‘Darkest Dungeon’ dives deeper with vampiric DLC chapter in early 2017

By Danny Cowan Published October 4, 2016

Indie developer Red Hook Studios revealed that its turn-based roguelike role-playing game Darkest Dungeon will get its first major expansion with the launch of The Crimson Court in early 2017.

A promotional image released alongside this week’s announcement hints that vampires will play a significant role in the forthcoming expansion and players can expect to see many new items, afflictions, and challenges in the months ahead.

Recommended Videos

Darkest Dungeon debuted in 2014 via Kickstarter, where it managed to quadruple its initial funding goal. Promising backers a turn-based RPG inspired by genre classics like The Bard’s Tale and Ultima Underworld, Darkest Dungeon went on to earn more than $300,000 in crowdsourced pledges and development soon kicked off in earnest.

Launching first via Steam Early Access, Darkest Dungeon saw numerous updates and improvements throughout 2015. A feature-complete Steam release debuted earlier this year and ports for the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita premiered in September.

Backed by a bleak, Gothic atmosphere, Darkest Dungeon features turn-based battles bridged by dungeon exploration sequences. Players search each floor of a seemingly endless dungeon for weapons and resources, killing any creatures they encounter throughout. As they progress through each floor, players encounter random events that can either benefit their party members or lead them to their doom.

Darkest Dungeon also features several ‘afflictions’ that party members suffer after extended dungeon dives. As characters buckle under the stress of exploration, they earn permanent status effects that can either help their chances of survival or make them liabilities in battle. Players must carefully gauge the risks involved in various character afflictions in order to survive encounters that become more difficult as gameplay progresses.

Darkest Dungeon‘s The Crimson Court downloadable content launches for the PlayStation 4, PS Vita, Windows, Mac, and Linux PC platforms in early 2017.

Former Contributor

Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…

Topics

Gaming

The best PlayStation launch games, ranked

best ps1 games sony ps1

The most important time in a console's life is its launch. This is when a new piece of hardware needs to prove that it is worth investing in, which always comes down to games. Launch titles are rarely the best games on the system, although some of Nintendo's launch games buck that trend, but at least need to show off what the system can do. PlayStation always had a secondary selling point with its consoles, such as doubling as a CD player or DVD player, so it is interesting to speculate how successful those early consoles would've been judged solely on their games. We now have launch titles from the PS1 all the way up to the PS5 (and soon to be PS6) to look back on with fresh eyes to see just how good those first games were.

Air Combat - PlayStation 1

Gaming

The Switch 2 is the perfect example of why console launches don’t feel special anymore

The Switch 2 being unboxed.

I will never forget the unbearable excitement I felt on that early morning on my 7th birthday. It was 1998, and Pokémon was the biggest thing in the world, especially for an elementary school kid like me. Except that I didn't have a single card or game to my name. In fact, I didn't even have a Game Boy. That, plus Pokémon, was the only thing I asked for that birthday, and I knew I would get it.

I can still remember lying awake half the night, unable to sleep while my imagination ran wild with unrealistic machinations of what the game would be like. I woke up just as early to the sounds of my parents and sister setting up decorations downstairs and bided my time before I could go down. It was a school day, but they could sense my excitement well in advance and agreed to let me open one thing before school.

Gaming

If the leaks are true, ROG Xbox Ally’s price could be anything but an ally

The ROG Xbox Ally UI.

There's still a lot we don't know about the ROG Xbox Ally, but a potential price has leaked that shatters any hope of it being affordable. First seen by 3djuegos on the ASUS Store, the ROG Xbox Ally was listed at 599 Euro (roughly $700 USD) while the ROG Xbox Ally X was listed for $899 Euro (roughly $1,050 USD). The listing appears to have been created by accident, but those price points raise eyebrows.

ASUS prices its own handheld PCs around that same price, with the 2023 ROG Ally landing at $500 and $650, depending on the version. While that's a reasonable price point compared to other handhelds on the market (like the $1,000 MSI Claw 8 AI+), it's still significantly more than a base-level Steam Deck.