Empire, Dark Empire, and Vertiforo were Styles Factory storefront products. They are discontinued. This page will not invent a 2026 version number, a current price, or a “still sold here” button. If you arrived from an old /product/empire or /products/dark-empire.13 URL, you are in the right place: the jobs those skins sold are still real. The SKUs are not.
This is a historical job comparison. It is not the 2026 Resource Manager snapshot — UI.X 2, XenBase, DohTheme 2.3.11, Legend at $59.50. Read that when you need something you can still license. It is not the stock portal walkthrough, though you will be sent there. It is not the Twitch / YouTube / Kick article; old Vertiforo Twitch-widget URLs belong there, not here. FiveStyle, the FiveM-shaped cousin, is a later historical note and is not this trio.
Styles Factory today is an English-language technical blog. The old shop is not coming back in this article. If you still have the original files on a board you run, treat them as a vendor parent you should not edit, the same way you would treat any abandoned RM style. If you do not have the files, do not hunt a cracked zip. Rebuild the job with stock 2.3 and a living parent.
Three jobs, three names
People remember product titles. You should remember the first-screen job. That is the only comparison that still pays.
| Product (historical) | Job it sold | Typical first screen | Who it was for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empire | A magazine / portal XenForo — light, editorial, “this is a site, not only a forum list.” | Hero or featured row, article-shaped cards, the forum tree as a second act | Newsrooms, brand communities, anyone who hated the stock index |
| Dark Empire | The same magazine job, dark. Not a separate product category. A night-time Empire. | Same chrome, inverted palette | The Empire buyer who wanted a dark magazine, not a gaming cave |
| Vertiforo | A gaming / vertical community skin. Family: dark / white / green, and it existed for IPS as well as XF. | Tall rhythm, game-hub energy, often a sidebar that wanted to be “who is live” | Gaming hubs, clan boards, anyone who wanted the index to feel like a launcher |
That table is the article. Everything below is how you tell the jobs apart, what stock XenForo 2.3 already does, and which living RM column to open instead.
What we will not do:
- Quote a 2026 Empire version, a Vertiforo XF 2.3.11 build, or a price. Those numbers are not in the record we are willing to stand behind.
- Claim the storefront still sells them.
- Pretend Dark Empire was a different architecture from Empire. It was the dark magazine.
- Steal streaming setup into this page. A Vertiforo demo that showed Twitch is a streaming ticket.
- Review FiveStyle here. Different historical SKU, different later URL.
Empire: the magazine portal
Empire’s pitch, in the language of the old shop, was a XenForo that opened like a magazine. Members said “I want a portal.” What they meant was: the root URL should not look like a phpBB index. It should look like someone edited the front door this week.
That job is bigger than a skin. A theme can supply:
- A denser header and a featured band.
- Card-shaped thread teasers that look like articles.
- A homepage template that assumes widgets, a slider, or a masonry row.
A theme cannot supply the editorial habit. If nobody features a thread, the magazine is an empty frame. The portal article already split the pieces:
Setup → Options → Basic board information → Index page route— the architecture. Defaultforums/. Point it at a page node when the first screen is a curated door.- Page nodes, the widget manager, article forums, 2.3 featured content.
- The Home tab versus the logo URL — they disagree more often than admins notice.
If you bought Empire because you wanted those tools, you bought a skin for a job stock 2.3 already owns. If you bought Empire because you wanted the chrome — the particular header, the card radii, the magazine type scale — you bought a look. The look is what died with the storefront. The tools did not.
Replace the Empire job in 2026
- Decide the first-screen sentence: “read this edition,” “pick a room,” or “see what moved.” One primary.
- Build that door with stock tools. Article forum + feature + widgets. Read the newsroom when the job is editions, not the door.
- If the chrome is still wrong, open the RM snapshot. Framework column if the chrome is the product (UI.X 2, updated 25 Jun 2026, add-on tax). A quieter one-shot (DohTheme Minimal / Flow / Mere, 2.3.11, many updated 29 Jun 2026) if you only need a less-Default header.
- Child the parent. Do not go looking for an “Empire 2.3.11.”
A ticker on that magazine door is a notice, not a resurrected “Ultimate News Ticker” SKU. Stock path: Communication → Notices. The historical ticker product is a different URL and a later article.
