Darkest Dungeon - 2015's Game of the Year?

Matt Whittaker of Hardcore Gamer published a new article with his opinion that Darkest Dungeon is 2015’s first game of the year contender. Do you agree with him?

Darkest Dungeon isn’t just 2015’s most pleasant (or unpleasant) surprise, it’s rapidly cementing itself as one of the front runners for a number of end of the year awards. Whether or not Red Hook’s valiant foray into the RPG genre winds up outlasting all of the promising titles soon to come is anyone’s guess. However, if you’re looking for the best game released so far this year, and a title that has a chance to cement itself as a Souls-level challenge, look no further than Darkest Dungeon. It’ll test your mental fortitude, intelligence and willpower just as much as its dungeon crawls do to its inhabitants. Seriously, it’s that good.

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Well it's February already, so why not…

It's only available on Steam Early Access so no I don't agree with him.

Only had about an hour and a half to sink into it so far myself. Thus far I am very impressed. The art style, the narration, and the core gameplay all seem very solid. Whether I will still feel this was many more hours in remains to be seen.

An important point though, is this only sort of qualifies as an rpg. (And not at all as a roguelike as some are calling it) Calling it something like "Adventuring party simulator in a ravenloft inspired world" seems much more appropriate (if unnecessarily long winded). The individual party members are pretty heavily abstracted. Because of this it would be hard for me to get overly attached the way I might a more fleshed out character. Of course that may be a good thing since permanent fatalities seem like they may become commonplace.

Very much looking forward to delving deeper when time permits. Too much work, not enough play!

nope.

It's suspicious to see all the indie games that all compare themselves to Dark Souls.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Do you agree with him?

No. Unless CDPR somehow completely screws it GOTY this year will be TW3.

Originally Posted by Humanity has risen!
It's suspicious to see all the indie games that all compare themselves to Dark Souls.

Since its the only difficult mainstream game to be released in…i dont know, 10+ years…not really. When youre trying to describe something you use a metric your audience is likely to understand.

Ask me again at the end of the year… plenty more to roll out.

All aboard… the hype train.

Originally Posted by Humanity has risen!
It's suspicious to see all the indie games that all compare themselves to Dark Souls.

In their own mind they believe everyone bought Dark Souls and wants it's clones, not realizing that there is a certain audience who does buy indies like crazy (me) couldn't care less for Dark Souls and would never touch anything similar to it.

Originally Posted by blackcanopus
All aboard… the hype train.

When I design my own RPG, I think I'm going to split the resources like so:

10% game development, design, art assets, animations, etc.
90% hype train tickets, payments to IGN, special treatment of press members and critics, heavy social networking, and payment to a special team of 'core gamers' who will exclaim on internet forums all day that this game is the greatest game EVAR!

You know what is so awesome about this game?

It doesn't need flashy graphics and massive budgets to:

A) set a very good atmosphere.
B) Provide a fun game.
C) It's something different and new, we haven't played this before.

I'm kind of hoping the side scrolling layout of this game is picked up by others and taken in different routes as well…Imagine a huge rpg world not playing as rogue like in the same side scrolling room movement. It could be very interesting.

I personally love what I see from this game, but way to early for game of the year.

short answer: no.
long answer: no.

They are at least in the running in terms of setting the bar in a fairly elevated position as far as any other Early Access titles still to come in 2015 would do well to roughly meet or exceed.

The long answer is "no way" but I agree with you cp

and rune… each to its own (and I mean it in a nicest possible way) but I had my fill of games like this in eighties and nineties and I'm glad that game design has progressed since then. Now, I don't mind isometric games or even (if pushed) RTWP but 2D side scrollers? I can see myself playing a couple of them just for a change but that's about it.

Aztaka is an excellent 2D side-scroller RPG. I made a video about it awhile back. Check it out.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
The long answer is "no way" but I agree with you cp

and rune… each to its own (and I mean it in a nicest possible way) but I had my fill of games like this in eighties and nineties and I'm glad that game design has progressed since then. Now, I don't mind isometric games or even (if pushed) RTWP but 2D side scrollers? I can see myself playing a couple of them just for a change but that's about it.

Maybe, I just think it's an interesting way to play a game. We get so many clones now that it is nice to see something a bit different.

According to Steam my brother has played it for 14 hours and he has good taste, so it must be decent in some way. Though I'm sure he got it because one of his favorite Youtubers recommended it.

I played 10 hours of it and it is quite good already. Not going to play it again until it is finished though, just couldn't resist trying this even if it's early access.