I am no stranger to challenging games with moody, gothic atmospheres. From Dark Souls to Elden Ring, I've played my fair share of "spooky hard games." But there's one game that has completely captivated me. Red Hook's Darkest Dungeon, a cult classic strategy game with a reputation for being fiendishly difficult, and also for being heavily inspired by the writings of the classical horror author H.P. Lovecraft. While it is NOT a Souls Like, this is still a Gothic Horror game about medieval fantasy adventurers fighting nightmarish monstrosities. So it's something that's still within my wheelhouse, as I am the Guy Who Likes Spooky Hard Games. Before we continue, here's a quick content warning. Darkest Dungeon is rated T for Teen by the ESRB and is (at least ostensibly) meant for ages 13 years and older. Despite this, I still feel the need to put a content warning because this game can be... a lot. Expect to see violence, body horror, psychological horror, offscreen self-harm, offscreen debauchery and mild profanity.
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| Official box art of Darkest Dungeon. Image found on Wikipedia.org |
So what exactly is Darkest Dungeon? It's a side-scrolling strategy roleplaying game developed and published by Red Hook Studios, released on January 16, 2016. It gained a following online due to its striking art style, impressive voice acting and fiendish difficulty. It would later get three DLC packs titled Crimson Court, Color of Madness and The Butcher's Circus. The former two being major expansions that add in new areas, classes and bosses while the latter is a Player Vs Player minigame. Not only that, but Red Hook also made a full blown sequel to this game, simply titled Darkest Dungeon II. Taking place in a Victorian Gothic setting, Darkest Dungeon tells you everything you need to know about the story with what is perhaps the most captivating intro to any video game ever. The art and voice acting in the intro is so good that I almost never skip it, and it sets the bleak, oppressive vibe that the game goes for perfectly. To put it simply, this intro makes one heck of a first impression.
In Darkest Dungeon, you play as an unnamed, 19th century noble who had received a letter from a mysterious relative only known as the Ancestor. This unnamed noble is meant to be a self-insert for the player, and as such this character remains unseen for most of the game. I am going to refer to this unseen character as the Heir for the sake of consistency. The Ancestor is already dead by the time the letter reaches the Heir, as he discovered *something* so horrible and terrifying that he took his own life in an attempt to escape whatever it was that he found. The letter he sent gave the Heir legal ownership over the Ancestor's estate, which includes a mansion, a nearby hamlet and the titular Darkest Dungeon. Unfortunately, most of the estate is overrun with monsters, cultists, bandits and many more threats to the Heir's safety. Because the Heir is a member of the aristocracy, their life is too important to set foot on the estate in its current condition. So the Heir hires adventurous mercenaries called the Heroes to clear out the estate in their stead. That's the basic premise, and the story doesn't really get more complicated than that. Most of the lore you learn outside of this intro is about the Ancestor's life before he died. Also, the Ancestor's ghost narrates over the entire game, describing both the story and the in-game battles with flowery prose befitting a Lovecraft protagonist.
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| The Ancestor, who narrates over the entire game, writes a letter to his family begging them to come home and retake the titular Darkest Dungeon. Image found on MobyGames.com |
Darkest Dungeon officially starts with a brief tutorial in which you are ambushed by bandits. Fear not, for the Heir always starts with two Heroes on their payroll already; A Crusader named Reynauld and a Highwayman named Dismas (these Heroes are the only ones with canon names, the other Heroes are given randomized names upon recruitment). These two are your starter Heroes, and they exist mostly to teach you the basics of battle. Combat is turn-based with the turn order being decided by a number called the Speed stat, in which the character with the highest number goes first. Each Hero on your team has four different abilities they can choose to use on their turn. What these abilities are depends on the Hero's class, of which there are 18 (15 in the base game and 3 more in DLC expansions). Some Heroes focus on supporting allies with healing and buffs, others focus on killing enemies quickly with big burst attacks, and others still focus on tanking and defenses. You can have up to four Heroes in the same team, with any class combination you want (including multiple Heroes with the same class).
