Game Modes
There are four different game modes in Darkest Dungeon, with varying levels of difficulty. A game mode must be selected when starting a new campaign and cannot be changed afterwards.
Darkest
Darkest is the "normal" mode of Darkest Dungeon and is recommended for players who want a standard experience.
Radiant
Radiant is intended to be a more streamlined version of Darkest mode. Gameplay has been altered to reduce farming, gaining experience, and other time-consuming elements. However, monsters still have the same stats and permadeath still exists.
- Never Again changed: heroes are now allowed to return to the Darkest Dungeon. However, they will undergo significant stress upon doing so, and are more likely to become afflicted instead of virtuous when in the Darkest Dungeon.* (Can be enabled in the Darkest Mode)
- Dungeon leveling flexibility: Heroes of up to Level 4 may enter Novice dungeons. Any hero may enter a Veteran or Champion dungeon.
- Reduced cost of Experienced Recruits upgrades.
- Accelerated hero XP progression.
- Reduced Blacksmith upgrade and treatment cost scaling by level.
- Returned provisions now give slightly more money back.
- DODGE bonus from Radiant Light is increased from 4 to 7.5.
- Idle stress heal in the town increased from 5 to 10.
- Tweaks to Stagecoach:
- Added another upgrade tier to Experienced Recruits (Lvl 4 Characters will now appear, increased chance of upgraded recruits appearing)
- Changed Experienced Recruit requirements. (Lvl 1 now only requires Lvl 1 Blacksmith and Guild)
- Accelerated Region Progression.
- Town Events trigger more frequently to compensate for shorter playtime.
- DLC: The gold costs for most districts are greatly reduced.
* The changes to Never Again are the following: gain 80 Stress when entering the Darkest Dungeon, decrease Virtue Chance by 25%, effectively making it a 1% Base Virtue Chance.
Stygian
Stygian increases campaign difficulty compared to Darkest. Unlike the previous modes, Stygian has failure conditions that, when met, will instantly result in the loss of the campaign and also delete the save.
- Enemies have increased health (+20%) and have higher crit chances (+3%). Stress will also be more common.
- Hero upgrade costs at the Blacksmith are increased.
- All gameplay options are locked. For example, you can't deactivate the corpse apparitions or the chance that retreat can fail, so the difficulty is locked to the absolute maximum.
- The Light Meter will deplete faster, at the rate of 7 (instead of 6) when exploring new areas.
- On the Old Road, the Brigand's Tent curio will be replaced with the Transcendent Terror.
Failure Conditions
This article or section may contain spoilers about the final boss. You might want to avoid reading further if you don't want to spoil the surprise for yourself!
The campaign will be lost if either of the following happens:
- The campaign reaches week 86. That is, week 85 will be the last week to kill the Heart of Darkness.
- 12 heroes die.
Note that the Heart of Darkness will try to kill heroes until 2 remain; so if 10 or 11 heroes have already died, then one must either begin the expedition with an incomplete party, or try to deal enough damage to the boss to bypass its insta-kill attack.
If either failure condition is met, a "Game Over" screen will appear, after which the save file will be deleted.
Once the Heart of Darkness is defeated, the failure conditions will removed and one can continue playing the campaign with no restrictions.
Bloodmoon
Bloodmoon requires 
The Crimson Court DLC. Most of the effects are the same as Stygian, but the failure conditions are loosened to account for the new content:
- The time limit is raised to 100 weeks
- The hero death limit is raised to 16.
Achievements
| Image | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Entry Level | Complete the game on Radiant |
|
Victory, such as it is... | Complete the game |
|
Strict Mode | Complete the game with default difficulty options |
|
World End | Complete the game on Stygian |
Trivia
- Stygian Mode was originally called "New Game+" and could only be unlocked after completing the game. It is still referred to as
new_game_plusin the game files. - When Radiant was first introduced, there was a different hunger system in place. Random Hunger checks did not occur and instead Food Provision cost increased to 125 and stack size decreased to 6 to compensate.
- "Victory, such as it is..." achievement is described as "Complete the game" when in reality the player has to complete the game on Darkest difficulty or higher.
- When you defeat the final boss, you receive the achievements associated with easier difficulty settings in addition to your current one. If you complete your first game on Stygian/Bloodmoon, you can receive "World End", "Victory, such as it is...", "Entry level", "Strict Mode", and "In such haste..." all at once.
- In Radiant Mode, Darkest Configuration settings are overall turned off, but nothing inside is changed. This prevents the player from receiving the Strict Mode achievement for playing on Radiant Difficulty.