Fake Copy of Darkest Dungeon Appears in Microsoft Store

Anyone at least a little tech savvy knows the importance of having a trusted online storefront to get your games on—digital games tend to have very large file sizes and to download them recklessly invites dangers for spyware, malware, ect. It’s why Digital storefronts like Steam are so necessary; sure, some games on there are unfinished piles of crap, but at least you feel secure knowing they’re still GAMES and not some virus in disguised.

One would think that the Windows Store Front would be such a place; a credible, safe marketplace to pick up games. One would be mistaken.

The recent Kickstarter and early access rock star Darkest Dungeons recently showed up on the Microsoft Online Store at a discounted price of four dollars; with the description:

“Darkest Dungeon is a Strategy game.Player will employee, train and control a team of heroes in Darkest Dungeon Game. They will journey through warrens, twisted forests, crypts and other strangling places and they will be confronted by monstrous creatures which are unimaginable with these there comes calamities like stress, disease and famine.”

Straight up copy-pasted. If that didn’t set off any warning lights, the game is also apparently only two megabites large and the link listed for developer support goes to gamedeveloper06@outlook.com, rather than the email Red Hook Studios has actually set up.

So yes, this isn’t an official version of Darkest Dungeons. In fact, based on the buzz around the internet, this is just thinly disguised malware that’s trying to lure people into buying it by appearing to be a discounted copy of Darkest Dungeons. And it’s still up on the Microsoft Store as I write this, but it probably won’t be for long.

For what it’s worth, this seems to be the work of one Balaji Chowdary, who has run this scam before on games like Indie Dev Tycoon, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Warcraft III, and Euro Truck Simulator 2—upwards of twenty titles. You’d think having done this twenty times would make him better at formatting the screenshots and writing game descriptions, but hey; I’m just here to report the news.

EDIT: The Malware copy of Darkest Dungeon has now been removed from the Microsoft Store, as well as everything Balaji Chowdary has 'published'.  Justice wins again.