Additionally, the Heroes follow a strict marching order, and their place within the marching order changes their abilities. These positions are your backline (far left), your frontline (far right) and two middle positions. Some Heroes want to be certain places more than others. For example, the Arbalest and the Plague Doctor both want to be in the backline, as they are long range fighters who use projectiles and support abilities to keep their teammates alive. The Leper and the Hellion meanwhile want to be in the frontline as they are both melee powerhouses who focus on tearing through enemies with close range attacks. Some classes, like the Grave Robber and the Jester, can even change their position mid battle when using certain abilities. And other classes like the Occultist and the Man-at-Arms don't really care where in the marching order they are, as they have abilities that can be used in any position.
The last main combat mechanic is Torchlight, which is meant to be a high risk, high reward system. Basically, the lighting during an expedition will gradually get darker as you progress, but you can use torches to restore it. Monsters grow more powerful in darkness, but the odds of finding more valuable items and treasure are increased when the Torch Light gets low enough. If you're feeling very brave (or you're desperate for more money) it could be worth letting Torchlight run out on purpose for the extra rewards. But keeping Torchlight high is safer for your Heroes.
Speaking of safety, I should warn you now that Darkest Dungeon is deliberately designed to be a challenging experience, to the point where it provides a warning saying as much every time you boot it up. Why is this game so difficult, you ask? Because of four main mechanics. First and most obvious is permadeath. When a Hero dies for any reason, that specific Hero is dead for the rest of the game, and anything they were carrying at the time of death is lost forever as well. Secondly, Heroes have two health bars, one for their physical wellbeing and one for their mental health. If their physical health reaches zero, that Hero is put on Death's Door. Despite the name, this event doesn't kill the Hero, but if they get hit while on Death's Door there is a 1-in-3 chance that they will die for real. However, literally any healing spell will remove the "Death's Door" condition. As long as your Heroes are NOT on Death's Door, they will never die from physical injuries.
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| The Plague Doctor, one of the game's many playable Heroes, suffers a mental breakdown and becomes Fearful. Image found on TrueAchievements.com |
But this leads to the third major mechanic of the game, Stress. Stress represents your Heroes' declining mental health, and it will rise the longer a battle progresses. If the Stress meter fills all the way up, the Hero will reach their breaking point and they will gain a random, but usually negative, ailment called an Affliction. These can take the form of extreme fearfulness, paranoia and hopelessness, among others. While Afflicted, the Hero in question will occasionally do things that are detrimental to the team, such as skipping turns or even attacking teammates. If the Stress meter fills all the way up a second time, the Afflicted Hero will have a heart attack that puts them on Death's Door immediately. If they were already on Death's Door at the time this happens, then the heart attack straight up kills the Hero. There is a small chance that a Hero will gain a positive status effect called a Virtue, which instantly heals Stress and provides a power boost for the whole team, but Virtues are rare and should not be relied on. If they happen, great! But don't count on them for victory. Also, Stress is persistent across multiple expeditions and can only be treated by giving that Hero a break. These three mechanics work together in tandem to ensure that battles against even basic enemies can quickly devolve into a life or death struggle if you aren't careful.
So how do you deal with the horrors of the estate? The answer is by upgrading the hamlet. The hamlet is your base of operations, and from here you can replace casualties recruit new Heroes and outfit them with new armor and weapons. You can also give a Hero the week off and let them visit either the Tavern or the Church. Both of these facilities will heal Stress, but most Heroes will develop a preference for one or the other. You can also send the Heroes to the Sanitorium to cure them of any diseases they may have contracted (diseases, while nonlethal, will still weaken a Hero in addition to other status conditions). You can use a collectible currency called Heirlooms to upgrade the hamlet (thus making each facility more effective), and you can get more Heirlooms by exploring the estate. Upgrading the Heroes themselves does not cost Heirlooms, but instead costs Gold, which is also found within the estate. Keep in mind that a Hero will be unavailable for deployment until the next expedition is complete if they are spending the week at the Sanitorium, Tavern or Church, as these facilities' effects are not instant. In fact, my biggest criticism of Darkest Dungeon is that your Heroes are often forced into long periods of downtime even when they are successful. Like, let's say that a Hero becomes Afflicted and gets infected with a disease. You can only heal one ailment at a time, meaning that if you want that Hero to be back at full strength, you need to wait at least 2 in-game weeks for that to happen. The wait gets even longer if the Hero contracts multiple diseases at once.
