Darkest Dungeon
| Darkest Dungeon | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Red Hook Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Red Hook Studios |
| Director(s) | Chris Bourassa |
| Producer(s) | Tyler Sigman |
| Designer(s) | Tyler Sigman |
| Programmer(s) | Keir Miron Pierre Tardif Kelvin McDowell |
| Artist(s) | Chris Bourassa Brooks Gordon |
| Composer(s) | Stuart Chatwood |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita |
| Release |
Windows, OS X
|
| Genre(s) | Role-playing, dungeon crawl, turn-based strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Aggregate score | |
|---|---|
| Aggregator | Score |
| Metacritic | 84% |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Destructoid | 8/10 |
| Game Informer | 9.25/10 |
| IGN | 9.1/10 |
| PC Gamer (US) | 88/100 |
| Hardcore Gamer | 4/5 |
Darkest Dungeon is a dungeon crawling video game developed and published by indie game developer Red Hook Studios. The game, following an Early Access development period, was released on January 19, 2016, for Microsoft Windows and OS X, with a release for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Linux platforms a few months later.
Darkest Dungeon has the player manage a roster of heroes to explore dungeons below a gothic mansion the player has inherited. Played out in a mix of real-time movement and turn-based combat, a core feature of Darkest Dungeon is the stress level of each hero that increases with further exploration and combat; a character sustaining a high stress level may gain afflictions that will hamper, or possibly enhance, their performance as an explorer.
The game received positive reviews from critics, garnering several award nominations, and went on to sell over one million copies.
At the outset of Darkest Dungeon, the player learns that they have inherited an estate from a relative who, while seeking fame and fortune by excavating the dungeons and catacombs beneath their manor, has unearthed portals to dark dimensions and released a number of horrific and evil creatures onto the world. Cowardly, the relative took his own life rather than deal with his mistake. As the current owner of the estate and the surrounding lands, the player must recruit a roster of adventurers and mount expeditions to cleanse the estate of its vile inhabitants.
As the player ventures into the manor, the dungeons below it, and the surrounding lands, they find their relative's memoirs telling of the terrible deeds he had done in pursuit of knowledge and power. Eventually, the player is able to send a party into the titular Darkest Dungeon, the source of the land's corruption, taking steps to reveal its ultimate form. Within the deepest chamber, the player encounters the disembodied spirit of their ancestor, who now remains as "an Avatar of the Crawling Chaos." After defeating the ancestor's apparition, the party battles the Heart of Darkness - revealed to be the progenitor of all life on the planet. The party manages to defeat its physical form at great cost, but the ancestor's spirit reveals to the player that this has only delayed its inevitable awakening and, by extension, the end of the world. The ancestor explains that this is merely part of an endless cycle in the player's lineage, and that the player will eventually meet the same fate as he, and their descendants onward. The ancestor then accentuates this cycle by repeating his first words from the start of the game: "Ruin has come to our family."
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Wikipedia