Darkest
Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon (2016) is a turn-based battling game where you fight monsters in dungeons to restore your ancestor's hamlet to its former glory. From a side-on perspective, you recruit an adventurer team to take on quests in the dank, dim dungeons that make you deal with their fears as much as the enemies that lie within. It's like other dungeon adventures, however, each character has shortcomings and vulnerabilities that affect the party and impact their mental health.

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Play involves carefully selecting characters from the available classes that offer a combination of skills, abilities and (less helpful) foibles. Each quest takes you into dungeons with rooms guarded by enemies. You must manage your team through these difficult encounters as well as longer-term aspects like disease, mental afflictions and extreme stresses.

As you progress, it becomes tricky to manage your characters' illnesses and quirks while also advancing their skills, armour and weapons. Between quests, you can upgrade and heal your characters, but not without a hefty price. This means you must decide who is worth healing or upgrading.

This results in a game as much about balancing impediments as it is about creating a perfect party. You have to work with (rather than against) characters, often persuading them of the actions they should take.

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Our examiner, Joe Eaton, first checked Darkest Dungeon 8 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 8 months ago.