Download and play
Download The-Darkness-Recomp-v0.1.4-windows-x64.zip under Assets. The Source code archives are for developers.
Extract the entire ZIP, copy your own supported Xbox 360 game dump into Darkness, then run Launch.cmd. Use LaunchWithSettings.cmd to choose graphics settings and language before playing. The original default.xex is required; XexTool preparation is unnecessary. Requires 64-bit Windows 10/11, an SSSE3-capable CPU and a Direct3D 11-capable graphics device. No compiler or Python installation is required to play on Windows.
Changes since v0.1.3
Menus and controls
- Added mouse cursor hover and click selection through the original menu hit testing.
- Added Options > Controls > Keyboard bindings: remap primary and secondary keys for 24 actions across four pages, with Save, Cancel, Defaults and clear-binding controls. In-game keyboard prompts follow your selected bindings.
- Added confirmed Exit Game actions to the main and pause menus.
- Updated the native menu layout, labels and saved-setting feedback.
Graphics and video
- Restored the original Xbox gamma calibration, tables and default while preserving existing profile choices.
- Fixed color grading and banding at higher internal render resolutions, including the issue reported in #25, and retained original ten-bit frontbuffer precision.
- Corrected the captured video chroma path that could turn some videos blue.
- Added Original / 2x / 4x / 8x / 16x texture filtering, with 16x as the default. Anisotropic filtering (AF) is working, but its visual improvement is barely noticeable in the tested scenes. Close-up surfaces magnify the original low-resolution textures, which limits the visible benefit.
- Added optional live 720p / 1440p switching through F6, preserving supported render targets and caches. Enable F6 resolution shortcut in the F5 panel first; it starts disabled each launch. Regular menu resolution changes still apply after restarting.
Developer tools and runtime
- Expanded F5 developer tools with noclip, all six Darkness abilities and maximum Darkness level, alongside mission selection, speed and invincibility. Mission loading and progression grants can affect later autosaves; back up your checkpoint before changing progression.
- Added validated disk caching for compiled world shaders and reduced geometry, constant-buffer, audio and dispatcher work.
- Reused unchanged display frames and audio submission storage. These optimizations do not establish a specific gameplay FPS improvement.
Updating from v0.1.3
Close the game. Extract this ZIP into the folder containing your existing Launch.cmd, replacing the included program files. Keep Darkness, saves, and DarkRecomp.settings.ini to preserve your dump, progress and settings.
For an existing WSL installation, rerun SetupLinux.cmd to update its Linux copy while retaining its saves and settings.
Validation
- Built and packaged from clean, merged source commit 4b1c5ce. The AOT manifest verified 93 generated files with zero semantic diagnostics.
- All 89 Windows automated checks passed, including native menu, keyboard, settings, saves, audio, game-file loading and hardware/WARP rendering contracts.
- Verified all 40 manifest file hashes, ZIP integrity and the downloadable SHA-256 checksum. The ZIP excludes original game dumps, saves, local settings and diagnostic logs; it includes the generated PC menu overrides.
- Tested extraction over existing game, save and settings fixtures; all three were preserved.
- The extracted launcher setup check and native renderer smoke test passed with Python and compiler tools removed from PATH.
Known limits
This remains a pre-release and has not undergone a complete gameplay playthrough. Linux uses the Windows executable through Proton; there is no native Linux build. Steam Deck gameplay and performance remain unverified. See STEAM_DECK.md for the verified Linux test scope.
Include the newest build_native/run/desktop-*/runtime.log when reporting a problem. For Proton failures, also include the Proton log and Linux/Proton versions. Do not upload game files.