Red Hook released Darkest Dungeon (Metacritic: 84) in 2016 and took everyone by surprise. It shakes up the formula not only for a tactical RPG but also for a Roguelike. 

It mixed up turn-based combat, city management, dungeon crawling, and perma-death within a miserable and grim world around a horror game, surrounded by Lovecraftian creatures. All of this, together with a psyche buff and debuff system, diseases that can ruin your run, and the fantastic narration done by Wayne June.

For this reason, we decided to list 20 of the best games, like Darkest Dungeon, so you can keep the flame of Hamlet burning bright throughout many other amazing titles.

• Developer: Red Hook Studios
• Release Date: October 26, 2021 (Early Access)
• Available on: PC
• Metacritic Score: TBD

Of course, there won’t be other games like Darkest Dungeon than its proper sequel. Although, the best thing about Darkest Dungeon II is that it isn’t an improved version of the first game. 

There isn’t a Hamlet to improve or dungeons to choose from for exploring. And there is no “escape button” when things get dire. Now you have to carry the flame on a Stagecoach through a few regions until you reach the Mountain, where the final boss lies waiting for you. 

Darkest Dungeon II runs are more similar to Slay the Spire (survive three Regions, each with different encounters and with a final battle towards the end), wherein in the card game, you damage a “Beating Hearth”; in the Mountain, you will face giant Brain with four magical lockers.

Progression changed recently with the introduction of the Altar of Hope. As you don’t have a Hamlet, now you need to collect candles throughout your journey and spend them to unlock characters, items, trinkets, and upgrades. Also, you need to visit Hero Shrines to unlock your character’s abilities, which introduces a backstory for each one. 

The core gameplay remains the same: turn-based combat, a perma-death system (but only for the run), and buffs and debuffs that carry through the run. Darkest Dungeon II introduces a relationship system between your characters, which do automate actions depending if they reach a positive or negative threshold with a certain character.

The Stress bar interacts directly with this mechanic. If a character reaches the 10 points of Stress, it suffers a Meltdown, which is no longer lethal (it will always leave at one single point of health), but it can ruin the relationship with the rest of the party. Oh, and the enemies also have the Death’s Door mechanic, and DoTs no longer secures a kill, so have fun with that.

Last but not least, the aesthetic remains pure to the first Darkest Dungeon, but the graphics are significantly improved thanks to the use of 3D models (with a 2D view) and its outstanding new animations. And Wayne June came back for the narration (even more now as it narrates each of the character's backstories).

• Developer: Snowhound Games
• Release Date: November 15, 2017
• Available on: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch
• Metacritic Score: 70

One of the most faithful games to Darkest Dungeon, with a mix of Space Hulk from Warhammer 40K. It follows many of the main principles of the Red Hook game, but its take makes it different. 

Your crew is aboard an abandoned giant spaceship, and your mission is to explore and ensure the security of the place. It won’t take long to see that you aren’t alone, as there are many different creatures. 

Deep Sky Derelicts has a bit more “city management” than Darkest Dungeon, and the “procedurally generated dungeons” could lead to bigger explorations. It has a similar art style, leaning more towards a comic book aesthetic, which they use to replace the lack of animations in combat. While in gameplay, Deep Sky Derelicts uses cards and shares the same perma-death system.

• Developer: 302 Studio
• Release Date: March 6, 2021
• Available on: PC and Switch
• Metacritic Score: TBD

Dungeon No Dungeon is heavily inspired by Darkest Dungeon as it shares various elements with the Red Hook game. But it has some interesting gimmicks that separate them from being just a copycat.

One is the art style, as they took some influence from DD, but they twisted it in a more comedic way, with all the characters being in a chibi version. Another thing is the main mechanic of its combat system, as each part of the body has its own health pool. You can tear up a certain limb from your enemy and lock from combat the weapon or ability attached to that arm.

This combat, together with the exploration and RPG elements that are included, makes Dungeon No Dungeon a dynamic experience and a great alternative to check out.

• Developer: Pixelated Milk
• Release Date: October 2, 2019
• Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 71

Now we go to the more serious game of the list. The Warsaw game takes place during the uprising that happened in the Polish city in 1944. 

