# Darkest Dungeon

- Work: Roguelike
- Date: 2016 (Windows, OS X); early access 2015
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One
- Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/darkest-dungeon/

> Your ancestor dug too deep. Now you must send doomed mercenaries into the ruins beneath the family estate, and watch them crack under the strain as a gravel-voiced narrator reminds you that ruin has come to your family.

**Why it matters:** Darkest Dungeon made psychological stress a core mechanic of the party-based RPG, giving its expendable heroes fear, paranoia and breaking points, and became one of the defining Kickstarter-funded indie games of the 2010s.

## Quick answers

**When was Darkest Dungeon first released?**
Darkest Dungeon was first released in 2016 (Windows, OS X); early access 2015.

**What kind of work is Darkest Dungeon?**
Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike in the Roguelikes, Dark Fantasy and First-Person Dungeon Crawlers ('Blobbers') tradition, released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One.

**Why is Darkest Dungeon important?**
Darkest Dungeon made psychological stress a core mechanic of the party-based RPG, giving its expendable heroes fear, paranoia and breaking points, and became one of the defining Kickstarter-funded indie games of the 2010s.

## Overview

"Ruin has come to our family." So begins the voice of the Ancestor, a decadent aristocrat whose excavations beneath his manor unearthed something that should have stayed buried, and who died by his own hand rather than face it. The player inherits the estate, a ruined hamlet and a stagecoach that delivers a steady supply of mercenaries willing to go below.

*Darkest Dungeon*, created by Red Hook Studios of British Columbia and released on January 19, 2016, after a year in Steam Early Access, is a gothic [Roguelikes](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/roguelike/) role-playing game about the cost of adventuring. Its heroes are not only wounded by monsters; they are frightened, stressed and broken by them, and a mercenary who has seen too much may refuse to fight, lash out at friends or die of a heart attack. Its art evokes woodcuts and comics, and its narrator's baritone became one of the most recognizable voices in indie games. It sold more than two million copies within two years.

## Origins

Chris Bourassa and Tyler Sigman became friends at Backbone Entertainment and spent 2012 and early 2013 brainstorming games they might make together. In April 2013 they decided it was "now or never," founded Red Hook Studios with their savings, and began building a dungeon crawler. An early top-down, tile-based version made the characters into icons, so they switched to a side view, which let the player see the adventurers as people and let Bourassa, the principal artist, show off his work. The side view suggested ranks: a four-person line in which front-rank heroes swing swords and back-rank ones cast or shoot, and in which enemies can shove characters out of position. The idea came from [*The Bard's Tale*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-bards-tale/).

The designers loved classic CRPGs such as *The Bard's Tale*, [*Eye of the Beholder*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/eye-of-the-beholder/) and [*Ultima Underworld*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-underworld/), but felt they lacked a human element: a character at one [hit point](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/hit-points/) fought exactly as well as one at full health. They wanted to "toy with player agency." Their model was the trauma of real soldiers, the men of *Band of Brothers* and Hudson in *Aliens*, rather than the cosmic madness of [Lovecraft](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/h-p-lovecraft/), though the dungeon itself is thick with [weird fiction](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/weird-fiction/). Bourassa's art drew on Albrecht Dürer, woodcuts, illuminated manuscripts and comic artists such as Mike Mignola. After being turned down for a grant from the Canada Media Fund, the studio ran a Kickstarter in April 2014 that reached its $75,000 goal in two days and closed with more than $313,000 from over 10,000 backers.

## How it plays

Between expeditions the player manages the Hamlet: recruiting from a roster of classes such as the Crusader, Highwayman, Plague Doctor, Vestal, Occultist and Leper, upgrading their skills, and paying to relieve their stress at the tavern (drinking, gambling, the brothel) or the abbey (prayer, meditation, flagellation). Then four heroes descend into a procedurally generated ruin, warren, weald or cove, carrying torches, food and supplies.

Combat is [turn-based](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/turn-based-combat/) and positional. Every blow, crit, trap and whisper from the dark adds stress, as does letting the torch burn low. At 100 stress a hero's resolve is tested: most become afflicted, turning paranoid, selfish, masochistic, abusive or hopeless, and begin to act on their own and spread stress to others; a few instead find a Virtue and rally. At 200 they may suffer a heart attack. Death is permanent, so a player's favorite hero can be lost for good. The Ancestor's narration, voiced by Wayne June, comments sardonically on every triumph and disaster, and slowly reveals how the family fell. The final descent into the Darkest Dungeon itself demands the heaviest sacrifices of all.

## Reception & impact

Early access was not always smooth: when Red Hook added corpses that clogged the battle line and fatal heart attacks in 2015, some players revolted, and the studio made both optional. The full release was praised; IGN gave it 9.1, calling it "a punishing and awesome game of tactics, management, and pushing your luck to the breaking point," and it holds a Metacritic score of 84. It sold 650,000 copies in its first week, including backers and early access, passed a million in November 2016 and two million by December 2017. It was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival and won the NAVGTR award for Original Role Playing Game in 2017.

## Legacy

Ports followed for PlayStation 4 and Vita (2016), iPad (2017), Switch and Xbox One (2018), and so did expansions: *The Crimson Court* (2017), which added a vampiric curse; *The Color of Madness* (2018), about a meteor that corrupts the hamlet; and *The Butcher's Circus* (2020), a player-versus-player arena. Red Hook released *Darkest Dungeon II*, a road-trip roguelike with a new structure, in May 2023 after a year and a half in early access. The first game's stress system remains its signature: a way of making expendable [party members](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/) feel like people, and of turning the dungeon crawl's attrition into a story about what adventuring costs.

## Facts

- Its 'rank' system, in which a hero's position in a four-person marching line determines what they can do, was inspired by The Bard's Tale.
- The Affliction system drew on Band of Brothers and on soldiers traumatized by combat; its designers deliberately avoided the 'insanity' clichés of Lovecraftian horror.
- Stressed heroes can become paranoid, masochistic or hopeless and may refuse orders; occasionally stress instead produces a heroic 'Virtue.'
- Chris Bourassa had listened to Wayne June's readings of H. P. Lovecraft; June was hired to narrate the first trailer and became the game's voice.
- The Kickstarter hit its $75,000 goal within two days and raised more than $313,000.
- Tyler Sigman compared early access to 'working while naked in a transparent cube suspended above Times Square.'
- It won the 2017 NAVGTR award for Original Role Playing Game.

## Sources and further reading

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkest_Dungeon)
- [Official site](https://www.darkestdungeon.com/)

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From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.