Darkest Dungeon lets you assemble a roster of dungeon adventurers and send them into dungeons in order to defeat pestilent creatures that have plagued the land in order to fully restore a hamlet back to its former glory. The game is not so much a pure dungeon crawler, but more of a dungeon crawl management simulator (for lack of a better word). You do not only navigate the heroes through a dungeon. You also take full responsibility for their wellbeing. As heroes go through dungeons, they accumulate stress and could even get diseases, and you have to make sure you bring them back to top shape in between your dungeon runs. You do not just control a single party of heroes. You have to rotate several different heroes around and pick the ones most suitable for the job at hand.

There are 4 areas where you can take your expedition: Ruins, Warrens, Weald, and Cove, and each one has its own dangers and challenges, what means that you need to prepare your team accordingly. The dungeons also come in different lengths (Short, Medium, and Long) and of different difficulty (Apprentice, Veteran, and Champion). As of the final release, the final dungeon has been added too.

The combat is really fun and in my opinion has a lot of tactical depth to it. It's not just a simple turn-based battle system, but each position within your party setup is important. Some hero classes prefer frontal positions in the squad (like the melee tanks), others prefer to hang back (like healers or ranged attackers).

The game has been balanced around loads during Early Access, and though some aspects of it might feel unfair still, overall the gameplay feels pretty solid and requires a lot of strategising and adjusting to the situation when bad things start to happen. The game can be pretty punishing towards those who do not take caution. And even if you do everything right, things can still go wrong at times, and part of the gameplay is also having to deal with that. The game encourages tip-top preparation and contingency planning. That means that the game is easily not for everyone, but those who do enjoy that sort of thing will be up for a real treat.

Art, music, and voice acting are also superb. Easily a cherry on an already delicious cake.

I would highly recommend this game to anyone who likes a good challenge and doesn't mind it when a game occasionally throws them some curve balls. I can't remember the last time a game has kept me interested for 70 hours and counting and it is still fun! True dat.