From battling through Diablo II’s Den of Evil to clearing Kobolds out of Nashkel mines in Baldur’s Gate, I’ve spent an awful lot of time crawling through dungeons. However, I never stopped to consider the psychological impact that stumbling deeper into a subterranean stronghold stuffed with things that want to floss their teeth with intestines would have on a hero. Thank God for Darkest Dungeon for finally giving us a chance to explore this important issue.

The game centres on a foreboding estate surrounded by dungeons in dire need of fumigation. As is the case in RPGs, intrepid heroes flock to the miserable little town in the hopes of earning themselves fame, glory, money and adventure.

The player bands together four heroes at a time and explores nearby dungeons to solve quests and gather loot. So far, so standard. However, as implied in the opening paragraph, Darkest Dungeon‘s USP is that whilst the player has to maintain their party’s physical health, they also have to manage the mental well-being of their heroes.

Being sliced open by a raving cultist with a poisoned knife is sure to have psychological effects on anyone, and as a result, each hero can be afflicted with a number of ailments that affect gameplay.

Under extreme duress, Pratchett, my unhinged jester named after the late writer of the Discworld series, became a masochist. For those not in the know, a masochist is somebody who recieves pleasure from having pain inflicted upon them. In practical terms, this meant that he would regularly refuse healing when his health was low, he would ignore my orders and rush wildly into rash attacks and he would even strike himself with his own sickle.

Masochism is just one of many psychological traits your heroes can acquire. Among other things, they can become cowardly, selfish, irrational and paranoid. Each affliction affects gameplay in its own annoying way.

Darkest Dungeon is simple to get to grips with but incredibly difficult as it progresses. The gameplay is split into two sections: In the estate, the player has to hire heroes, buy new abilities and equipment and de-stress their party by sending the dishevelled warriors to the church or the tavern.

Upon entering a dungeon, the player has to order their four heroes to best play to their individual strengths. The dungeons are side-scrolling affairs, with various chests and traps littered en-route. The battles are turn-based, and demand strategy. A player unaware of the benefits of buffs is going to end up being pounded into a fine paste.

The party relies on torches to protect themselves from the darkness as they explore. If you run out of torches, the dungeons fall into darkness, resulting in more difficult enemies and a more stressful experience for your heroes.

The sinister red and black colour-scheme, combined with the rich visuals and twisted enemy design make Darkest Dungeon a strikingly unsettling experience. I cannot remember the last time I played a game that felt so relentlessly ominous.

Although Darkest Dungeon is clearly a superb game, it does have many flaws. It’s in dire need of an over-arching story. Each dungeon has a set of objectives, such as ‘explore 90% of the rooms’, but when the difficulty ramps up and failures occur time after time, it becomes difficult to motivate oneself to head back into the dungeons without some incentive beyond gaining more money to waste on more dungeons.

Carefully selecting the order of your party is essential, as some class-types cannot attack unless at the very front of the party or at the back etc., and of course you want your strongest warrior at the front of the line. However, it almost feels pointless ordering your heroes at all, because they re-order themselves constantly through-out battle as a result of psychological afflictions or enemy attacks. It felt as if I spent most of the time during battles just trying to get my party back in the right order.

The dungeons are filled with random occurrences, meaning that the player can never be sure if a chest is trapped or filled with food and torches. This sounds like a good idea, as it makes each discovery tense and forces the play to gamble, but at times it feels unfair. On more than one occasion, I made it to the end of a hellish dungeon with all four of my party members clinging onto life and sanity, only to have my best crusader killed by the trapped-chest I received for completing the dungeon.

I’ve already discussed the practical affects psychological afflictions can have on gameplay, and whilst I adore the originality of this mechanic, it really starts to grate as the game wares on. Perhaps I’m just terrible at Darkest Dungeon, but at the end of the later dungeons, I had to control four insane heroes who did whatever they wanted. This, combined with the repetition of the dungeons and the aforementioned lack of story, starts to rub away the game’s charm.

Darkest Dungeon is still in early access, meaning that new content is being added as it gets closer to full release. Personally, I’d recommend that the developers make the afflictions a bit harder to acquire and add a bit of narrative to keep things exciting.

Despite the flaws, it’s still an outstanding game. Both morbidly beautiful and addictive, it’s by far the most polished early access game I’ve played on Steam, and it still has bags of potential. It comes highly recommended, if only for its uniqueness. Where else can you play as a paranoid, narcissistic plague doctor? Nowhere. That’s where.

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