Big changes are coming for Dark Horse Comics’ digital service, and if you’ve been using their apps or website to read your collection, it’s time to start making backup plans. Dark Horse has announced that Dark Horse Digital (DHD) will be shutting down, beginning with the end of support for their iOS apps on March 31, 2025. While the apps for Dark Horse Comics and Plants vs. Zombies Comics will still function for now, they won’t receive any further updates, and over time, their performance will degrade.

If you’ve purchased comics through Dark Horse Digital, you’re not completely out of luck—at least not yet. You can still access your collection by logging into the Dark Horse Digital website, which will remain available at least through summer 2025. However, once the site is retired, online access to your comics will end. If you use the iOS apps, it’s strongly recommended that you download any books you want to keep by March 30, 2025, since the ability to download new files after that point isn’t guaranteed. While downloaded comics will remain accessible in the apps for now, with no updates or support, the risk of eventual failure increases.

A major caveat to all this is that, like most digital media services, Dark Horse Digital operates on a licensing model rather than outright ownership. If you bought digital comics through DHD, what you actually purchased was the right to access them on supported platforms—not the files themselves. That means there’s no way to download PDFs or transfer your collection elsewhere. Once the DHD website is gone, so is your ability to access those comics unless you have them stored on an iOS device.

If your collection isn’t showing up on the website, Dark Horse recommends syncing your purchases by logging into your DHD account through the app and navigating to the “My Digital Collection” section. From there, tapping “Restore Purchases” should ensure all your comics appear in your online bookshelf. However, if you don’t already have a DHD account, you’ll need to create one before March 31, 2025—after that, account creation will be disabled.

Despite this shift, Dark Horse is not abandoning digital comics altogether. They’ll continue releasing titles through platforms like Amazon, iBooks, Google Play Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, GlobalComix, and various library services. If you’re looking for single-issue digital comics, Amazon, iBooks, and Google Play Books will be your go-to options, while digital graphic novels will remain available on multiple storefronts.

For those hoping for refunds, there’s some good news—Dark Horse is offering refunds for purchases made in 2025 through their website, but you’ll need to act fast. The deadline to request a refund is April 30, 2025. Unfortunately, they cannot refund transactions made through the Dark Horse or Plants vs. Zombies iOS apps—if you made an in-app purchase, you’ll have to go through Apple to request a refund. To initiate a refund request for a web purchase, log into your DHD account, navigate to your transaction history, and select the purchases you want refunded. Once processed, refunds should appear on your credit card statement within 5–10 business days.

This shutdown isn’t entirely unexpected—Dark Horse has been moving more of its digital business toward major platforms rather than running its own store. Still, for longtime users of Dark Horse Digital, this is a frustrating end of an era. If you’ve got a collection on DHD, now is the time to make sure you’ve downloaded what you can before it’s too late.