Dark Empire: the dark magazine (same job)
Dark Empire is the product people request when they say “Empire, but at night.” That is a palette job, not a new information architecture.
In 2022-era XenForo that often meant a second installed style. In 2.3 it should mean style variations on one style: slots default and alternate, Color palette Light/Dark, prefers-color-scheme, footer gadget, cookies. 2.3.8 preserves the preference on logout (notebook). The switcher article is the mechanism. Two parents that are “the same except dark” are two merge queues. Variations were invented so you stop doing that.
So the honest mapping is:
| Old shop thought | 2.3 thought |
|---|---|
| Buy Empire | Stock portal tools + optional living parent |
| Also buy Dark Empire | Enable variations on the one parent you serve |
| Let members pick Empire or Dark Empire in the style chooser | Let them flip default ↔ alternate. Keep the chooser for brand B, not for night mode |
If you still run both historical parents side by side, you are paying the 2.2 tax on a 2.3 board. Pick the one whose templates are less rotten, child it, rebuild the other half as a variation if you can, or accept a single dark magazine and drop the light half. Do not keep both “so we don’t lose customers.” You are losing weekends.
Dark Empire was not Vertiforo. A dark magazine still wants cards, a featured band, editorial type. A gaming vertical wants height, a launcher feeling, often a live-now column. Painting Empire black does not make Vertiforo. Painting Vertiforo cream does not make Empire. The white / green Vertiforo siblings in the old family were still gaming skins.
Vertiforo: the gaming vertical
Vertiforo’s job was a community that should feel like a game hub, not like a newspaper. The old family included dark, white, and green, and it existed for IPS as well as XenForo. That last clause matters if you are migrating: the look may have been the reason you picked a platform. The look is not a reason to stay on a dead parent.
What “vertical” usually meant in that family, as a job, not as a changelog:
- A taller header / hero and a sidebar that wanted activity, not a newspaper masthead.
- A colour story that could go neon (green) or cave (dark) without becoming a magazine invert.
- A home that assumed players — servers, rosters, who is online — more than editions.
What it did not mean, and what this page will not steal:
- A maintained Twitch directory. Stock XenForo embeds a URL. It does not keep a who-is-live grid. That is the streaming article, including the XenRio-shaped add-on conversation. Historical Vertiforo widget URLs should not be redirected here.
- A server-list product. That is the server listing article.
- A whitelist / application flow. That is the whitelist article.
- FiveM-specific chrome. That is FiveStyle, not this trio.
Replace the Vertiforo job in 2026
- Make the tree a gaming tree, not a gaming skin. Broad rooms, prefixes for region / status, no empty season children. Taxonomy and the game-community piece own that.
- Turn on a dark variation of whatever you actually serve. Many Vertiforo buyers only wanted “not a white forum.” Stock 2.3 already does that.
- If you still need a gaming parent, the living RM example in the 2026 snapshot is Legend (ThemeHouse), $59.50, updated 29 July 2026. DohTheme Gamez is $30 on the 2.3.11 line. Those are licenses you can still buy. Vertiforo is not.
- IPS Vertiforo does not become XF Vertiforo by wishing. If you are on Invision because of that skin, the IPS vs XenForo comparison is the product conversation. A dead theme is a weak reason to migrate and a weak reason to stay.
Green Vertiforo was a palette. Recreate it as palette chips on a child, not as a hunt for “Vertiforo Green 2.3.”
A weekend exit from a dead parent
Operational practice for a board that still boots Empire or Vertiforo in production:
Friday night, staging. Clone the site. Child the historical parent if you have not. Export or copy the child’s extra.less and a screenshot of the property overrides you actually use (logo, header, palette chips). List third-party templates the parent touches — stream widgets, listing add-ons, XenPorta if someone installed it to “make Empire work.”
Saturday, stock door. On staging, set Index page route to a page node (magazine job) or leave forums/ (gaming job that only wanted a dark list). Add the article forum or the featured widget you actually have staff for. Turn on variations on a child of Default. Paint the two or three chips that made people say “that’s us.” Do not recreate every radius.
