While walking around PAX East, our team couldn't help but see it everywhere: dungeon-crawlers with Lovecraftian themes, procedurally generated levels, permanent character death, and turn-based combat.

The design on the outside is a cardstock sleeve that covers the standard Signature Edition box inside, which is a sturdy chunk of cardboard holding the innards in place.It’s a formula that’s been done many times, but thanks to a particular Darkest Dungeon, the game style has reappeared on the scene with a vengeance and new attitude. It’s also worth noting that the bright afternoon sun in the pictures below makes the color contrast much more obvious than when seeing it in standard indoor lighting.

The black-on-dark-grey design is only broken by the blue PS4 trade dress and orange PEGI rating, so even though it’s hard to read the logo, the color scheme leaves no question about which game is inside. Darkest Dungeon is a notoriously difficult roguelike dungeon crawler and its Signature Edition Games big-box release is as black as the game’s brutal heart.Ī good box design lets you know what game it is even from across the room and Darkest Dungeon: Collector’s Edition is an easy one to spot.

There’s a lot that can go wrong outside the mentally-healing safety of town, and if a character dies they’re gone for good. Stress, terror, unearned bravado and more all percolate in the party members’ brains, and managing their survival in the turn-based dungeon crawl involves not only a smart approach to combat, but also being aware of each character’s quirks. The violence of each encounter adds up, leading to a party where each character is impacted in their own way. This means that all the terrible things they go through in the Quest to Save the Thing leave a mark, and while generally this is swept under the rug to keep the story moving along, Darkest Dungeon revels in it. The problem with heroes is that they’re generally human.

Games like darkest dungeon 2019