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| An overview of the hamlet, which serves as your base of operations. Image found on MobyGames.com |
And speaking of taking the week off, the game measures time in weeks, with one expedition to the estate taking up one in-game week. This translates to about 30 minutes to an hour of real life playtime. On the game's hardest difficulty setting, officially called Stygian mode, you will have a time limit forcing you beat the entire game within 86 weeks or sooner. Stygian mode also puts a 30% multiplier on the health and damage output of all enemies. So maybe don't try this mode if it's your first time playing, as it is especially sadistic. The last major mechanic concerning the hamlet is that there are random events that can occur. These events are always positive, and include things like discounts at the various facilities, all Heroes belonging to a specific class getting a free level up, or even bringing one dead Hero back to life. This random event is the ONLY way to revive dead Heroes, by the way.
The estate is divided into five main areas, each themed around a different archetypal monster; the Ruins (undead), the Warrens (beast men), the Weald (witches/fungi), the Cove (sea monsters) and finally, the Darkest Dungeon (Lovecraftian horrors). The Crimson Court and Color of Madness expansions add two new areas, also themed around archetypal monsters. The former adds the Courtyard (vampires) and the latter adds the Farmstead (aliens/crystals). All areas have human enemies, which take the form of either bandits or cultists. Once you pick an area to explore, the layout in those areas are randomized. The layout might be a linear hallway during one trip, or a sprawling maze during the next trip. Additionally, each expedition has a quest objective. These quests can range from defeating all enemies, to collecting three specific items, to killing a boss. Normally, your Heroes cannot leave until their current quest is complete. However, you can choose to abandon the quest, which will allow all currently living Heroes to return safely, but you will get reduced rewards for doing so. Keep in mind that if all four Heroes sent on an expedition are killed, you lose access to EVERYTHING that they found. As cowardly as it sounds, it is always better to abandon a quest before you lose too many Heroes, as it is better to come back with some rewards than it is come back with nothing at all.
While exploring any given area, your team may stumble across objects called Curios. These can range from treasure chests, to bookshelves, to confession booths, among many others. Interacting with Curios will produce a random effect, which can be either positive or negative in nature. However, you can use certain supply items on specific kinds of Curios to force a positive effect to occur. For example, you can use a skeleton key on treasure chests to get even more treasure from them than normal. You can use holy water on confession booths to heal Stress. You can clear out a blocked passage using shovels. And there are many more possibilities. The only restriction you have to worry about is limited inventory space. Your Heroes can only carry an absolute maximum of 16 different items, with items of the same type sharing an inventory slot. For example, a single slot can hold either 12 rations, 6 bandages or 4 shovels, but not all of those at once. All supply items are one time use, and if you have any unused supplies once the expedition is complete you will get a refund for your troubles. To quote the Ancestor regarding treasure and supplies; "The cost of preparedness, measured now in gold, but later in blood."
On the subject of Heroes, let's talk about them in more detail. As previously mentioned, the Heroes are divided into classes, with each class having a unique role on any given team. While you can make most team compositions work, some classes work better with others. For example, The Highwayman and Grave Robber are mid-range damage-dealers whose weapons can deal extra damage against enemies with the Marked condition. Neither the Highwayman nor the Grave Robber have any way of Marking a target by themselves. So if you want to get the most out of these classes, pair them up with Heroes who can Mark targets like the Hound Master, the Bounty Hunter or the Occultist. In fact, you can build an entire team of Heroes around Marking enemies so that their teammates can obliterate them. The same practice can be applied with other status conditions, like Bleeding and Blight. Or you can forsake all these fancy status conditions altogether and run a party of three melee powerhouses who overwhelm their foes with sheer strength, and give them a single healer to keep them alive. And if you are in desperate need of Gold, the otherwise unimpressive Antiquarian can multiply the amount of treasure found on an expedition, as long as the other three Heroes do everything they can to protect her. The possibilities are endless.