Saturday, living parent (optional). If stock is not enough, install one current RM parent from the snapshot — UI.X 2 or a calm DohTheme for magazine, Legend or Gamez for gaming. Child it immediately. Paste extra.less. Do not install the historical parent and the new parent as chooser options.
Sunday, break the demo. Login, register, post, attach, quote, search, a staff warning, HTML email, one mobile width. Open Outdated templates. If the new parent is already yellow, you bought a lagging style; stop and pick another. If only your child is customized, you are in the expected state.
Next production week. One public notice: the job stays, the skin changes, dark is a switch. Remove the historical parent from selectable styles after seven days. Keep the files on disk until the following upgrade, then uninstall the unused style so it stops appearing in the merge list.
That is a theme sunset. It is not a migration to Discourse. If the reason you want to leave XenForo is “Empire died,” you wanted a look. Looks are cheaper than platforms.
Side-by-side, as buyers actually argued
Old shop threads (and old tickets) mixed these names. Separate them.
| Question | Empire | Dark Empire | Vertiforo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is the homepage a magazine? | Yes — that is the job | Yes — same job | No — hub / launcher |
| Is dark the product? | No | Yes, as a magazine invert | Often, but as a cave, not as a newspaper at night |
| Does it want articles? | Yes | Yes | Optional; players first |
| Does it want who is live / servers? | Only if you bolted them on | Same | That was the energy; the tools are other products |
| IPS sibling? | Not the story of this trio | Not the story | Yes — Vertiforo existed on IPS too |
| Still sold in 2026? | No | No | No |
| Stock 2.3 replacement | Index route + article forum + widgets + variations | Variations on the magazine setup | Dark variation + gaming tree + Legend/Gamez if chrome still matters |
If your old site used Empire on / and Vertiforo on a “forums” tab, you had two jobs and one too many parents. In 2.3, that is usually one style, one variation pair, and a page node or article forum at the route you actually want. Two vendor parents is how outdated-template week never ends.
If you still have the files
Some boards never uninstalled the parent. That is a maintenance state, not a product.
Treat the historical style like any other abandoned vendor parent:
- Appearance → Styles. Find Empire / Dark Empire / Vertiforo. Do not customize it.
- Add style → child of that parent. Move your
extra.less, property overrides, and logo onto the child if they are not there already. Community practice: custom CSS lives in the child’sextra.less(not in official docs; still what you should do). - After every XF upgrade, open Appearance → Outdated templates. Expect yellow. Abandoned parents do not ship merges. You will merge or you will freeze XF.
- Enable variations on the child if you were using Empire + Dark Empire as two styles. Then unexpose the second parent from the chooser.
- Plan an exit. A child of a dead parent is a ticking merge queue. The exit is a child of Default or of a living RM parent, with your
extra.lesscopied across and the old templates left behind.
Do not edit Master. Do not “just fix” the vendor header template on the parent. Direct edits become outdated. Template modifications (Appearance → Template modifications) are the upgrade-safer hook when you must change HTML. The later customization article owns that process; the warning is enough here.
If the historical style was the only thing holding a portal layout together — a custom forum_list that was the magazine — budget real time. Stock widgets on a page node are cleaner than a frozen forum_list from a shop that does not exist.
Font files bundled with those skins are not an official XenForo upload path. Official docs give you typography properties. @font-face in extra.less is community practice. Self-host whatever you still have the license to host. Do not point at a dead shop CDN. Do not add Google Fonts.
What to send old URLs to (conceptually)
This blog’s redirect map is a different file and a different job. Conceptually, so authors and admins do not invent targets:
- Empire / Dark Empire product URLs → this article (the magazine job), with a prominent link to the portal and the 2026 RM snapshot.
- Vertiforo product URLs → this article (the gaming vertical job), with links to Legend / Gamez in the snapshot and to the game-community piece.
- Twitch / streaming widget URLs that happened to live near Vertiforo → the streaming article, not here.
- FiveStyle (
/product/fivestyle-xfand friends) → not this page. - Ultimate News Ticker → not this page; stock Notices plus the newsroom article.
If you are a human who bookmarked a demo, bookmark the job instead.
