Last updated on November 30th, 2025 at 07:33 pm
Darkest Dungeon:Tablet Edition – Roleplaying Game Review
Darkest Dungeon:Tablet Edition is a Roleplaying/Strategy game from Red Hook Studios Inc., first launched in 24th August 2017.
It’s rated 17+ and currently has 660+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Darkest Dungeon:Tablet Edition Stand Out
"Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring.
AWARDS AND HONORS
Rock Paper Shotgun – 50 Best RPGs of All Time
IGN – Best of 2016: 2 Nominations
IGF 2016 – 3 Nominations
Recruit, train, and lead a team of flawed heroes through twisted forests, forgotten warrens, ruined crypts, and beyond. You'll battle not only unimaginable foes, but stress, famine, disease, and the ever-encroaching dark. Uncover strange mysteries, and pit the heroes against an array of fearsome monsters with an innovative strategic turn-based combat system.
- The Affliction System – battle not only monsters, but stress! Contend with paranoia, masochism, fear, irrationality, and a host of gameplay-meaningful quirks!
- Striking hand-drawn gothic crowquill art style
- Innovative turn-based combat pits you against a host of diabolical monsters
- Narration system to celebrate your successes…and failures
- 15 (and counting!) playable hero classes, including Plague Doctor, Hellion, and even the Leper!
- Camp to heal wounds or deliver inspiring speeches.
- Rest your weary, shell-shocked characters in town at the Tavern or the Abbey to keep their stress in check.
- Classic CRPG and roguelike features, including character permadeath, procedural dungeons, and incredible replay
- 3 game modes and over 80 hours of gameplay*
Can you stem the tide of eldritch horrors erupting across your family’s ancestral estate?
Descend at your peril!
Please note that the game currently supports the following languages only: English, German, French, Russian, Polish, Czech, Spanish, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese
This Roleplaying game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Darkest Dungeon:Tablet Edition is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 2nd May 2022
Recent improvements include:
- Fixed issues with district bonuses
Download & Availability
Darkest Dungeon:Tablet Edition is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Darkest Dungeon:Tablet Edition on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 / iPad Mini 3 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 4 / iPad Mini 4 (Cellular) or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This is a game that definitely holds its own. It can be replayed again and again. Compared to the bulk of apps Darkest Dungeon is leagues ahead. Fantastic original artwork, story, and unique characters make for a great party, dungeon crawling experience.
Love this game,and its even better on the go! Please port darkest dungeon II as well.
We enjoy this game. Its very challenging and takes a very long time. But it works great on the iPad. Sometimes we have to restart the app, but never have we lost our progress. Anyway, super hard, but there are interesting dynamics you can get with your party selection and item selection. There are many ways to organize your squad. You get rather attached to heroes and to watch them permanently die is hard, but life is hard and you should get good son.
Other than we cant play any media such as a video or music in background which somehow disrupts the game and cause unable to load into the dungeon trail, everythings good. The thrill of some random bosses popping from nowhere or the night attack that obliterated our team form 4 health to 2 heavily injured, or chained attack RNG that eliminates our vestal the first round before we could react, or the stress seeing our characters all stresses to 100 or above. Its a good suffering game and the pleasure of the pain shall be shared, a taste of Hellriser movie series. Perhaps more DLC packs, although we havent beaten the game but yet mid progress and building our town first, till we feel fully prepared to that final thats the pressure-est of all.
No issues. Run smoothly just like on PC, wish you can add mod to the game like on PC.
This is a good game for the iPad. Plays just like the computer version. Hard and unforgiving. The controls and UI are decent and we dont have an issue with them like other users seem too. We have also played with Apples Magic Keyboard, works quite well with a few minor hiccups here in there in terms of clicking on door ways and items within the dungeons. Our only gripe, and Im not going to dock a star for it, is the letter box. Would be nice if the developers would fix it to use 100% of the screen. 12.9 inch iPad Pro (3rd. Gen.).
We find ourselves playing the tablet version more than the pc version because its to convenient.
