Darkest Dungeon

About Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon is made and published by Red Hook Studios. It was funded on Kickstarter in February 2014, entered Early Access on February 3, 2015, and came out on Windows and Mac on January 19, 2016. Linux followed in April 2016, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in September 2016, iPad in August 2017, Nintendo Switch in January 2018 and Xbox One in February 2018. It has sold over two million copies, and a sequel, Darkest Dungeon II, came out in May 2023.

Your Ancestor, rich and bored, dug beneath his manor looking for something forbidden, and unearthed a monstrosity. Now the estate and the hamlet beside it are overrun, and you have inherited the mess. You recruit heroes from more than 16 classes, among them a plague doctor, a leper, a hellion, a grave robber and a jester, and send them in groups of four into ruined crypts, twisted forests, forgotten warrens, coves and finally the Darkest Dungeon itself. The dungeons are generated anew each time.

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, masochistic, fearful or irrational, refusing orders and dragging the rest down. Rarely, they rise to the challenge instead. On longer expeditions the party can camp to heal wounds or hear an inspiring speech. Back in the hamlet you send heroes to the Tavern or the Abbey to shed stress and pay to treat their bodies, but they collect quirks and phobias, and one who dies is lost for good. A grave narrator, voiced by Wayne June, comments on every success and failure.

Three expansions add to the campaign. The Crimson Court (2017) adds a courtyard and a vampire-like curse, The Color of Madness (2018) a meteor that turns villagers into zombie-like creatures and a horde mode, and The Butcher's Circus (2020) a player versus player mode; the base game is single-player.

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 drawn in a hand-drawn gothic style and inspired by Lovecraftian horror. It suits players who like hard strategy and dark fiction. The text is in English and eleven other languages, with English voice.

How to play Darkest Dungeon

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

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