How many copies has The Darkest Files sold?

indielist estimates The Darkest Files has sold between 22,752 and 53,088 units (median 37,920), derived from its 632 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.

Who developed The Darkest Files?

The Darkest Files was developed by Paintbucket Games and published by Paintbucket Games.

Who published The Darkest Files?

The Darkest Files was published by Paintbucket Games, developed by Paintbucket Games. See Paintbucket Games's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.

When was The Darkest Files released?

The Darkest Files was released in 2025.

How many reviews does The Darkest Files have on Steam?

The Darkest Files has 632 Steam reviews, of which 96% are positive.

Is The Darkest Files worth playing?

Steam players rate The Darkest Files 96% positive across 632 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

The Darkest Files

Mar 25, 2025 Adventure $19.99

Developer Paintbucket Games Publisher Paintbucket Games

Profile updated Jul 2026

Adventure detective indie game focused on historical investigation, puzzles, and a female protagonist. Released in 2025 by Paintbucket Games, which is also the publisher, it has 579 Steam reviews listed as mixed with 0% positive and launched at $19.99.

The Darkest Files is a 2025 Adventure game developed by Paintbucket Games and published by Paintbucket Games. On Steam it has gathered 632 player reviews, 96% of them positive, which counts as a overwhelmingly positive reception among indie titles in the Adventure category. The game is available on mac, windows, and launched at $20. The pairing of developer Paintbucket Games with publisher Paintbucket Games is one of the studio-publisher relationships indielist tracks, letting players find comparable games and letting developers and investors study how Adventure projects reach the market. indielist's white-box method estimates its lifetime sales at roughly 23,000 to 53,000 units, with the full Boxleiter factor breakdown shown on this page rather than a single black-box figure. Within indielist's catalog of indie games mapped to their studios, publishers, and funding, The Darkest Files can be compared against similar Adventure titles and benchmarked on review counts and estimated sales.

Reviews

632

Positive

96%

Steam appid

2058730

Engine

Unknown

Players (snapshot)

Unavailable

Sales estimate

v1.0

23K to 53K

units (median: 38K)

≈ $260K to $606K modeled net revenue (fixed store-cut, refund, and regional-price assumptions applied)

23K median 53K

+ How is this calculated?

632 reviews × NB(60) = 37,920 median units

Factor	Adjustment
base	+50
year_2025	-10
price_$20	0
positive_96%	+10
genre_Adventure	+10
final NB	60

Heuristic display range: median × [0.6, 1.4]. Boundary protection: NB ∈ [15, 150].

Methodology & limitations

Sales estimates use an additive Boxleiter-derived heuristic against public Steam review counts. They are not authoritative sales data, and the fixed display range is not a statistically validated confidence interval. Actual results may fall outside it, especially for deeply discounted or bundle-heavy titles. Algorithm version v1.0. Read the exact method and validation status.

indielist estimates lifetime unit sales for The Darkest Files at roughly 23,000 to 53,000 copies, with a median around 38,000, derived from its 632 Steam reviews using a multi-factor Boxleiter method (version v1.0). That median maps to approximately $433K in net revenue after Steam's 30% cut, regional pricing, and refunds. Unlike black-box trackers, the full calculation is shown on this page: a base review-to-sales multiplier is adjusted for release year, launch price, review sentiment, studio size, and genre, and every adjustment is listed so developers, publishers, and investors can audit exactly how the figure was reached. The range itself reflects genuine uncertainty — review-to-sales ratios vary widely between games — so indielist publishes a low, median, and high band rather than a false-precision single number, and treats free-to-play, heavily discounted, and bundle-distributed titles as having wider error margins still.

Price history

9 observed days · window low $9.99

Across 9 observed UTC days from 2026-06-08 to 2026-07-22, the daily lowest tracked USD price across stores ranged from $9.99 to $19.99. The tracked-window low was $9.99 on 2026-07-20.

Real store observations · daily lowest tracked USD price across stores · missing days are not filled.

Where to buy

Affiliate disclosure

Steam reference -50%

$9.99 Buy
GOG.com

$19.99 Buy
Fanatical -10%

$20.53 Buy
Green Man Gaming

View
Humble Store

View

Latest tracked store observations (2026-07-22 19:09 UTC), cheapest first. Prices may have changed since observation. Some are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

Platforms

macwindows

Frequently asked questions

How many copies has The Darkest Files sold?: indielist estimates The Darkest Files has sold between 22,752 and 53,088 units (median 37,920), derived from its 632 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.
Who developed The Darkest Files?: The Darkest Files was developed by Paintbucket Games and published by Paintbucket Games.
Who published The Darkest Files?: The Darkest Files was published by Paintbucket Games, developed by Paintbucket Games. See Paintbucket Games's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.
When was The Darkest Files released?: The Darkest Files was released in 2025.
How many reviews does The Darkest Files have on Steam?: The Darkest Files has 632 Steam reviews, of which 96% are positive.
Is The Darkest Files worth playing?: Steam players rate The Darkest Files 96% positive across 632 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Players looking for games like The Darkest Files can compare it on indielist against semantically similar Adventure titles such as Blue Prince, Call of the Sea, Return of the Obra Dinn, Escape Simulator, ranked by shared tags and genre rather than by ad spend. On the developer side, Paintbucket Games's other releases and Paintbucket Games's wider catalog are one click away, letting developers benchmark where The Darkest Files sits among a studio's body of work and how its publisher's portfolio performs. Because indielist maps studios, publishers, games, and funding into one connected graph, the same The Darkest Files page serves three audiences at once: players hunting their next Adventure game, developers studying how comparable projects were positioned and what they sold, and investors tracing which teams and labels are active in the space. A machine-readable markdown mirror of this page is published at the same path with a .md suffix for AI assistants, and its review, price, and sales-estimate figures are refreshed on a schedule rather than frozen at launch.

Matched from shared Steam tags and primary genre. Review count breaks ties; it is not a personal recommendation score.