You can also customize your Heroes with collectible items called Trinkets that provide a passive boost to certain abilities. Like a scroll that increases the amount of health healing spells restore by 30%, or a bandana that raises the damage of all long-range attacks by 25%. All bosses (excluding the final boss) drop extra strong Trinkets with powerful effects, and most bosses are worth killing just for their Trinkets. The last thing about Heroes you need to worry about is camping. On longer expeditions, the party will be given a log of firewood. Use this item in an empty room and your Heroes will camp for the night. Outside of certain Curio events, camping is the only reliable way of healing Stress mid-expedition. All classes also have special camp abilities, which allows them to either heal Stress even further or give the party some kind of buff. But of course, this game won't let you camp without danger, as every time you set up camp there is a 1-in-3 chance that you'll get ambushed. And said ambushes always start in complete darkness, meaning the enemies will always be at max strength should this happen. Some Heroes, such as the Crusader, Occultist and Vestal, have camping abilities that outright prevent ambushes from occurring. For the sake of your own sanity, make sure at least one of your Heroes has an anti-ambush camping ability.
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| A promotional comic depicting the Leper leaving his kingdom for the greater good. Image found on darkestdungeon.fandom.com and darkestdungeon.com |
One fun bit of trivia I want to mention about the Heroes is their backstory comics. These comics are not accessible within the game itself, but were made as promotional material. These comics show more of the Heroes' lives prior to the start of the game, and all of them are meant to paint the Heroes in a tragic, or at least sympathetic light. Just to give a few examples, the Crusader was once a farmer with a wife and son who was drafted into a holy war, but he's been fighting for so long he gave up hope on returning home. The Arbalest was forced to run away from home as a child due to an angry mob burning her village down, with the only relic of her childhood being her father's crossbow. The Hound Master was once a police officer with a strong sense of justice, who left the police force in disgust when he found out his commanding officers were part of a cult. My favorite comic goes to the Leper, who was once a fair and just king that was beloved by his subjects. But one day, the Leper contracted leprosy (obviously), and he left his kingdom willingly to spare his people from a potential plague. And keep in mind, the comics manage to communicate these ideas and themes without a single word of dialogue, instead choosing to let the art tell the story by itself. Even if you have no desire to play Darkest Dungeon yourself, I can highly recommend looking at the comics. They are only one page long each and have some hauntingly beautiful artwork.
One last thing about the Heroes before we continue. Each Hero is given a random set of minor strengths and weaknesses called traits. Traits provide either an improvement or a penalty, like 10% extra damage against undead but having -1 Speed. Some traits make it so a Hero can only heal Stress with specific methods, like the Tippler trait, which makes the Hero become an alcoholic who can only heal Stress by drinking at the Tavern. A Hero can have a maximum of five "positive" traits and five "negative" traits, and once that limit is reached, the old traits will swap out for new traits at random intervals. If there's a positive trait you really like and want it to stay on a Hero, you can send them to the Sanitarium to lock that trait in, making it permanent. Likewise, if there's a negative trait that you feel is more trouble than it's worth, you can use the Sanitarium to instantly remove it. While most of the traits are minor enough to not make that big a difference, there is one negative trait that's hugely detrimental and should be removed immediately; Kleptomania. It's exactly what it sounds like, a random chance for that Hero to steal treasure and supplies from the rest of the team. The problem is that there is (to my knowledge) no way to get those items back, as they are pretty much gone forever. For obvious reasons, you don't want a Hero who will steal from their own comrades. Funnily enough, Reynauld, the Crusader given to you during the tutorial, always starts with Kleptomania as his first negative trait. Every playthrough of Darkest Dungeon will involve you sending Reynauld straight to the Sanitorium to cure his Kleptomania as soon as you are able to. This is not negotiable. It's a canon event.
