The Darkest Files
Worth it · Strategy · 2025
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $19.99, a BANGER if it drops to $8.49.
- Length
- 7.7h 11.4h to 100%
- Value
- $2.60/hr
- Reviews
- 96% of 760 positive
Watch this gameOne alert at $8.49 or less.
Buy now or wait
Discounted in each of its last 6 seasonal sales. Last cut ended 3 days ago.
- Next sale
- Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
Germany, 1956. The war is over, but justice is not served. Former Nazis walk free, while their victims lie in unmarked graves. As a prosecutor, you'll unearth long-buried evidence, confront witnesses and hunt down perpetrators. Will you have the courage to bring these "ordinary men" to court?
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 8 GB of memory, 5 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS.
The value story
It has been discounted 15 times in the 2 years tracked here. The median cut across all of them is 25 percent, about 6 weeks apart. No sale on record has reached $8.49, the price it would take to be a BANGER.
On value it sits in the top 5 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 88 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 99 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Call of the Sea ($4.99, scores 75) beats it on value, while it beats Syberia: The World Before ($39.99, scores 57).
More about The Darkest Files
80 from critics against 96 percent from players, and the player number comes from people who own the game.
1 of the 327 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here comes from a buyer who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written March 2025 to August 2026.
Valve rates it Steam Deck Verified, and at 7.7 hours it is short enough to finish on one.
The drop-off
86% start to 15% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
- Players online
- 1 when we last checked, on Oct 1, 01:54 UTC
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
A neat little puzzle game with a gorgeous art style and method of presentation whose revelation of humanity's limitless capacity for cruelty and malice might make you weep.
2 more reviews
The Darkest Files really shook me. I expected a detective game, but I ended up thinking about the people whose lives were destroyed, and how easy it was for others to pretend nothing had happened. Some of these stories are hard to hear. What stayed with me most is how little a human life was worth then - and how often it still feels that way now. I finished the game, but I couldn't just close it and forget about it.
Real good! It has the vibe, the style and keeps you engaged, even if moving in relatively slow pace. But you can be deliberate, meticulous. And you should. It's not just a cheap court drama - you do have to be paying attention and connecting the dots yourself - and the game doesn't give you everything presented (so you can just drag things together and have checkmarks shown). It works great and actually makes you...
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
The Darkest Files scores 69/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/2058730/the-darkest-filesReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 27, price as of Oct 18. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.