blazing wind or slowly kill enemies with poison spray. You can also easily maintain distance from enemies with teleportation abilities, and even summon pets to assist in combat and distract enemies. The mage strikes a good balance between Warrior's single-target burst damage and Ranger's map clearing ability, with quite good output efficiency.

The only limitation to Morgana's potential is her spell cooldown time. You need to time your spellcasting carefully to ensure it doesn't fail, especially when you need it most.

Raven

Finally, let's look at Raven. She's essentially a Ranger class, using swarms of ravens to overwhelm enemies. Raven is described as a master of stealth, able to attack from the shadows, eliminating targets with deadly precision before disappearing back into the darkness. You'll need to rely on dodging large numbers of enemy attacks.

Her skill set allows you to kite enemies from a distance and unleash powerful abilities that deal both additional single-target and area-of-effect damage, making her a very versatile class. Raven's only weakness is that she's slightly less effective against bosses compared to Warriors.

Character Progression

Now that we know which class we'll be controlling, let's talk about your character and quest progress in Dark December.

This game doesn't have any fancy mechanics, and the quests won't offer any unexpected challenges. It follows the main storyline, with side quests appearing randomly in each area. These missions are very straightforward, moving from one hub to another with only a little map exploration in between.

Frankly, these missions aren't much different from typical ARPG missions and aren't worth mentioning. Their innovation in character building is more noteworthy.

In completing these missions, you'll collect loot, upgrade materials, resources, and XP, all of which convert into Skill and Mastery Points. These are the core elements for enhancing your character's power in Dark December, as you'll need them to upgrade equipment attributes.

The entire process becomes your endgame loop: acquire powerful equipment, then continuously upgrade to progress through increasingly difficult content at a faster pace. You'll also acquire some equipment that you might not need, as it belongs to a different class or isn't suitable for your character build. This equipment can also be broken down into resources at Blacksmith to exchange for equipment boxes containing a random piece of equipment at the Fragments Shop.

In my opinion, this is almost entirely a proper resource dumping system, a way to recycle low-quality drops into potentially useful items at any time. They can be used for upgrades, as potential loot, or as currency. Nothing is entirely useless.

Skill & Mastery Points

Remember Skills and Mastery Points we mentioned earlier? Now let's talk about these, as they're the core of the game's progression.

In Undecember, you can find runes to acquire skills and modify them. In Dark December, your skills unlock as you reach certain level milestones, and these runes appear as drops, allowing you to modify skills.

Therefore, runes have different uses, priorities, and impacts on your character's development, but they still exist. Once you unlock a skill, you can invest skill points to enhance it, increasing its power. Because once a skill is unlocked, you obviously need to invest resources to improve it, making it more powerful before you can equip and actually use it.

Next are Mastery Points. These points unlock at the end of Chapter 1, are distributed as potions, and need to be consumed.

These mastery points allow you to invest in different nodes, thereby improving a specific trait of your character. Once you select a node, the other nodes are locked until you reset them. Each node in each row can have a maximum of five points invested.

This gives players a degree of choice and autonomy in character building, allowing them to adjust character configurations according to their preferences, leveraging strengths, compensating for weaknesses, and deciding which skills to master and which to avoid learning. This is what you'll be doing for most of the campaign and main story.

Endgame

After completing the campaign, you'll enter the endgame and unlock several endgame modes.

• First is Chaos Dungeons. These dungeons are randomly generated; after completing one, you'll encounter a boss, then continue challenging the next, repeating until you finish.
• Hall of Oblivion is similar to a boss challenge mode. You can choose the boss you want to challenge, and the system will continuously match you with increasingly powerful bosses.
• Furthermore, there are raids, which are group dungeons where you can challenge high-difficulty battles with friends or random players.

These are not significantly different from the endgame content of currently available MMO games. These rewards are generous, easy to understand, and linked to your character's long-term growth through equipment and resource drops. This creates a continuous cycle that you can explore and experience.

Guild System

Now let's look at the guild system in Dark December. Surprisingly, the game's social elements are richer than we expected.

It's not just about adding a friends list like in typical action RPGs. In Dark December, you can do many different things when you create or join a guild. You can set various levels and control methods; donate to the guild to unlock special buffs; and the guild leader can set minimum level requirements and guild type to clarify member expectations. These customizations also help players find raid partners more easily.

Microtransactions

Finally, it's time to talk about microtransactions in this game. Although it's a free-to-play game, it also offers optional paid features.

First, there's the in-game store where you can buy Dark December Ruby with real money. This currency can be used to unlock exclusive premium costumes, consumables, sets, and upgrade materials.

Besides that, there's Battle Pass, which is almost identical to the traditional model of most RPGs: complete quests to unlock rewards. Of course, if you own the premium version, you'll get additional rewards. This is quite common in 2026, nothing new.

That's all! Honestly, Dark December is a very enjoyable free-to-play game right now, especially with the synergies between characters and the skill system that allows for a lot of customization. So, why not give it a try!