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| A group of Heroes start a battle against the Swine King, one of the game's bosses. Image found on MobyGames.com |
But now it's time to talk about the bosses, which are a major highlight for me. Not only because their designs are creatively monstrous, but they have some neat mechanics that make them more interesting that the regular enemies. Each of the four main parts of the estate have two bosses that need to be defeated three times each (with each rematch being more difficult than the previous battle).The Ruins get the Necromancer and the Prophet, the Warrens get the Swine King and the Formless Flesh, the Weald gets the Hag and the Brigand Pounder, and the Cove gets the Siren and Drowned Crewmen. There are other bosses in the game, but these are the main ones you need to worry about. Anyway, every time you start an expedition to fight a boss, you will get a confession from the Ancestor's ghost where he explains his relationship with the boss in question. Fight these bosses enough times and the Ancestor will reveal more information, both about the boss and about himself. And the more you learn about the Ancestor, the more you learn that he was kind of an awful person in life. Every boss encountered is either one of his failed experiments, a co-conspirator he betrayed or an unfortunate victim who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I have more to say about the Ancestor himself, but let's get back to the bosses. All of them have a gimmick that allows the boss to mess with the Heroes' positioning or even the turn order itself. Just to list a few examples of my favorite bosses, the Prophet can "predict" an attack that will hit a random Hero three turns in advance, and if that Hero doesn't switch to a safer spot in the marching order they'll get crushed by a boulder. The Formless Flesh is actually four different creatures fused together, and thus it gets four separate turns for each of its parts. But because these parts share a health bar, damage over time effects like Bleeding and Blight are four times as effective, as these effects activate once per each part's turn (thus dealing damage four times total). The Hag can grab a random Hero and put them in her stew, preventing them from doing anything until the other three Heroes free them by smashing the Hag's cooking pot. My favorite boss is the Brigand Pounder, as it's literally just a really big cannon being escorted by regular human bandits. The cannon can't do anything by itself, but if a Brigand Matchstick Man gets a chance to light the cannon's fuse, all four Heroes get hit with enough damage to instantly put the ENTIRE TEAM on Death's Door. The idea being that you have to kill the Matchstick Man before that can happen, and once he is dead you can focus on whittling down the cannon itself.
Now let's talk about the Ancestor himself, because he is part of the reason I like this game as much as I do. I know I just called the Ancestor an awful person. But make no mistake, the Ancestor is my favorite character in this whole game, besides the Heroes themselves. Having such a villainous character narrate both the story and the gameplay is such an interesting artistic decision to me. His ghost speaks with a mixture of flowery prose and thinly veiled bitterness. He can go from mourning the decline of the estate and regretting how he handled his original expedition, to proudly boasting about the many ways in which he ruined the lives of the bosses, and somehow both of these views feel in character for him. You could make the argument that he is trying to atone for his sins by helping the Heir retake the estate. But honestly? I don't get the vibe that he even wants redemption. He sounds more annoyed that he died before his plans came to fruition than anything else.
And of course, I have to mention the incredible voice acting of the late Wayne June, who voiced the Ancestor. June brought his absolute A-Game when it came to delivering such verbose narration, and the game is all the better for it. And the Ancestor's callouts during the expeditions are iconic, with memorable lines like "These nightmarish creatures can be felled, they can be beaten!" and "A moment of clarity in the eye of the storm!" My favorite line the Ancestor says is "Monstrous size has no intrinsic merit, lest inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue!" Because that is the fanciest and most pretentious way of saying "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." And how could I forget THE most famous quote from this game? "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." This quote is is unironically the best piece of advice anyone could give while playing this game. Never assume your Heroes are invincible, as all it takes for an expedition to fail is for you to push your luck too far. Always be prepared for any scenario, including the possibility of your favorite Heroes dying. Heck, you could make the argument that the Ancestor was guilty of overconfidence himself, as the entire reason he did everything he did was because he believed he was above facing consequences for his actions.
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| The Bounty Hunter smashes his axe into an enemy, destroying it. Image found on TrueAchievements.com |
Okay, now that we have discussed most of the game, let's talk about the Darkest Dungeon itself, as it is the location that the game is named after and works under some different rules from other areas. Firstly, it is the only location with non-randomized layouts. This means you could look up a map online and use that information to beeline for the quest objective. Secondly, there are no Curios whatsoever in the Darkest Dungeon. It's meant to be a marathon of extra tough battles with few chances to rest. Thirdly, any Hero who goes to the Darkest Dungeon and survives will never return for a second trip, with the idea being that the Darkest Dungeon was so horrific and traumatizing that it gave that specific Hero permanent PTSD. The only exception to this rule is if you are playing on Radiant mode, the game's version of easy mode. Radiant mode removes this PTSD restriction, though "traumatized" Heroes will start the expedition with the Stress meter at 80% full the moment they return, so you're still discouraged from using the same Heroes again. These traumatized Heroes can still go on expeditions to everywhere else in the estate, and they even give weaker Heroes an experience boost, causing them to level up faster. So they can still contribute to the campaign, even if they won't get a chance to fight the final boss. I would say that the final boss being in the Darkest Dungeon is a spoiler, but come on. Where else would the final boss of a game called Darkest Dungeon be if not in the place literally called the Darkest Dungeon?
