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New Steam dungeon crawler fills a Dark and Darker shaped hole

Dungeon Stalkers is a new, free dungeon crawler RPG coming to Steam that's PvEvP with curses that players must overcome, using darkness as a tool for success.

Dungeon Stalkers - a man with a beard and eyepatch, blonde hair falling down over his patched eye.

Dungeon crawlers often feel like a struggle against the murky depths, but in Dungeon Stalkers darkness is your ally. This new RPG game on Steam blends classic fantasy style with a witchy twist, and you’ll need to stay in the shadows to overcome the nightmarish hordes buried in the depths below. With the popularity of such PvEvP loot games as Dark and Darker on Steam, there’s clearly an appetite here, and Dungeon Stalkers is promising quite the meal.

As an eponymous Dungeon Stalker, you’re one of many bold adventurers seeking wealth, honor, and truth in the dungeons. However, a witch’s curse holds sway over the labyrinthine chambers, corridors, and crypts, meaning – as you might expect – that their very layouts are ever-changing. Unlike many such games where you’ll want to avoid the dark, however, here “darkness is your ally, and bright places can become dangerous.” You have been warned.

You’ll seek out that valuable loot and potential gear among the depths, allying yourself with other human-controlled Stalkers – or turning on them to snatch their hard-earned gear for yourself, should you so choose. You’ll of course face off against plenty of skeletons, and dodge numerous deadly traps, although the real highlight of the reveal trailer below is the particularly fleshy mimic chest that unveils itself at once point.

Developer Action Square says that there will be plenty of factors that affect your adventure – the most notable of these are the Witch’s curses, which will force certain effects upon you and your party at occasional intervals, requiring you to adapt your play style to survive. You’ll also have to contend with changes in weather, time, and climate on the surface, as these too can affect the dungeons below.

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Circumstance may force your hand, too. If the right merchant doesn’t show up between runs, you may find yourself short on potions, and an armor destruction system means that, even with the best gear, you might suddenly be left vulnerable if you aren’t careful. While we await news of a Dark and Darker release date on Steam, Dungeon Stalkers is shaping up to be a very cool alternative.

The Dungeon Stalkers release date on Steam is currently planned for December 2023, and it’s set to be free to play. If you want to stay up to date, you can wishlist the game to keep track of when it becomes available.

For now, we’ve got plenty more great free Steam games for you to browse, along with the best fantasy games for plenty of wonderful worlds to explore.