Im not sure why all the negative reviews or if the developers fixed a bunch of stuff but the game works flawlessly. We actually prefer the tablet experience to the console version. Its mobile Darkest Dungeon what more could you want.
No issues, game is exactly like it is on pc. 10/10.
Seriously, the game plays fine. Lots of reviews from years ago complaining about a technical issue that no longer exists seem to be bringing this games score down. We were only looking at the store page to see other games like this and was surprised at the low overall score. Ive had this from launch and its always worked fine for us. First on an ipad Mini 2, and now on a 5th gen Mini, still works fine. And as for the status info boxes popping up underneath you finger tips? Get a cheap stylus people. Not the expensive apple pencil, etc., we mean like the cheap one with the black rubber tips. Thats what we use for all our strategy games on our 5th gen mini.. That and a good pair of reading glasses. Who needs a bigger screen when you can just magnify it with a $5 pair of reading glasses? As for the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, theyre only a problem if youre an anal retentive nutcase. Theres so much black in the games artwork already you barely notice the lines after 30 mins. So yeah, it could be a better port, but as it stands right now its perfectly serviceable. As for the gameplay, understand what youre getting into before buying stuff people. Not every game is made for casual play. Gotta pay attention in this one, and some of your guys are gonna die. Just is what it is. And again, get a cheap stylus instead of using your fat fingers.
Like the game, touch controls work well, would still prefer controller & maybe iphone compatibility? Otherwise nice job.
Love the game, please add iPhone compatibility.
Love the game on mobile as it plays fine, and have beaten the game multiple times on pc/console. Two areas however, does annoy us and that we wish developers would fix. This is the black side borders. They are so annoying and cut out so much detail on the sides. Second, is the small text and hovering over details such as the DoTs. Sometimes it works, other times it just never pulls up. Sadly it doesnt look like the developers care to ever address these, as the last update is years ago =(.
Honestly Id give it a 5 but not only does it not support controller its also broken and we cant see any item nor skill descriptions at all, Im basically playing completely blind to all item and ability effects.
Poor controls and not worth the time spent playing the game. Total waste of your gaming time.
Assumed it would be the same quality as the pc version, but its really buggy, and hasnt been updated in a long time. For us, the game has crashed every time Ive entered a boss dungeon. (It doesnt prevent us from entering the dungeon, just forces us to restart the app first) Aside from that, the game is really poorly optimized for mobile devices, even on a larger screen. (we wont explain exactly how, since other reviewers have.) Its a really good game, though, just not this port.
Title. Disguised as a strategy game. Grind hero lvls or they get crushed, thats the strategy. Art style is cool. IOS port is dog$hit and not kept up to date with pc version.
The game doesnt work – wont move past a black screen on a ompletely updated iPad Pro. Developer appears to abandoned it – sorry we wasted our money, dont waste yours.
It just stops loading dungeons no matter what we do.
Using our IPad Pro from the most recent release the game is unable to begin a new game.
Was excited to see this game on sale, but now we know why. It simply does not work on our ipad. Each time we try to start a campaign, nothing happens.
Theres a lot of tedious fighting the same monsters over and over and over. Then, you get the fun of fixing the stress of your people. Wait thats not fun either. Finally, on a mission your characters may get too stressed and then decide to not fight. Not fun either. Summary: a game that has potential, but ultimately boring and frustrating.
Coming back to this game after a couple years. Once you accept that dying is part of gameplay and understand nuances about who to attack first, this game becomes enjoyable! Like a management game + RPG. Game mechanics aside, we still wish there was keyboard support and better touch controls. We liked how Iratus Lord game (PC/Mac) plays with keyboard control. Where you can select a skill to use. Would be nice to be able to better see buffs/debuffs with one key press or some toggle on screen. Touching small icons with your finger is a bit annoying. Especially since you can miss and instead issue an order :( Overall we are glad games like this make their way to iPads. We find it to be the most enjoyable way to play. Ah and what with the letter box, please please fix it.
Edit: Bug has been fixed Thanks very much.
We saw this game on gamepass and liked it so much that we bought it here so we can play it everywhere. We love this game.