Speaking of the final boss, the final battle is really cool narratively, even if it is not as difficult as the other bosses. Full spoiler warning ahead. The final boss is none other than the ghost of the Ancestor himself. Here at the final floor of the Darkest Dungeon, the Ancestor reveals what exactly was the great and terrible *thing* he found that drove him to take his own life; The Heart of Darkness. This ancient being possesses all knowledge of the cosmos, including truths that mankind was never meant to learn. It also feeds on human suffering, and if it eats enough suffering, it can grow strong enough to cause the end of the world. So the Ancestor made a deal with it. The deal was that the Ancestor would be revived as an immortal spirit with access to as much knowledge as he wants, and in exchange, the Ancestor would cause human suffering on an unprecedented scale, thus speeding up the Heart's gestation. The Ancestor knew his relatives would spare no expense in reclaiming the estate. He also knew that plenty of Heroes would "suffer" in the process. But the Heroes were never meant to push as far into the Darkest Dungeon as they did, and as such, the Heart of Darkness is forced to wake up early, which is why the Ancestor is fighting you now.
The battle against the Ancestor/Heart of Darkness is not a hard fight, but it is a long one. It has four phases and plenty of attacks that can inflict all the major status conditions, but it doesn't have anything you haven't seen before by this point. That is, until you reach the final phase. Once the Heart is down to its fourth and final health bar, it can use its signature move: Come Unto Thy Maker. This "fun" little ability is a guaranteed one-hit kill move. This attack ignores Death's Door and is always 100% accurate. Nothing will save you from Come Unto Thy Maker. The good news is that the Heart can only use this technique twice per battle. The bad news is that the Heart forces the player to choose who gets hit with it. This attack is devastating for obvious reasons, and for a long time everyone (including Red Hook themselves) believed it was impossible to defeat the final boss without suffering casualties. The fact that the game forces you, the player, to choose the target of this attack is adding insult to injury. Yet it works from a narrative standpoint. When you start out, you feel compelled to be a good boss to your Heroes, paying for their healthcare and outfitting them with the finest equipment available. But as they start dying and you get used to replacing the deceased, you start to see less value in your Heroes' lives. Soon enough you realize that unless the Hero in question is fully upgraded (or close to it), it's often cheaper to just fire a half-dead, traumatized Hero and hire a replacement than it is to heal them properly. This battle is basically calling you out for (potentially) becoming just as ruthless as the Ancestor was. After all, at this point you are not only desensitized to the death of the Heroes, you are sacrificing them yourself just for a chance to finish the final battle.
But what if I told you it doesn't have to end that way? As it turns out, some people on the Internet figured out not one, but two different ways to circumvent Come Unto Thy Maker, completely skipping over the sacrifice and outsmarting the developers themselves. The first method is the simplest, but arguably the most dangerous. All you have to do is bring ONLY two Heroes to the final boss fight. You see, the Heart of Darkness can only use Come Unto Thy Maker if at least three out of four Heroes survived long enough to reach the final phase. If there's less than three Heroes on the team by the time you reach this phase, the Heart has no reason to use its signature move. The second method is more complicated, but more satisfying; Figure out a way to kill the Heart in a single turn. The Heart can't use Come Unto Thy Maker if it's dead. I don't know the exact details, nor do I have the time to explain, but there are plenty of YouTube videos out there showing that it can be done.
Regardless of how you choose to defeat the Heart of Darkness, its gestation is halted and forced back into dormancy. But as is tradition with Lovecraftian storytelling, the Ancestor claims that the Heart cannot be permanently destroyed by mortal hands, and that the Heart will return one day to destroy the world. The game ends with the Heir writing a letter to their next of kin, just as the Ancestor did. And the Heir takes their own life to escape the Darkest Dungeon, just as the Ancestor did. And the letter calls in another relative who leads another doomed crusade to retake the estate, just as the Heir did. And then when they defeat the Heart again, that relative will write a letter to their next of kin. And that relative will come to reclaim the estate, defeat the Heart, and write a letter to THEIR next of kin. And so on and so forth. This familial bloodline is now locked in a never ending loop of wasting money and lives on trying to retake this cursed estate, while inadvertently saving the world repeatedly. It's a bittersweet ending, one that's more bitter than sweet. It does create the somewhat humorous mental image that the only thing stopping the end of the world from occurring is a single, stupidly stubborn family of aristocrats with more money than sense who refuse to let this estate go.
