Darkest Dungeon: Scoundrels, Heroes, and Adventurers

Darkest Dungeon:

Time to Beat: 60 Hours

It's rare to stop playing a game and return to it years later, like when I finished Papers, Please after a multi-year hiatus. It's rarer still to stop playing a game and return to it a few months later. Darkest Dungeon, by Red Hook Studios, is a game which makes one want to rip their hair out and laugh maniacally at the same time.

Darkest Dungeon, a Steam Early Access darling, Kickstarted in 2014, and arrived on Steam by 2015. It escaped Early Access in 2016, and two DLC updates followed in 2017 and 2018. Throughout the entire process the development team tinkered with the game, balancing heroes and monsters, and changing gameplay elements. In particular, two changes upset early fans. I preferred playing DD after Red Hook Studios released their DLCs and finalized their product. Though I sympathize with the original players disturbed by the changes, one shouldn't be surprised if an Early Access game sees moderate alterations, even after the official launch.

A turn based strategy game, where the play controls a collection of misfit adventurers, Darkest Dungeon is set in a fantasy medieval hamlet. Towering over town stands the player's family estate where their ancestor unleashed an Eldritch horror. The unnamed protagonist, who never appears in the game, must hire a coterie of virtuous and less savory characters to explore the Ruins, Warrens, Weald, and Cove, before eventually entering into the Estate, underneath which lurks the Darkest Dungeon, a realm of unknowable madness.
Darkest Dungeon incorporates RPG, permadeath, and rouge-like elements. There are 15 classes in the base game, along with a few more in each DLC (which I didn't play). Each class combines a collection of predetermined attributes (health, dodge, speed, crit chance, damage, bleed resits, poison resist, and more), along with seven combat skills and seven camping skills. Each hero of a particular class begins with the exact same attributes, but only four of their seven skills. Their four combat skills and four camping skills are randomly determined. But while each hero starts uniquely, the player can pay to unlock the other three skills. As the hero level up, from zero to six, upgrade skills requires further gold expenditures. Every member of a class receives the same growth in their attributes. While the player could alter every member of a class to be the same, I kept every character exactly as they arrived. I never paid to unlock new abilities, because it added distinction to the heroes. This choice allowed experimentation with multiple versions of the same class to witness their strengths and weaknesses, their different functions. Some classes are flexible and can perform different functions, play offense and defense. Jesters are an adaptable class, and the best version of a Bard ever in an RPG. Others are one dimensional, capable of only one function, like the Crusader class. In spite of the attempt to differentiate the heroes, eventually one realizes that heroes of the same class are indistinguishable from one another. It isn't the limited skill differences, the hero levels, or the choice of four different color costumes which set a hero apart, it is the Quirks.

In the hamlet outside the Ancestor's cursed estate, the heroes visit the Abbey, Blacksmith, Guild, Wagon, Sanitarium, Stage Coach, Survivalist, and Tavern to hire, train, equip, comfort, and prepare their gang for a mission. Heroes improve their skills from level 1 to 5, or upgrade their weapons and armor for enhanced damage and survivability. The Wagon sells trinkets for heroes to carry into the dungeons. Some trinkets are only for specific classes, while others are for anyone. Trinkets offer powerful bonuses (additional damage, health, speed, etc), but nearly all include a negative effect (additional stress, less armor, etc). An artifact promises an improvement in one aspect, but a decrease in another category.
The one aspect a hero can never improve is their resistance to Stress. Darkest Dungeon reflects the Lovecraftian mythos where encounters with forces beyond comprehension inflict mind-bending decay. Many enemies, instead of dealing damage to a hero's health, increase the character's Stress. Critical hits, in addition to dealing horrific injury, also elevate Stress levels. Though every hero starts with zero Stress they are certain to suffer. At one hundred heroes incur an Affliction, a negative state, such as Fearful, Paranoid, or Masochistic. Afflictions cause the hero to refuse healing, attack allies, or skip their turn. A small number of heroes resist corruption and, after reaching one hundred Stress, exhibit virtue instead of vice. A Stalwart, Courageous, or Focused hero is more resistance to debuffs and can not be afflicted. Beyond one hundred there is a more serious penalty. At two hundred Stress, the character dies immediately of a heart attack. Afflictions and Virtues only last for the remainder of the dungeon in which they occur, but Stress remains. The player can spend gold to send an overly stressed hero to a Monastery for religious comfort, or a Tavern for earthly relief.

Equipped and trained heroes must eventually venture into a dungeon. Underneath the title for each of the four areas (plus the Darkest Dungeon), additional icons indicate the available quests. Quests can be short, medium, or long, with a difficulty of 1, 3, or 5 (the Darkest Dungeon is 6). Four heroes journey into a dungeon at a time, but they will only go on a quest they deem worthy. The quest must be no more than one level beneath their own level. And if a character is forced into a dungeon more than one level higher, they will suffer Stress damage at the beginning of the quest. So a level four hero won't go on quest lower than level three, and will resent assisting on a level six quest.
The main strategy of Darkest Dungeon comes from determining which heroes to send on a quest, and how to arrange them. The party travels in a line; A, B, C, D where A is in the back and D in the front. They face from the rightward from the left side of the screen, toward their destination and foe. When monsters appear on the right side of the screen, they arrange themselves, E, F, G, H, with E in front and H in back, facing leftward. Determining a successful formation before entering a dungeon is critical. Each character skill can only be used from certain positions and can only target certain positions. A Crusader is useful only in position C or D, where he can swing his sword and shield his allies. A proper team requires balance: the ability to hit enemies in the front, middle, and back. A squad requires at least one core healer (Vestal or Occultist), at least one damage dealer, and one versatile character capable of stuns, bleed/poison damage, buffs, or debuffs. The fourth character should do a mixture. Victory comes from the right heroes, in the right spots, with the correct skills.

Even when a hero returns from a dungeon, they never come back intact. The deep, devilish darkness imbues strange Quirks in those it touches. Quirks can be beneficial (Last Gasp, +1 Speed if Health below 50%) or detrimental (Nervous, +10% stress). While most indicate their effect, some, like Dacnomania only list a vague description, “Obsessed with Killing”. These Quirks force the hero to touch the appropriate Curio in a dungeon. Curios are interactable objects scattered throughout the dungeons (more on them next article). At first the massive variety of Quirks seems to add variety to the characters, but eventually the blend together, and the player realizes that not even Quirks differentiate one member of a class from another.

Next week, a history of the exploration of the Darkest Dungeon.

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