Darkest Dungeon Decides To Invade Your Post-Christmas Holiday

I’ve been looking forward to the full release of Darkest Dungeon, even though the game is one of the better examples of Early Access done right. It’s an intriguing roguelike-RPG with a fantastic aesthetic, and it’s the kind of game you’ll want to set aside some time for.

Fortunately the developers have decided to help everyone by scheduling it in a window where you’re likely to have a bit of spare time: January next year.

In an update to Kickstarter backers — the game successfully raised US$313,337 from a meagre US$75,000 goal — Tyler Sigman and Red Hook Studios announced that the game would leave Early Access on January 19.

The game has been available on Steam since February and has seen a significant number of changes, including the adjustments to corpses and heart attacks that were so unpopular that Red Hook ended up giving players the ability to disable them.

“From the moment we launched early access back in February, we had two important priorities: regularly deliver exciting, meaty updates to the game, and ship the full release this year,” Red Hook wrote. “We recognized that October would not only be an awesome thematic fit for the full release, but it was early enough in the year to avoid getting swept away by the massive AAA releases around Thanksgiving.”

It’s difficult to argue the logic there — Early Access games don’t always get a lot of promotion from Steam themselves when they leave EA. There’s nothing worse than seeing a good title get buried because it couldn’t get any oxygen whatsoever, especially when it was a situation that could have been easily avoided.

The team also noted that the Abomination would be added as a playable hero towards the end of November, while hotfixes and small patches to correct major bugs and flaws as they emerge would continue to be rolled out as per normal.