Red Hook Studios is going back to where it started. The developer has announced The Fire's Edge, the first major content drop for the original Darkest Dungeon in six years, timed to the turn-based roguelike's 10th anniversary. It arrives August 18.
This is content for the 2016 original, not 2023's Darkest Dungeon 2. That distinction matters, because The Fire's Edge actually pulls a couple of pieces from the sequel back into the first game.
What's in the DLC
The headline additions are two hero classes that debuted in Darkest Dungeon 2: the Duelist and the Runaway.
- The Duelist is described on the DLC's Steam page as a "complex damage dealer that dances between the party's ranks," able to hold Riposte while switching between Defensive and Aggressive stances.
- The Runaway is a position-flexible damage dealer built around a new Burn damage type, with strong synergy for teams that lean on stuns and shuffle effects.
The Burn mechanic itself comes over from the sequel, letting players set the dungeon ablaze during combat. Alongside the heroes, The Fire's Edge adds three new Hamlet districts: the Academie Duello, Craftworks, and the Archaeological Base Camp. There are also new trinket mechanics (trigger uses, quest charges, and progressive trinkets), plus fresh writing, events, and what Red Hook is calling "surprises."
For anyone new to it, Darkest Dungeon is a brutal party-based crawler where heroes can die permanently, ailments pile up, and a stress meter can literally give a character a heart attack if you neglect it.
Release details and lingering questions
The Fire's Edge lands August 18 on PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo platforms. An Xbox version is promised but does not yet have a release date, according to Red Hook. No price has been confirmed, though Polygon notes past DLC has often been priced at $9.99.
This is the fifth DLC for Darkest Dungeon, counting the PC-exclusive The Butcher's Circus. It also raises a delicate question about story content: the game's iconic narrator was voiced by the late Wayne June, who died last year. As Kotaku reports, June gave the studio permission to recreate his voice with AI, but the developers declined to do so, leaving it unclear how new narration will be handled.
There's also a practical wrinkle for the game's large modding community. Some fans worry that this much new content could break mods that have existed for years. Red Hook says it is building new tools for mod use, but warns players not to expect their favorite mods to work on day one.
Polygon frames the move as part of a growing trend of studios revisiting older games with new expansions, citing The Witcher 3's Songs of the Past due next year and a Dark Arisen version of Dragon's Dogma 2 arriving later this year.
What it means for players
If you bounced off Darkest Dungeon 2 and missed the sequel's grid-free structure, The Fire's Edge is a reason to boot up the original again with two of DD2's heroes in tow. Mark August 18 if you're on PC, PlayStation, or Switch; Xbox owners will have to wait for a date. And Red Hook confirmed the sequel isn't done either, with new Darkest Dungeon 2 DLC expected in early 2027.