What a member sees in the first five seconds
Staff argue about templates. Members argue about whether the site still feels like their site. Translate the jobs into that first glance:
Empire / magazine. They should see a featured edition or a curated band before they see twenty forum rows. If the first screen after you drop Empire is the stock forum list, you did not keep the job. You kept XenForo. Put something at the index route that a stranger can read as “this week’s door.” The portal article is that door.
Dark Empire / dark magazine. They should see the same door at night, with a switch. If they have to open Preferences → Style and pick a second historical name, you kept the 2022 shop. Variations are the 2.3 sentence.
Vertiforo / gaming vertical. They should feel that this is a player hub: a dark (or green) surface, a short tree, a place that implies servers and people. They should not expect a who-is-live grid unless you built one on purpose. A dark stock index with honest rooms will disappoint fewer people than a dead Vertiforo parent that breaks the editor.
If the complaint after a sunset is “the cards are gone,” you had a chrome customer. Offer a living parent. If the complaint is “I cannot find Trading,” you had a taxonomy customer. That is not a theme ticket.
Living substitutes (no nostalgia pricing)
Repeat of the snapshot, only the rows that map to these jobs:
| Job you actually have | Living first try | Living paid column (snapshot) | Dead name to stop searching |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magazine portal | Stock index route, page node, widgets, article forum, featured | UI.X 2 (25 Jun 2026) if you want a framework; a calm DohTheme one-shot if you want a header | Empire |
| Dark magazine | Variations on the magazine setup | Same parent, alternate variation — not a second SKU | Dark Empire |
| Gaming vertical | Dark variation + honest gaming tree | Legend $59.50 (29 Jul 2026); Gamez $30 (DohTheme 2.3.11) | Vertiforo |
| “Just not Default” | Child of Default, palette, logo | XenBase (28 Jan 2026) or Minimal $40 | Any of the three |
| Wallpaper / grey aesthetic | Stock + your own header image | Uniform only if you accept a Sep 2024 date; do not install Shades of Grey (unmaintained 2022) | — |
Bolt versus UI.X 2 remains a real buyer question (community thread, Jun 2025). It is not “which one is the new Empire.” Neither is.
How to talk to members about this
If you are migrating off a historical parent, do not announce “we killed Empire.” Announce the job:
- “The front door is now a featured article plus What’s New. The magazine habit stays. The old skin does not.”
- “Dark mode is a switch on the same style, not a second theme called Dark Empire.”
- “The gaming look will come from [Legend / a dark child / stock], not from a zip we can no longer update.”
Members loyal to a look will complain for a week. Members loyal to a room will not notice if the tree and the first screen still work. That split is the loyalty article. A theme sunset is a good test of which kind you have.
Do not leave the old style in the chooser “for veterans.” You are volunteering to merge it forever. If you need a transition, give it a month on staging, then one public week, then remove the parent from selectable styles.
Checklist
- I can name which job I actually had: magazine, dark magazine, or gaming vertical.
- I am not searching for a 2026 version number of Empire, Dark Empire, or Vertiforo.
- Magazine job → portal + news + optional living parent.
- Dark magazine → variations, not a second historical parent.
- Gaming vertical → tree first, dark variation second, Legend / Gamez only if chrome still matters.
- Twitch / live directories → streaming, not a theme ghost.
- Any leftover historical parent is unedited; customizations are on a child; an exit is on the calendar.
- I read the RM snapshot before I paid anyone.
Takeaways
- Empire, Dark Empire, and Vertiforo are discontinued storefront products. No 2026 SKU, no current price, no “we still sell this.”
- Compare jobs: Empire = magazine portal; Dark Empire = the same magazine at night; Vertiforo = gaming vertical (dark / white / green, XF and IPS).
- Stock XenForo 2.3 already owns most of the magazine door (index route, page nodes, widgets, articles, featured) and the dark half (variations). Buy a living parent for chrome, not for a time machine.
- Living stand-ins in the current RM snapshot: UI.X 2 / XenBase for long-term chrome, Legend $59.50 and Gamez $30 for gaming. Uniform may lag 2.3. Shades of Grey is unmaintained.
- Do not dump streaming, server list, whitelist, ticker, or FiveStyle into this comparison. Those jobs have their own URLs.
If you came here to re-buy a feeling from the old shop, buy the job. The zip is gone. The forum is not.