Darkest Dungeon®
Last updated: 2025-05-16
- Challenging, rewarding, and addictive gameplay experience.
- Immersive gothic horror atmosphere enhances the experience.
- Extensive modding support increases replayability greatly.
- Unique stress system adds gameplay depth.
- High difficulty and frustrating RNG elements.
- Repetitive and grindy gameplay can be tedious.
- Reviews
(sample size) - 2000
- Helpful reviews
- 57%
- Unhelpful reviews
- 42%
- Protest reviews
- 0%
- 85%Helpful reviews with positive sentiment
- 15%Helpful reviews with negative sentiment
- Positive points
- 2267
- Negative points
- 1747
- Gameplay points
- 572
- Perf. points
- 28
- Rec. points
- 673
- Misc points
- 94
| Point | Description | Importance |
|---|---|---|
| Challenging, rewarding, and addictive gameplay | The game provides a deeply engaging and rewarding experience through its challenging gameplay, strategic combat, and satisfying sense of progression. Players find the game enjoyable and addictive, with a constant stream of choices and mechanics that require careful planning and adaptation. Overcoming the game's difficulties and mastering its systems leads to a strong sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. | 94% |
| Immersive gothic horror atmosphere | The game features a distinctive and immersive atmosphere, characterized by its gothic horror art style, Lovecraftian themes, and haunting sound design. The visuals, music, and narration work together to create a sense of dread, tension, and psychological discomfort, drawing players into a dark and unsettling world. This unique aesthetic is a major draw for many players. | 57% |
| Extensive modding support enhances replayability | The game has extensive modding support through the Steam Workshop, allowing players to customize their experience with new characters, classes, skins, mechanics, and dungeons. The active modding community provides a wealth of content that enhances replayability and addresses potential complaints about the game. This mod support significantly extends the game's lifespan and allows players to tailor the game to their preferences. | 42% |
| Diverse characters enable strategic team-building | The game features a diverse roster of characters, each with unique skills and abilities, allowing for varied team compositions and strategies. Players enjoy experimenting with different party combinations and discovering synergies between characters. While character death is permanent, the game provides a constant stream of new adventurers, encouraging players to adapt and experiment with different team compositions. | 14% |
| Roguelike dungeon crawling with resource management | The game combines roguelike, dungeon crawler, and turn-based elements, with procedural generation ensuring that every run feels fresh. Players manage their town, choose their roster, and venture into dungeons, making tactical decisions and managing resources. The game subverts typical resource management by providing few resources but a constant stream of new adventurers, encouraging a pragmatic approach to character management. | 10% |
| Unique stress system adds depth | The game incorporates an innovative stress system that challenges players to manage the psychological burdens of their heroes. Stress levels rise with negative experiences, impacting abilities and potentially causing mental disorders, adding a unique layer of depth and realism to the gameplay. This system requires players to carefully consider both the physical and mental health of their heroes, making every decision matter. | 9% |
| Exceptional narration enhances atmosphere | Wayne June's narration as the Ancestor is a standout feature, perfectly complementing the writing with his deep, gravelly voice and cadence. The narration enhances the game's atmosphere, providing lore and world details, and making even mundane encounters memorable. Many reviewers consider the narrator's voice acting to be exceptional and a key element of the game's appeal. | 9% |
| DLCs add valuable new content | The DLCs offer new content for a reasonable price, introducing excellent bosses and an infinite mode, offering significant value. The DLCs generally improve the game, adding diversity, difficulty, and resources to the gameplay. Many reviewers recommend purchasing the DLCs to get the full experience. | 5% |