Darkest Dungeon

As a rule I do not buy games that are in early access. I find the risk doesn't outweigh the gain. But on Saturday evening, I couldn't wait anymore, and picked up Darkest Dungeon on Steam.

I've been drooling over this game for months, checking almost daily if it was out of early access and reading the developers site all the time.

The fact that Red Hook, the developers, have handled the whole early access so well made me take the leap. Their constant updates and the way they interact with fans in taking suggestions and their dedication to communicating in general made me confident that they will complete this game. Something many developers don't do. I have no fear that Red Hook is going to take the money and run. Besides, by now Darkest Dungeon is almost complete anyway.

So what's it all about? The clue is in the name, really. It's a dungeon crawler but with a twist. Although the combat is dangerous and challenging, the real threat is the stress the adventurers face. The style of the game is sort of Warhammer Fantasy meets Lovecraft, so that's right up my alley.

You take the role of a nobleman whose ancestor (father, uncle etc. it's not explained) got bored living in excess and decided to dabble in the occult, with predictable results. Now you have to hire adventurers to clear the monsters out of your holdings and restore your family name.

In a nutshell, you hire the adventurers, send them through the dungeons, collect the loot and improve the town. But, in doing so, the adventurers get really stressed out and if you want to keep them around so that they can level up, you need to de-stress them, and that also costs money. This is the management aspect of the game.

The dungeon aspect is where the game really shines. It is a sort of sidescroller with the heroes lined up on the left side of the screen and monsters in a line on the right. Different heroes need to stand in a specific order to be effective and this strategy plays a huge part. Some monsters can mix the line up and this really screws with you. Over all the combat isn't that hard, but it works on a number generator and sometimes nothing goes your way. My Leper (a hero class) got eaten in one round by giant maggots before the healer could save him. There was nothing I could do. But if you can accept this, it gets really fun.

Then there's the light. You have to bring torches and how bright you keep the party is a huge question. You hit harder in the dark and you get better treasure, but the stress levels skyrocket and the opposition gets worse. The whole game is a give and take and how you choose to do things is the key to success.

The final thing I want to talk about is the stress the heroes suffer. Many things stress them, from the dark to damage taken to having to retreat etc. Some things like causing critical hits reduces stress, but the positive influences are far fewer than the negative. When a hero finally has had enough and cracks he is “tested”. He may well get stronger, but usually bad stuff happens. Like in one of my forays into the Ruins:

The Crusader, St. Denis got so stressed he became abusive and started mocking the rest of the group, screaming things like “Good, you should die, it'll give me more room to swing my blade”. Naturally the rest of he heroes didn't like this, so it finally pushed the Plague Doctor Matzzeria into also becoming abusive. He in turn kept shouting nasty things that almost brought the whole group down before I managed to push them through the last few rooms and then back to town.

St. Denis was also a kleptomaniac and stole treasure before I could order someone else to grab it. This element of free will really adds to the atmosphere and makes the game even better. Sometimes they just do things and you never really know what's going to happen next.

I should point out that you can rename your heroes, and I like to name them after my friends. It makes for a better story...

In conclusion, I would like to say that my initial impression of Darkest Dungeon is very positive, bordering on great. I have only played four hours and defeated one boss, so this is in no way a review. Just a first impression. But the art style is wonderful, the music is awesome and the narrator (Wayne June) is perfect.

That's all for now so until next time, have a great week!