The grim world of Darkest Dungeon is expanding beyond video games. Red Hook Studios and Vault Comics have announced a new series of graphic novels based on the acclaimed gothic roguelike RPG, with the creative team working closely with Darkest Dungeon creative director and Red Hook Studios co-founder Chris Bourassa to create a canonical addition to the game’s lore.
First released in 2016, Darkest Dungeon challenges players to recruit, train, and lead a group of flawed heroes through a world filled with unimaginable horrors, disease, stress, and an ever-present darkness. Rather than simply testing players’ combat skills, the game makes the psychological toll of adventuring a central part of the experience.
Created by Bourassa and Tyler Sigman, Darkest Dungeon became widely recognized for its distinctive art style, storytelling, unforgiving difficulty, and psychological approach to the roguelike genre. Red Hook followed the original
game with Darkest Dungeon II in 2023, which was also met with widespread acclaim. Together, the games have sold many millions of copies and established Darkest Dungeon as one of the defining independent roguelike franchises of the past decade.
Vault’s upcoming graphic novels will tell an entirely new canonical story set within the Darkest Dungeon universe. The series will explore previously unseen details of the game’s mythology while introducing new mysteries surrounding the forces at the heart of the franchise.
The graphic novels will be written by John Lees, whose horror credits include Vault Comics’ The Nasty and AWA’s Hotell. Artwork will come from Maan House, known for Titan Comics’ Dark Souls adaptation as well as Vault’s The Cemeterians. Both creators will work closely with Bourassa to ensure the new story remains consistent with the established Darkest Dungeon universe.
“I grew up reading comics. I learned to draw from studying the carefully crafted panels of the bronze age Batman books, and later, the exuberant splash pages of the Image Comics revolution,” said Chris Bourassa, co-founder of Red Hook Studios and creative director of Darkest Dungeon. “Darkest Dungeon was born of a deep love of this medium, and from day one, I’ve always dreamed of seeing it on the page.”
Bourassa added that the graphic novel will be a meaningful canonical entry in the franchise’s ongoing story, providing longtime fans with new insights into the world while introducing newcomers to the characters, atmosphere, and distinctive tone that helped make the games successful.
Vault Chief Creative Officer and co-founder Adrian Wassel will lead the project for Vault alongside VP of Special Projects and Crowdfunding Der-shing Helmer. Bourassa will oversee the creative direction for Red Hook Studios. Helmer previously led Vault’s record-breaking Dungeon Crawler Carl: Crocodile crowdfunding campaign.
The upcoming campaign will embrace the spirit of Darkest Dungeon, with Vault promising plenty of choices, rewards, and dangers for fans and collectors. The publisher says the campaign will offer something for both newcomers to graphic novels and longtime collectors.
“Our Darkest Dungeon graphic novel campaign will channel the spirit of the games—a realm filled with hidden rewards alongside myriad choices and dangers,” said Helmer. “We’ll have a little bit of something for everyone, from those who are newer to graphic novels to the most seasoned collectors of curiosities.”
For Wassel, the transition from game to comic feels particularly natural. He recalled spending hours as a child studying books filled with character statistics and backstories, drawing a connection between those experiences and the party-building mechanics of Darkest Dungeon. After learning that X-Men was also among Bourassa’s inspirations, Wassel saw an even stronger connection between the franchise and the comic book medium.
“When I got to know Chris Bourassa (the game creator), I learned that X-men was one of his biggest inspirations, and suddenly it all clicked: inside the grueling and grim (but often wickedly funny) world of Darkest Dungeon, there was comic book DNA,” said Wassel. “Now we get to tell a new story—with the heroes everyone knows—in the comic book medium that’s been swirling around inside the games’ blood this whole time.”
The Darkest Dungeon graphic novel series will launch through a BackerKit campaign, with pre-launch sign-ups now available. More information about the campaign and the graphic novels will be revealed as the launch approaches.
For fans who have spent countless hours watching their carefully assembled parties descend into increasingly horrifying situations, the graphic novels offer a new way to experience the universe while expanding its mythology. With Red Hook directly involved in the creative process and an experienced horror comics team handling the story and artwork, this looks like a natural extension of the Darkest Dungeon universe.
The collaboration between Vault Comics and Red Hook Studios was facilitated by Maximum Orbit.