"Enormously disappointing" - Darkest Dungeon's boardgame port is dead, but Red Hook are giving away game files to backers

Digital models salvaged after Mythic Games' liquidation

Darkest Dungeon developers Red Hook have announced that game files for Mythic's troubled boardgame adaptation will be given away to project backers, after grimly concluding that Mythic are no longer able to manufacture or deliver the thing.

The Darkest Dungeon boardgame was Kickstarted in 2020, soaking up $5.7 million in funding. Based in Luxembourg, Mythic Games have done well out of crowd-funding, raising over $19 million in five years, but they have been struggling financially nonetheless. They asked DD boardgame backers to chip in more money in 2022, after material and shipping costs spiked amid the Covid pandemic and the opening stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Mythic finally went into liquidation this December, reportedly following a criminal investigation into fraudulent behaviour and misappropriation of funds, which was terminated for lack of evidence. The company’s closure has left several projects worth millions of Kickstarter dollars in purgatory. There are many Ancestor quotes we could invoke here, I guess. I'm going with "more dust, more ashes... more disappointment."

Prior to biting the dust, Mythic managed to ship the first of two “waves” of Darkest Dungeon boardgame materials to backers. Amid the liquidation proceedings, a representative of the company also told Board Game Wire that they would provide backers with the STLs – aka, digital 3D models that you can use to print game pieces - for both waves.

This was actually impossible at the time, however, because Mythic don’t own the copyright on Darkest Dungeon's designs, but a former Mythic staffer has now secured permission from Red Hook to share the files.

“As many of you know, the financial situation at Mythic Games has been strained for the past several years,” Red Hook write on their official site. “We have been keeping an eye on the situation, hoping for the best. Unfortunately, at this point, Mythic Games is no longer able to manufacture or deliver the Darkest Dungeon board game.

“We put our trust in Mythic Games to deliver on their promises and uphold the Darkest Dungeon name,” the post continues. “We won’t mince words, their collapse and inability to fulfill Wave 2 orders is an enormously disappointing development and we know it deeply affects many Darkest Dungeon fans.

“Recently, we were contacted by an ex-Mythic employee who asked for our blessing to distribute the project files to all backers. While we at Red Hook don't own or control the board game files themselves, we were happy to give our permission for our copyrighted material within those files to be distributed to backers for non-commercial use.”

If you backed the Darkest Dungeon boardgame, you should now have an email from the Kickstarter campaign with a link to “all game files, including files of the rules, 3D models and more”. If you haven’t received the email, give [email protected] a shout.

It’s good that some of the project has been salvaged, but email attachments aren’t a patch on getting a chunky new Crusader figurine in the post. “Unfortunately, Red Hook has neither the board game manufacturing expertise nor have we had the ability to divert funds of the scale required to remove whatever obstacles Mythic has faced without endangering our own operations,” the videogame's creators conclude on their site. “We only hope that this final gesture can be a silver lining in an otherwise disappointing situation.”