We will have to accomplish missions to ease the Nazi oppression and recover Warsaw. But as you imagine, it will be very difficult, and the game will make you notice it. Your run goes by days, and each day where you are not fighting Nazis, you are letting the Reich reclaim more territory. So, there are gonna be many times that you will have to go on missions with injured party members.

Its combat system is similar to Darkest Dungeon, but it adds a second horizontal row, so positioning is even more important. And you will have to be safer. You won’t have a Vestal to fully heal your characters. You rely on medical items, which don’t heal much, and there aren’t many around the city.

The biggest strength (and complaint) is definitely its difficulty: It’s brutal. And it’s a fine way to have first-hand experience of the cruelty of World War II outside of shooters and war simulators.

• Developer: KRAFTON Inc.
• Release Date: September 12, 2019
• Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 62

With one of the most renowned developers throughout this list, Krafton (developers of PUBG), we have the “anime-take” over Darkest Dungeon. You can compare the “Werewolf” class with Eijiro Kirishima from My Hero Academia and take a look at how similar they are. Not only that, but in a weird turn of events, Mistover had a complete DLC with Dr. Faust from the Guilty Gear series.

This anime aura doesn't stop there, as the eight classes available mix European styles with Japanese. So, your party can be confirmed by a Paladin fighting alongside a Ronin, leaning more towards the eastern side of things than sticking with the dark fantasy world setting.

• Developer: Devespresso Games
• Release Date: May 28, 2019
• Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 59

Do you want more anime? Vambrace: Cold Soul goes further than Mistover, with its art style fully committing to it, and it even has Catgirls and Catboys as one of the five different races. But behind all of this, there is quite an interesting take over the Darkest Dungeon gameplay.

Despite the aesthetic, it keeps a dark tone over the frozen city of Icenaire, as your mission is to free them from the mad wraiths surrounding the place. It has two ways to play the game: One is the exploration phase, where using a top-down view, you travel through the city visiting different places; and then you have the combat, which looks exactly like Darkest Dungeon. Your party of four explores a certain area, and it all ends up fighting the final boss of the site.

• Developer: Leikir Studio and Cyanide Studio
• Release Date: September 30, 2021
• Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 72

We are starting to deviate a bit from the games like Darkest Dungeon, but its influence is still there. Rogue Lords are similar games in the sense of exploration, decision-making, and turn-based combat. 

The twist in Rogue Lords is that we can literally cheat in-game. We are the Devil, managing our group of vampires to take over the world. While adventuring through the woods and cities, we may encounter different challenges which we can resolve by chance. 

Or we can spend Diabolic Essence to manipulate the results. That’s not the only use of it. In combat, we can steal attacks and buffs and manually change the life points and spirit points of the party and enemies. But the thing is that once we are depleted from Diabolic Essence, we lose.

It doesn’t have perma-death. Instead, our characters enter into a “Vulnerable” state, where each time they keep taking damage, it reduces our Essence. So, managing this resource is crucial for our success. 

Take into consideration that Rogue Lords is a true Roguelike RPG experience, as nothing carries from one run to another. You will level up your account to unlock different things, but once you are done, it’s all over again.

• Developer: MoaCube
• Release Date: 2013 (Steam release - March 26, 2020)
• Available on: PC
• Metacritic Score: TBD

Released previously than Darkest Dungeon, we can assume that they took their influence from Final Fantasy. 

It has an exploration system of similar games as Slay the Spire. It is a true turn-based RPG experience, with character progression through victories and many different skills and spells, which you can experiment with to find the perfect mix of synergies. It may look simple, but it can offer many ways to face different situations.

• Developer: Ishtar Games
• Release Date: April 12, 2018
• Available on: PC and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 74

We start to deviate a bit more from games similar to Darkest Dungeon, but you still will appreciate sharing the same setting and some mechanics or having a similar combat style. 

While you try to survive and rest in the Hamlet, Dead in Vinland is about building a community from scratch on a seemingly-desolated island. You soon find out that this is not true, and you have to form a party of “improvised warriors” with your family. Throughout the story, you have to make decisions that will change the outcome of your new village. 

Another similarity with Darkest Dungeon is that our people can suffer severe injuries and have their psyches altered. So you will have to take more personal care of all your people.

You can get a Dead in Vinland Steam CD key in RoyalCDKeys for less than 2 dollars.

