2026-07-20 18:04 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Surprise! The time has finally come to reveal the secret. We’re incredibly excited to introduce The Battalion - the brand-new DLC for The Darkest Files and our biggest and darkest case yet.WISHLIST NOW!🎮 NEW gameplay mechanics🕵️♀️ MORE Interactions with the Bauer-Team🗺️ NEW places to explore A huge thank you to everyone who has been with us on this journey so far! Your curiosity, feedback, and support have allowed us to keep working on The Darkest Files, and for that we are incredibly grateful.To everyone who has been waiting, following along, and speculating: We can’t wait to put this spe
2026-06-26 08:08 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Hi everyone,We're joining the Steam Summer Sale once again this year!After this sale, we're gearing up to announce some big news 🕵️♀️ We can't share any details just yet, but we're already excited to tell you more very soon.So if you need a companion for your summer vacation: from June 25 to July 9, The Darkest Files is available at 35% off.And if you'd like to take the investigation with you on the go, The Darkest Files is also available on Steam Deck.A huge thank you to everyone who has joined us on this journey and supported us along the way. We truly appreciate your enthusiasm and encour
2026-04-30 14:41 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Hi folks,We still can't believe it, but The Darkest Files really won THE German Video Game Award (DCP) in the categories Best Serious Game and Best German Game! 🥳We are incredibly grateful to you for believing in us and supporting us every step of the way. It's only with your feedback and support that The Darkest Files became the game it is today 🧡 Also, a big thank you goes to the jury and huge congratulations to the other nominees and winners - every single one deserved the award so much!We are very tired but very, very happy and probably need a couple more days to process this amazing eve
2026-04-17 09:29 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
We have some incredible news to announce! The Darkest Files has been nominated for THE German Video Game Award (DCP) in no less than five categories! 🥳⚖️ Best Serious Game🎲 Best Game Design 🎨 Best Graphic Design✍️ Best Story 🎮 Best German Game Thank you to the jury and congratulations to the other nominees. We're really grateful to be alongside so many great names 🧡 And if you'd like to join us in hyping up our team, visit our Discord for a watch together!Get some behind-the-scenes fun facts from the devs, cheer us on, and hopefully celebrate with us 🥳📅 When? 29th of April, 18:30 CET📍
2026-03-11 19:00 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Dear fellow investigators🕵️♀️Something curious is happening on Steam… From March 11–18, we’re part of the Curious Odyssey Steam Event! With 30% off on The Darkest Files.So... If you'd like to take a break, lose yourself in great stories, and forget the burning world outside for a moment, then check out the great titles featured in the Curious Odyssey Sale. ✨All the best,The Paintbuckets
2026-02-03 09:29 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Hi everyone,We're part of the Fun, Dark & Cozy Steam event! Check out the amazing games that are fun, dark, or cozy (or all three?) - where would you put us?Also, did you see the version update of The Darkest Files? We fixed achievement issues and brought back some missing VFX! Best,The Paintbuckets
2026-01-30 15:19 UTC · Community Announcements · PB_Jona
Hi folks, We just updated The Darkest Files to fix the issue where some of you weren't getting the "Silver Tongue" achievement. We really appreciate your patience with this one 🧡 Also, the VFX that disappeared in the last version are back! Thank you to everyone who reported the bug and helped us to find the issue! If you still encounter any bugs, we’re definitely interested in knowing about them. Don’t hesitate to press F5 in-game and write a quick report, so we can fix it as soon as possible. Love, The Paintbuckets
2026-01-12 18:02 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Surprise! Just in time for the Steam Detective Fest, we updated our The Darkest Files demo. This is a brand-new demo released in January 2026, and it replaces the very dated one from 2023. 🕵️That makes now the perfect time to try out The Darkest Files! And if you decide to buy it: it is currently 30% off - our biggest discount yet! 🥳Do you enjoy searching for clues, collecting evidence, and combining your findings? Don’t forget to check out the other awesome detective games featured in the Steam Detective Fest. 🔍Happy investigating,The Paintbuckets 🧡
2025-12-04 10:39 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
We still can’t believe it! Last night was the DEP, and we are so happy and grateful to have won in the two categories “Best Game Design” and “Best Game Beyond Entertainment” 🥳Especially because the other contenders had such amazing projects as well! Shoutout to "Deine Stimme", "Rascal's Escape", "Herdling", and our friends "Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders".Thank you to the jury and the whole organization team of the award show, it’s always a great joy to be at the industry Christmas party! 🎄Also, a big thanks to you, our community, because without your valuable feedback during playtests, The D
2025-08-19 20:01 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Surprise! We’re proud to share that The Darkest Files was part of a very special Gamescom moment: The Opening Night Live show. Jörg Friedrich, one of our CEO’s, was invited to speak on stage about The Darkest Files and the important role games can play in strengthening our democracy.At this year’s Gamescom, The Darkest Files is part of a collaboration with other awesome indie titles: the “Games for Democracy” booth by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb). We are grateful for this opportunity, because as Jörg said:“Games are more than entertainment - like any great art form, they
2025-08-15 10:33 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
We’re back at Gamescom in Cologne - Find us in the Indie-Arena! 🕵️🔍This year, The Darkest Files is part of a very special collaboration alongside other awesome indie titles: the “Games for Democracy” booth by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb).📍 Meet us here in Hall 10.02 and play games about past and current politics, democracy, its challenges, and its importance. Check out our fantastic booth mates: Glasshouse, Compensation Not Guaranteed, Media Circus, and Take us North.💬 Community Meetup! If you are reading this, thank you! You are part of our valued community, and we
2025-08-04 13:49 UTC · Community Announcements · PB_Jona
Dear prosecutors! We’ve been made aware by some of you that it wasn’t possible to load a savegame in the epilogue-chapter since our last patch. This was a result of a bugfix related to the Notebook. So, today we’re pushing a hotfix that lets you load epilogue-savegames again. Thank you very much for the bug reports about this! If you still encounter any bugs, we’re definitely interested in knowing about them! So don’t hesitate to press F5 and write a quick report, so we can fix it as soon as possible. See you in court! Your Paintbucket team.
2025-07-17 09:21 UTC · Community Announcements · PB_Jona
Hey dear prosecutors, It is patch time again! This is a relatively small update that fixes a couple of minor issues and a couple of spelling errors. Something bigger is in the making, read the end of the note for more info on what we are cooking. Changes & Fixes Updated the “Report a bug” menu with additional (optional) input fields for email and discord user names. You can fill these out when submitting a bug report if you want us to allow us to get in touch with you regarding further details. Fixed a bug in the main menu which resulted in certain options not being selectable with a controlle
2025-06-26 21:02 UTC · Community Announcements · hanna
Hi everyone,We’re part of the Steam Summer Sale! If you've been waiting for the right moment to jump into the investigation, this is it ☀️The Darkest Files is 20% off from June 26th to July 10th - our greatest discount so far!And if you want to enjoy the warm weather outside, The Darkest Files also runs on Steam Deck 🕵️♀️Also, we would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has already written a review, this helps our visibility and motivates us so much!See you in court,The Paintbuckets 🧡
2025-05-28 14:38 UTC · Community Announcements · PB_Jona
Hello, dear prosecutors! We once again have a new patch for you to make some improvements, fix bugs, typos and grammar issues reported by you all. Thank you very much for all the reports when you find bugs. They really help us a lot to make The Darkest Files the best it can be as we continue supporting the game. If you encounter a bug or any inconvenience while playing the game, don’t hesitate to press F5 and write a bug report. We are also on a continuous quest to make major performance optimizations which will make the game run on much less powerful hardware via a future patch so if you’ve b
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