Darkest Dungeon has reached a new milestone, almost eight years since its Early Access launch. Red Hook Studios’ roguelike game about heroes with different psychological stresses continues to show impressive long-tail sales.
Red Hook recently shared the data in its “2022 Wrap Up” post. In December 2022, the first Darkest Dungeon game reached 6 million units sold globally.
Including all DLCs such as The Color of Madness and The Crimson Court, the total sales amount to 16 million copies.
“This is a firm reminder to us of how widespread our wonderful community is, and why we have to make Darkest Dungeon II the very best it can be,” the post reads.
Darkest Dungeon’s road to success
- Founded in 2013 by director Chris Bourassa and lead designer Tyler Sigman, Red Hook Studios soon started working on its tactical RPG with roguelike elements.
- A small team of six released the Early Access version of Darkest Dungeon on January 30, 2015. The game was crowdfunded on Kickstarter, raising over $300,000 from around 10,000 backers.
- Darkest Dungeon offered a unique twist on the genre, with its Lovecraftian horror feel and the need to manage a group of heroes with different psychological traumas.
- It had its full release in 2016, selling more than 1 million units globally in its first year. The game has hit the 2 million mark by 2017.
- Darkest Dungeon was praised by both critics and players, having an 84/100 score on Metacritic and 91% rating on Steam (based on over 100,000 user reviews).
- Last year, Red Hook Studios announced that the game had surpassed the 5 million mark.
- The team is now working on Darkest Dungeon II, which is expected to come out of Early Access in February 2023.