• Developer: Lightbulb Crew
• Release Date: July 27, 2020
• Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 78

Othercide is a challenging adventure with a unique art style that only has three sets of colors – black, white, and red. 

The similarity with Darkest Dungeon is just tied with the enemies that the Daughters face, called The Suffering. This evil entity has the same vibe as the Cultists from DD2, being humanoids with tentacles and mutations, resembling a creature from the H.P. Lovecraft books. 

It has an interesting take on the perma-death system. Yes, your Daughters will die, but you can resurrect them, sacrificing another Daughter, which changes the original attributes. 

You can get an Othercide Steam CD key in RoyalCDKeys at a lower price than the original, and also you can get one for Xbox One in the store.

• Developer: Gobliz Studio
• Release Date: March 19, 2020
• Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 76

You are not an “evil protagonist” like in Rogue Lords. You are the main villain, a Dungeon manager. 

The game is comprised of two phases: the dungeon management, where you set up everything that the heroes will face; and the combat, where its system resembles a bit of Darkest Dungeon, being turn-based against parties that are no more than four members but it doesn’t go further than that. It’s an original and different take on a Role Playing Game as now you play as the ultimate enemy. 

You can get a Steam CD key for the base game of Legend of Keepers for less than a dollar in RoyalCDKeys, and its DLC “Soul Smugglers” for less than 5 dollars.

• Developer: Dreamsite Games
• Release Date: August 23, 2022 
• Available on: PC
• Metacritic Score: TBD

Across the Obelisk resembles more to Slay the Spire rather than Darkest Dungeon. Yet, playing the game, you will be reminded of the same feelings.

You have to pre-establish a party of four characters with the same combat view as the one in DD. Then, all the spells and skills come from cards, as you will be building a proper deck for each character. Although, the best thing about Across the Obelisk is the customization. 

While leveling up the rank of your characters, you will have more freedom to change their combat style. Your mage can focus on Frost, Fire, or Electric damage; your priest can be the main healer or make it a DPS class with shadow spells. Like a Vestal, which will be better as a Position 4 healer, but nothing stops you from making her a “combat nun.”

You can get an Across the Obelisk Steam CD key in RoyalCDKeys.

• Developer: Rogue Factor
• Release Date: November 19, 2015
• Available on: PC, PS4, and Xbox One
• Metacritic Score: 74

Another game that came before, Mordheim, is the digital adaptation of the tabletop game from Warhammer Fantasy.

You set up your Warband against another Warband in various skirmishes around Mordheim in a dark medieval world setting, where not only do you have to defeat the opponents but also collect Wyrdstones from the scenarios to pay your contractors. 

It shares some of the buffs and debuff systems, in which one of your warriors can suffer different injuries or any other kind of health issue that modifies their stats permanently. It also relies a lot on RNG numbers to defeat enemies. 

You can get a Mordheim Steam CD key in RoyalCDKeys for less than 2 dollars.

• Developer: Overhype Studios
• Release Date: March 24, 2017
• Available on: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 80

It is a battle simulator that takes place on a hexagonal battlefield. You are the commander of an improvised army of veterans and farmers and reclaim the lands in epic battles. 

Each soldier can die permanently, and you have to properly manage their equipment and resources.

You can get a Battle Brothers Steam CD key in RoyalCDKeys.

• Developer: Passtech Games
• Release Date: March 3, 2020
• Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
• Metacritic Score: 78

This is the only game that doesn’t revolve around strategy. Curse of the Dead Gods has a similar playstyle as Hades, but the dark setting and enemies have some “Darkest Dungeon” vibes. 

The exploration system leans toward Slay the Spire, choosing which location to go through, and you can get permanent debuffs from certain enemies and bosses, making your run even harder. There are lots of weapons to choose from and different playstyles. 

You can get a Curse of the Dead Gods Steam CD key from RoyalCDKeys.

Darkest Dungeon became one of the most unique experiences in RPGs and Roguelikes in the world, influencing many other games and encouraging developers to implement a perma-death system in games, which some hardcore gamers will appreciate for a challenging experience.

Check one of these 15 games like Darkest Dungeon from the list. Many follow the same turn-based combat and roguelike formula, and you can get plenty of these on RoyalCDKeys.