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| A group of Heroes make camp for the night. Image found on SteamDB.com |
In terms of presentation, Darkest Dungeon is stylishly macabre, with a comic book inspired art style with heavy shading and sharp angles on literally everything. The game is so over-the-top in its Gothic Horror aesthetic that it borders on absurdity. I mean, what other video game has a literal leper as a playable character? One detail I love is how all of the Heroes cover their eyes, either with masks, helmets or shadows. Despite having wildly different outfits from a wide range of cultures and time periods, the eye covering is something that is consistent across everyone. The only creatures with visible eyes are the monsters you battle against. I'm sure there's some symbolism there, if you want to read into it. I also like how the vampire enemies added in the Crimson Court are based off of mosquitos instead of bats, thus giving them a more insectoid appearance. It's a rather clever spin on a tried and true monster concept.
The actual animations are a little limited, unfortunately, but there's a certain charm to the Heroes various poses. You see, the only part of the game that is fully animated is walking from room to room. When in battle, the Heroes simply *snap* from an idle pose to a handful of contextual poses based on what is happening at the moment, with no smear frames to make the transition between poses smoother. You'd think this would weaken the visual experience, but in practice it makes the game look and feel even more like a comic book, and I mean this as a compliment. Basically, there is no other video game that looks quite like Darkest Dungeon. The only negative thing I can say about the visuals is that I noticed some mild typos in the captions. Nothing serious, but things like not capitalizing the letter "I" when using it as a first person pronoun, or accidentally putting the plural version of the word when the Ancestor is clearly referring to something singular. It's not a deal breaker by any means, but once you notice the typos, it becomes hard to ignore them.
I've already mentioned the incredible voice talents of Wayne June as the Ancestor, and thus I will not repeat myself. Keep in mind that the Ancestor is the only character in the game who is fully voiced. Everyone else gets comic book speech bubbles containing written dialogue. Anyway, the sound effects are crisp and instantly recognizable. I like how every attack (for both Heroes and monsters) has two different sound effects depending on whether or not the attacker actually hits their target. Like you can hear the weapon whizzing past the target and hitting only empty air, but the if attack strikes true, you can hear the weapon crush through bone and slice through flesh. It's brutal sound design, but it fits the gruesomeness of the game's aesthetics.
The music meanwhile could best be described as stressful (pun intended again). The battle music (composed by Stuart Chatwood) sounds less like a heroic conflict between good and evil and more like a siren warning of impending doom. The music makes it clear that the Heroes are not welcome in the estate, and its monstrous denizens will show no mercy. And as the Torchlight lowers, the music gets louder, with more instruments and even demonic cackles and growls joining the beat. The only "calm" songs in the soundtrack are the hamlet's theme, simply titled The Hamlet, and the camping music, titled A Brief Respite. Both of these songs are meant to be relaxing and comforting, in their own way. But The Hamlet has a distinctly mournful vibe to it, sounding like something you would hear at a funeral. I don't know what instruments were used to make the soundtrack, as music is something that is not my expertise, but I do know that I would call the soundtrack "good" for what it's trying to do. Would I willingly listen to the combat music while doing chores or something? Not really. But this soundtrack does a good job keeping you immersed in this setting.
Overall, Darkest Dungeon is a brutal game that is most definitely not for everyone. Not to sound like a stereotypical game journalist, but I can see the difficulty being a major turn off for some people. This is not the kind of game you play casually to blow off steam. At the same time, so much care and passion was put into it that I can say with confidence that I greatly enjoyed the 90+ hours I spent with the game. No other game looks, sounds or plays quite like it, and I can respect the artistic vision. The game isn't difficult for the sake of it, there's a point to it. Have you ever heard the phrase, "suffering builds character?" That is the core thesis of Darkest Dungeon, both on a narrative and mechanical level. So I will give Darkest Dungeon 4 stars out of 5. It is really good for what it's trying to do. You just need to be onboard for that kind of experience.
Darkest Dungeon is the property of Red Hook Studios. None of the images used in this review were created by me. Please support the original creators.
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