Dark Quest 4 Review: The Digital HeroQuest I've Been Waiting For

It's a cozy, turn-based dungeon crawl that's not afraid to be a game, not a roguelite nightmare.

After playing the last few Dark Quest games, I was bracing myself for another deep, grindy roguelite. Dark Quest 3 was a solid game, but I'm getting so tired of every indie dungeon crawler being a "run-based" procedural slog.

Dark Quest 4 is not that. It's something so much better.

This is a full-throated, unashamed love letter to the classic tabletop board games of my youth. We're talking pure, unadulterated HeroQuest. It's a digital board, miniature-style heroes, action cards, and a cozy, candle-lit vibe that feels like a Friday night with friends.

The story is the perfect, pulpy setup for a D&D one-shot: an evil sorcerer's necromancer lackey, Gulak, is kidnapping villagers to turn them into a "growing mound of flesh" to make new monsters. The Emperor calls for heroes. That's us. Let's go.

A Cozy, Candlelit Crawl

The whole game is presented like a physical tabletop experience, and the atmosphere is just fantastic. The camp, where you manage your heroes, is a delightful little hub where you can visit Torik the Trainer to unlock new cards or Morga the Alchemist for potions.

The gameplay is clean, simple, and satisfyingly tactical. You command a party of three heroes, starting with the classic Barbarian, Wizard, and Dwarf. You move on a grid, and all your actions are handled through cards.

It's not trying to be a complex cRPG. It’s trying to be a board game, and it absolutely nails that feeling. The campaign is a series of 30 handcrafted quests, not just random, procedurally-generated maps. It's a focused, fun, and polished adventure.

Beware the Exploding Chickens

You'll eventually unlock a roster of 10 heroes, including a Lancer and a Fire Mage. And you'll need them, thanks to the smart "Fatigue" system.

After a hero completes a quest, their health is marked down until they rest, which encourages you to rotate your team. This is a great way to force me out of my comfort zone and actually experiment with new party compositions.

The enemy variety is great, with all the skeletons, orcs, and traps you'd expect. But I have to talk about the chickens. The goddamn chickens. I walked into a room full of them, thinking it was a joke. Then my Barbarian cleaved one, and it exploded, setting off a chain reaction that instantly killed my entire party. I've never been so terrified of poultry in my life.

The Jank in the Dungeon

The game is shockingly polished for an indie. I had a rock-solid framerate and encountered no major crashes or game-breaking bugs.

My only real gripe is that the controls are just... clunky. Selecting a door or clicking on a specific tile can be a fiddly, annoying process. The UI for equipping items and managing your heroes in the camp is also pretty unintuitive.

I also found the economy to be a bit broken. By the halfway point of the campaign, I was swimming in thousands of gold coins with absolutely nothing to spend it on. The shops are too small and the upgrades are too cheap.

The Game That Never Ends

A solid 12-to-15-hour campaign would have been enough for me. But Dark Quest 4 has two more features that make it an incredible value.

First, it has 3-player co-op, both online and local and it's the perfect, chill co-op experience. Just pure, tactical fun.

But the real star is the Creator Mode. This is a full-blown, comprehensive map and quest editor. I messed around with it for an hour and was shocked at how deep it is. You can build your own dungeons, place enemies and traps, write your own quests, and share them with the community. This single feature gives the game infinite replayability.

The Verdict

Dark Quest 4 is a massive surprise. It bravely ditches the modern roguelite trend to give me what I really wanted: a polished, fun, and endlessly replayable digital board game. It's pure, unadulterated HeroQuest-style fun that's perfect for a weekend.

The clunky controls and shallow shop are annoying, but they're tiny blemishes on an otherwise brilliant package. This is a gem.

Score: 8.3/10 - A brilliant, cozy dungeon crawl that feels like opening a classic board game on a Friday night.

We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.