Love this game. By far this is the game have spent most of our life on for our iPad.
Update: App is fixed and works as expected. Great port.
The art style is great and the music does a good job of adding to the tense environment. The stress system adds a layer of difficulty to traditional turn based combat, its almost impossible not to have characters eventually hit the boiling point. The story isnt the best but it does play well with the rogue lite elements. The town upgrades are worth the investment and keep the player working towards more goals. If stress management is not your thing then this game isnt for you.
As of now it is working fine with ios 14.2 with ipad 12.9.
Its fixed. Its great! Thanks to the devs.
App crashes at load screen on iOS 14. If you have iOS 14+ then dont buy this game until they get a bug fix out to correct it. Will update our review once theyve fixed this. UPDATE: Latest update fixes the crashing bug. Can now run the app just fine. Havent run into any bugs yet, so Im considering it good. We wont review the game here as there are many reviews online on that matter.
The latest update fixed the crash issue, and now Im back to watching our dungeon delvers slowly lose their grip on reality! Thanks, Red Hook.
Great game, though the cutscenes for the DLC doesnt work. Itll work the first time they show up, but we cant rewatch them through the Ancestors Memoirs. This goes for both DLCs.
Im so happy to have this up and running on our tablet again, but we cant play our old games because the DLC has to be repurchased. Previously it was included and trying to restore doesnt work.
Im a big fan of this game so keep in mind this rating and review is specifically for this port. 1. We have no audio whatsoever. Ive deleted the app and reinstalled it, updated the iPadOS to the latest version no still have no audio in the game. 2. Text box windows appear right under your finger so reading skills is pretty tough. Help with the audio fix and allow text windows to be moved and this would be 5 stars for us.
Game hangs on black screen after multiple app deletion and reinstalls. Brand new iPad Pro M1. Dont waste your money.
Cant create a campaign. Game just hangs. Tried on multiple iPads.
It is incredibly frustrating that an entire DLC function is broken and has remained broken off who knows how long. We have just districts enabled for DLC and Im receiving no interest for our saved funds even though Ive purchased the bank. As Ive read across the Internet there are many reports that appear to show not a single district buildings is working at all. Our experience is with the bank, but it appears this is a major issue thats remained neglected. Please Red Hook, please fix this ASAP.
Game is fun, and 100% worth it on other platforms. Unfortunately this seems like a port and forget port. Its not well optimized and isnt well supported. They could turn it around, but Im not sure they will.
Screen goes black after selecting difficulty on an m1 iPad pro.
Only try to play this game if you have perfect short-distance vision. The dev simply scaled down the PC interface, and did not bother to adapt it for iPad screens.
The port is terrible. There are huge black borders covering a large chunk of the screen and the UI is poorly optimized for the iPad. Sadly, despite the lazy work done on this, the app is non-refundable for these reasons. Steer clear of it.
The game crashes when opening the trinket menu and when completing missions. Not worth the price until these crashes are resolved.
Letterboxed, hard to play with touch. Very difficult to read due to letterbox and lack of hover.
Game is unplayable in its current state. It would seem that the dev has abandoned the game. Do not buy.
Ive always like the look of this game but even on the easiest level our party gets destroyed a few battles in on the first embarkation. We guess the developers dont want people to just enjoy the gaming experience without undue aggravation. Dont bother purchasing unless you want an excessive grind and still get wiped by bad RNG.
We contacted the developer and after they asked if we had the settings right (which we did), they didnt respond back. Very disappointed.
Just got it and we cant load it on our iPad Air 4 just a black screen.
We just purchased this game and we cannot start. After we select darkest darkest under campaign difficulty it just shows a black screen.
Loading screen hangs loading into any mission. Can play, but have to restart every time. Literally unplayable.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.6
- Size: 1,406.08 MB
- iOS: 9.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Simulated Gambling, Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, Frequent/Intense Horror/Fear Themes, Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes, Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity, Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
- Developer: Red Hook Studios Inc.
Last updated: 2nd May 2022 | Genre: Roleplaying, Strategy | Developer: Red Hook Studios Inc.