Today, the Playstation Blog featured a special message from the Community Manager of Darkest Dungeon, an RPG brilliant in its ability to test my patience and sanity. John Lindvay had this to say: Darkest Dungeon will be at PSX this December, and is on track to release on Sony’s PS4 and Vita in Spring of 2016. This is in contrast to previous reports, which had the game releasing on these platforms in January alongside the final PC version.
For those not familiar with the title, Darkest Dungeon is a Roguelike/RPG mashup that shows what happens when our protagonists are just as fragile as your everyday human being. Players navigate dungeons in a 2D plane, and engage in very traditional turn-based combat. The game’s hallmark, however, is how the sanity of your party members degrades over time as they are subjected to the horrors of your every day fantasy setting: monsters, dark corridors, booby traps, more monsters…
I played this game a bit on Steam Early Access, and found it simultaneously frustrating and hilarious. Having a soft spot for the old school, I loved the battle system, but my party’s insanity began to drive me insane (I think in a good way). As my warrior became sadistic, violently ignoring orders and attacking our healer, and my healer therefore became masochistic, jumping to the front line to absorb enemy attacks, I laughed in rage. I think Red Hook Studios has something, and I can’t wait to play more next year.