Darkest Dungeon
Noirit Mustapha
A huge double edged issue within the Steam digital distribution platform lies in its early access system. Developers can opt to send their games in early beta form for people to buy and keep trying until final release. Generally, this would involve a lot of fan feedback to continuously improve the game all the way to completion, but very few games in this system ever make it out even. One of gems that did recently was Darkest Dungeon, a twisted take on the turn based dungeon crawling RPG genre.
The game starts with just a two man party, always consisting of the same two classes, disembarking a coach to make their way to your family estate. The main mansion there however has become infested with monsters and other evil creatures, which spread desolation and bleakness throughout the whole estate. The players job will be to lead parties through different dungeons in the estate and finally rid the land of this evil. This is a lot easier said than done however; as even the tutorial quest can be merciless if a mistake is made. The game marks and teaches the various features and how to play the game, but it never holds hands and will punish your characters at every corner. The most insidious feature in all of this is the stress system. In addition to health damage, hired characters can even take stress damage from certain attacks or effects. If their stress ever fills up, it can lead to disastrous afflictions, causing a chain reaction straight to purgatory.
Outside of the questing, there is also the hub world of the estate where you can have your characters recover their stress and upgrade themselves to better prepare. Despite that, this beautifully unforgiving game, inspired by the deepest depths of Lovecraftian horror, will test even the most hardened, yet also handsomely reward the few who stand triumphant after many arduous journeys.
