It could be said that Brain Seal Ltd, the developer of the Dark Quest series, is wishy-washy on co-op. Every other game is either single-player or co-op. Thankfully, the upcoming Dark Quest 4 will be one of the co-op ones. In fact, it looks like this will be the biggest and best game yet in the board game-style dungeon crawling series. A demo has recently arrived on Steam, and the game will come to both consoles and PC later this year.
Dark Quest 4 plays like Demeo (another board game-inspired cooperative RPG) and the classic board game, Hero Quest. Up to three players will control a hero as they enter and explore dungeons that are managed by a fully-voiced dungeon master. The heroes and monsters are all static figures that move around the board, creating an authentic board game atmosphere. The gameplay of the demo is pretty simple and intuitive, though it's annoying that heroes can't move through each other. You end up having to move your characters pretty slowly through tight spaces.
Features:
- Campaign with hand made quests with over 20 hours of gameplay
- Multiplayer up to 3 people
- Turn based combat and movement system
- Level editor to make stand alone quests or a campaign
- Steam Workshop integration to share your creations
- Animated figurines
- Unique art world that looks, feels and plays like a tabletop
- Voice over for the sorcerer playing the role of the Dungeon Master
Dark Quest 4 will arrive on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam sometime in 2025. Players can try the Steam demo right now.