Dark Matter, the indie game accused by customers of releasing unfinished last week, has been pulled off of Steam until it gets a proper ending, and Steam users say they're getting refunds if they ask for them.


A report by Gamasutra also says the development studio, which blamed Dark Matter's abrupt conclusion on the fact it ran out of money when a Kickstarter campaign didn't succeed, laid off most of the staff working on the game after that effort failed


Michiel Beenen, InterWave's managing director, acknowledged to Kotaku that the studio is "indeed working on an alternative ending that should hopefully fix the biggest complaint of the current way the game ends.

"We should hopefully have this done end of this week or beginning of next week. Valve has indeed also made sure we would make this better before returning it to Steam," Beenen said.

Asked about InterWave's staffing level, Beenen declined to comment, other than to reiterate that InterWave continues to work on the game.

Dark Matter, a side-scrolling 2.5D platformer, released on Steam for $15 (discounted to $13.49) on Oct. 17. (It also went on sale on Good Old Games, where it remains listed.) Players complained that the game released in an incomplete state because, after about four hours of play, the game abruptly served a screen full of text explaining the end of the story and declaring the game over.


On the Steam forums this weekend, an InterWave representative said the studio had plans to create a larger game, but a failed £50,000 Kickstarter caused them to scale back sharply and release what they could. InterWave defended Dark Matter as a completed game, noting that its product description said it contained 14 levels—which it does.

That said, InterWave apologized for the game's conclusion, and evidently constructing a better one is a requirement to get the project back on the Steam Store.

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