Darkest Dungeon: The Crimson Court Review: A renewed thirst for blood

Enlarge / The Ancestor is still a total jerk in new cutscenes and narration. (credit: Red Hook)

Darkest Dungeon's first-ever DLC, The Crimson Court, is going to be a hard sell for many players. That's not just a pun on the expansion's extreme difficulty, either, although there is plenty of that here.

For those new to the game—and perhaps looking at The Crimson Court as an excuse to hop aboard the crazy train—Darkest Dungeon is a brutal turn-based dungeon crawler. In-game time passes when you send bedraggled squads into the depths of different dungeons. Managing time, resources, and a revolving door of adventurers is a delicate balance that players either learn to walk or bow out of altogether.

The Crimson Court DLC isn't self-contained, which presents the expansion's first structural hurdle. You either need to start a new campaign or use an existing save where you don't mind turning that balance inside out with new enemies, objectives, and dangers.