''First Death: Unforgettably Tragic
''Fifth Death: Unavoidable Consequences
''Fifteenth Death: Acceptable Losses
''Fiftieth Death: Necessary Sacrifices
''Meat Grinder Simulator 2015
— A review on Steam
You start having a much easier time the moment you stop thinking like a hero and start embracing the cold, calculated sociopathy of a would-be corporate CEO.
— Jim Sterling, here
You remember our venerable house? The one I sundered with ease to prove to myself that I was super badass when I dug up a bunch of shit, released a bunch of monsters from the netherworld, cursed our entire family, and then I killed myself and left you to deal with all of my shit? Yeah. That one.
— Hutts, effectively summarizing the game's backstory from The Ancestor's perspective - Can't Do It - Darkest Dungeon Ep2
It's amazing how much people on both sides miss the point of the game. On the one hand, yes, this is a thinking man's RPG. Your party members aren't the unshakable badasses you'd see in Final Fantasy. You've got a lot more to think about, more things can go wrong, and when they do go wrong they have lasting impacts. The game's freaking hard. On the other hand, even the biggest fan of Darkest Dungeon can't deny that the RNG can ruin every single setup in the game. One bad Crit, one single Affliction can send the whole thing into a death spiral. Sometimes the Collector shows up blocking your only path and you gotta expend way too much fighting him than you should normally. Sometimes that fucking Occultist will fucking heal you for fucking zero and fucking inflict fucking bleed and then a fucking bandit will fucking critical two of your fucking guys with fucking Blanket Shot and fucking give your fucking Vestal fucking Irrational and fucking put the other fucking one on fucking Death's fucking Door, and then they'll FUCKING BLEED OUT NEXT FUCKING TURN BECAUSE YOUR FUCKING VESTAL DECIDED TO FUCKING HURT HERSELF INSTEAD OF FUCKING HEALING HIM!
Sorry. Got a little wound up there. The point is, sometimes shit happens. Sometimes. Shit. Happens.
That's the entire point of the game. It says it right on the startup that it's about making the most of a bad situation. The mindset for someone about to play Darkest Dungeon should be something like: I gotta have a plan to get anywhere, but no matter what I do, I can't account for bad luck, and it'll nail me eventually. It's just a matter of time. So how do I make sure I can come back from it?
A comment on this Youtube video
Darkest Dungeon is about making the most of a bad situation. Quests will fail or must be abandoned. Heroes will die. And when they die, they stay dead. Progress autosaves constantly, so actions are permanent.
The game expects a lot out of you. How far will you push your adventurers? How much are you willing to risk in your quest to restore the Hamlet? What will you sacrifice to save the life of your favorite hero?
Thankfully, there are always fresh souls arriving on the stage coach, seeking both fame and adventure in the shadow of the...Darkest Dungeon.
Opening screen
Ruin has come to our family.
You remember our venerable house, opulent and imperial.
Gazing proudly from it's stoic perch above the moor.
I lived all my years in that ancient, rumour-shadowed manor.
Fattened by decadence and luxury.
And yet, I began to tire of conventional extravagance.
Gazing proudly from it's stoic perch above the moor.
I lived all my years in that ancient, rumour-shadowed manor.
Fattened by decadence and luxury.
And yet, I began to tire of conventional extravagance.
Singular, unsettling tales suggested the mansion itself was a gateway to some fabulous and unnameable power.
With relic and ritual, I bent every effort towards the excavation and recovery of those long-buried secrets, exhausting what remained of our family fortune on... swarthy workmen and... sturdy shovels.
At last, in the salt-soaked crags beneath the lowest foundations, we unearthed that damnable portal of antediluvian evil.
Our every step unsettled the ancient earth, but we were in a realm of death and madness!
In the end, I alone fled laughing and wailing through those blackened arcades of antiquity.
Until consciousness failed me.
With relic and ritual, I bent every effort towards the excavation and recovery of those long-buried secrets, exhausting what remained of our family fortune on... swarthy workmen and... sturdy shovels.
At last, in the salt-soaked crags beneath the lowest foundations, we unearthed that damnable portal of antediluvian evil.
Our every step unsettled the ancient earth, but we were in a realm of death and madness!
In the end, I alone fled laughing and wailing through those blackened arcades of antiquity.
Until consciousness failed me.
You remember our venerable house, opulent and imperial.
It is a festering abomination!
I beg you, return home, claim your birthright, and deliver our family...
[click]
...from the ravenous, clutching shadows...
[BANG!]
...of the Darkest Dungeon.
It is a festering abomination!
I beg you, return home, claim your birthright, and deliver our family...
[click]
...from the ravenous, clutching shadows...
[BANG!]
...of the Darkest Dungeon.
— The Ancestor
You will arrive along the old road. It winds with a troubling, serpent-like suggestion through the corrupted countryside. Leading only, I fear, to ever more tenebrous places. There is a sickness in the ancient pitted cobbles of the old road and on its writhing path you will face viciousness, violence, and perhaps other damnably transcendent terrors. So steel yourself and remember: there can be no bravery without madness. The old road will take you to hell, but in that gaping abyss...we will find our redemption.
— The Ancestor
"In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings."
— The Ancestor
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas (quote introducing the "Fiends & Frenzy" big update)
GamesBeat: Of course everyone keeps saying H. P. Lovecraft when they talk about this game. I think about Ravenloft, from Dungeons & Dragons. Did you guys play that at all?
Bourassa: I had a Ravenloft module. I never really learned how to play D&D properly, but I read it cover to cover several times. That might be in there somewhere. Really, the central idea was to try to bring Lovecraft into the Middle Ages, to get him out of the 1920s.
Sigman: Yeah. Definitely played some Ravenloft in the past, in my pen and paper days, but it never came to mind in our discussion. A lot of those things — even traditional high fantasy didn’t really guide — I suppose it guided us a bit in the sense that we knew from the beginning we didn’t want to do fireball spells and healing potions. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it just that there are so many RPGs out there doing that. We wanted to steer away from that. The other thing is, some of those powerful magics and instant heals, it kind of goes against what we’re trying to make you feel, which is that adventuring has a cost. It has a mortality and a peril and a cost. If you can just quaff healing potions every time your globe gets almost empty, the only threat you’re feeling is a reactionary, dexterity threat. Can I hit the potion button fast enough? Darkest Dungeon is more about the slog and the long peril and how far you can push before it’s too late.
Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow, and insidious killer.
— The Ancestor
These nightmarish creatures can be felled! They can be beaten!
— The Ancestor
There can be no hope in this hell. No hope at all.
— The Ancestor, upon a hero getting hit with the Hopeless affliction.
Many fall in the face of chaos; but not this one, not today.
— The Ancestor, upon a hero getting the Stalwart virtue.
