Darkest Dungeon

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Lead broken heroes into the dark beneath your ancestor's estate.

Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, iPhone
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (92% of 162,925 reviews); Metacritic 84 (PC)
Length: dozens of hours for a full campaign
Players: 1
Made by: Red Hook Studios
Released: 2016

What frightens Beneath a ruined family estate, bands of flawed heroes descend into crypts, warrens and coves full of cultists, fishmen and worse, and the dark breaks their minds: they grow paranoid, abusive, fearful or hopeless, and a hero who dies is gone for good.
Content: violence, gore, disturbing imagery.

Darkest Dungeon is a gothic roguelike RPG with turn-based combat. You inherit a ruined estate and send teams of four flawed heroes into the dungeons below, where monsters, disease, hunger and the dark itself push them toward madness, and death is permanent.

About Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon is made by Red Hook Studios. It came out on PC and Mac in January 2016 after a year in Early Access, then on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Linux the same year, on iOS in 2017, and on Nintendo Switch and Xbox One by 2018. A sequel, Darkest Dungeon II, followed in 2023.

Your ancestor, rich and bored, dug beneath the family estate looking for something forbidden, and found it. Now the estate and the hamlet beside it are overrun, and you have inherited the mess. You recruit heroes, among them a plague doctor, a leper, a grave robber and a jester, and send them in groups of four into crypts, forests, warrens, coves and finally the Darkest Dungeon itself.

Combat is turn-based and positional, but the heart of the game is stress. Torchlight fading, traps, horrors and critical hits all push a hero's stress up, and at the breaking point they may become afflicted: paranoid, selfish, masochistic or hopeless, refusing orders and dragging the rest down. Rarely, they rise to the challenge instead. Back in the hamlet you pay to heal minds and bodies, but heroes collect quirks and phobias, and one who dies is lost for good. A grave narrator comments on every success and failure.

It is not a game of jumpscares; its horror is dread, attrition and the slow breaking of people you have come to care about, in a world of eldritch things and cults in the Lovecraftian mould. It suits players who like hard strategy and dark fiction.

How to play Darkest Dungeon

Recruit heroes in the hamlet and pick a party of four with complementary skills.
Buy torches, food and supplies, then choose a dungeon and an expedition.
Explore room by room, fight in turn-based battles and watch each hero's stress as well as health.
Keep torchlight up, camp to heal and relieve stress, and retreat when the party is close to breaking.
Back in the hamlet, treat stress and diseases, upgrade gear and skills, and plan the next descent.

Screenshots

Darkest Dungeon screenshot: four heroes face a giant red crab creature and two fishmen with spears in a dark cove

Darkest Dungeon screenshot: a party fights four shrouded corpses outside a crypt door, a hero shouting about mortified flesh

Darkest Dungeon screenshot: four heroes face skeleton soldiers in a ruined gothic hall, with the party's skills and dungeon map below

Darkest Dungeon screenshot: the roster screen for a jester hero showing quirks such as Fear of Eldritch, skills and diseases

Tips

Bring more food and torches than you think you need.
Do not get attached: heroes will die, so keep a deep roster.
Watch hero positions; many skills only work from certain ranks.
Treat stress between expeditions, or afflictions will follow you into the next one.

Questions

Is Darkest Dungeon a horror game?

It is a strategy RPG with a strong horror theme: gothic and Lovecraftian monsters, madness and permanent death. It is unsettling rather than frightening in the jumpscare sense.

What platforms is Darkest Dungeon on?

PC, Mac and Linux, PlayStation 4 and Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and iOS.

Do heroes die permanently in Darkest Dungeon?

Yes. A hero who dies in a dungeon is lost for good.

Is there a Darkest Dungeon II?

Yes, released in 2023, with a road journey structure instead of a hamlet.