New release: Darkest Dungeon

Red Hook Studios writes in to announce the release of Darkest Dungeon, a side-scrolling, party-based dungeon-delver with a striking graphical style, personality trait mechanics, and a sanity meter for each of your party members.

The premise:

Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic RPG about the stresses of dungeon crawling. You will lead a band of heroes on a perilous side-scrolling descent, dealing with a prodigious number of threats to their bodily health, and worse, a relentless assault on their mental fortitude! Five hundred feet below the earth you will not only fight unimaginable foes, but famine, disease, and the stress of the ever-encroaching dark. Darkest Dungeon focuses on the humanity and psychological vulnerability of the heroes and asks: What emotional toll does a life of adventure take?

Darkest Dungeon is not a game where every hero wins the day with shiny armor and a smile. It is a game about hard trade-offs, nearly certain demise, and heroic acts.

The trailer:

Rather than rattle off a rote list of features, I’m going to quote a paragraph explaining the most significant feature of this game:

Characters’ stress levels respond dynamically to virtually every occurrence in the dungeon, both positive and negative. Coming across a rotting corpse may unnerve your Highwayman, or may fuel your Crusader’s determination. If the pressures of their circumstances become too overwhelming, their resolve is broken, and they will become afflicted with a myriad of psychological conditions ranging from paranoia, panic, greed, or even sadism. Afflicted party members will act out in a variety of ways that impact the play experience during combat, exploration, camping, and even in town.  And like weary soldiers who have seen too much, your heroes will develop permanent quirks and emotional baggage based on their experiences.

Darkest Dungeon has been out on Steam Early Access since last February, where it has garnered critical acclaim (and some pretty significant sales figures, if the volume of positive user reviews is any indication). The final release has been outfitted with a proper endgame, a New Game+ mode, secret treasure rooms, unique equippable trinkets for defeating champion bosses, and an overall rebalancing of skills and trinkets.

Darkest Dungeon is out on Steam for Windows and Mac; you can nab it there for $24.99 (with 20% off this week). Darkest Dungeon is planned to come to Linux, Playstation 4, and Playstation Vita at some point as well.