Skills & Raids wants to inherit from Darkest Dungeon, but it's actually something else entirely, and maybe that's better

We've lost count of the hours spent on Darkest Dungeon. More than five hundred, tears of blood, lost characters we still mourn, and that stubborn love for a game that punished us relentlessly. So when Skills & Raids is presented to us as a possible heir, of course the heart races and the wariness sets in at the same time. The real question isn't just whether it's a worthy successor, but whether it's a successor at all, or something else entirely. And after playing it, the answer is more intriguing than a simple yes or no: Skills & Raids takes the soul of Darkest Dungeon, but pours it into a radically different mold.

The context

Skills & Raids is a party-based extraction RPG with real-time, ability-driven combat, developed by a single man, Eddie H. Hinestroza, and available on PC since 27 July 2026. The principle: you enter hostile areas with your party, fight real-time encounters, gather resources, complete quests, and try to leave with enough materials to improve your gear. All in a dark-fantasy setting that immediately evokes the grim, merciless universe we so loved elsewhere. The demo convinced, with 93% positive reviews, and we were keen to check whether the formula held its promises over time.

The gameplay: Darkest Dungeon's soul, a different body

Where Darkest Dungeon rested on turn-based play and stress management, Skills & Raids tips into real time with pause, and that's the first big divergence. Combat revolves around ability timing: you manage cooldowns, move your characters mid-fight, react to enemy mechanics that vary from one combat area to the next. Status effects are decisive, they tip an encounter one way or the other, and a pause mechanic lets you take your time to read what each skill and status does. It's that pause that reconciles the two worlds: the nervousness of real time, but with the space for tactical reflection dear to turn-based fans.

The other big novelty is the extraction structure, and it's what makes Skills & Raids far more than a mere clone. You dive into a zone, you loot, you fight, and the whole stake is getting out alive with your haul to invest it in your upgrades. Resources feed a crafting system that lets you forge more powerful gear and new skills, all backed by a rarity-based loot system, from Common to Legendary. That raid tension, that constant dilemma between pushing further for better loot or pulling out while there's still time, is precisely what tied Darkest Dungeon to our guts, except here it's erected as the core of the system. You find the agony of the choice, but in a brand-new architecture.

What sticks

You have to stay lucid, and the first point is its very nature. Skills & Raids isn't the straight-line successor a Darkest Dungeon fan might fantasize about. The shift to real time, even softened by the pause, fundamentally changes the feel for whoever cherished the cerebral purity of turn-based, that suspended moment where you weigh every decision with no time pressure at all. And the extraction graft, clever as it is, also imports the genre's pitfalls: the risk of repetition and grind, that loop of successive raids that can tire if the content doesn't renew itself enough. It's not a flaw in itself, it's a stance that defines an audience different from its inspiration's.

The other reservation is its status as a just-released solo-developer game. The demo was exciting, but on a small sample of reviews, and a project carried by a single person inevitably raises questions of scale, balance and content over time. The richness of an extraction RPG depends on the variety of its zones, enemies, loot and the depth of its crafting, and it'll take hindsight to know whether Skills & Raids goes the distance or runs out of steam once the discovery is over. It's a promising title to approach while supporting an independent creator, betting on its evolution as much as on its launch state.

What we take away

Skills & Raids is a fine surprise that answers our question in the most interesting way: no, it's not a mere Darkest Dungeon successor, it's far more than that, a hybrid that takes its dark, punishing soul and pours it into a brand-new architecture. It keeps what made us cry blood, the tension of risk and reward, the status effects that decide everything, the agony of the choice to push or pull out, but it adds real time with pause and an extraction structure that genuinely renew the formula. For a solo-developer project, the proposition is ambitious, coherent and full of personality.

You just have to approach it for what it is, not for the clone it never wanted to be. The shift to real time will divide turn-based purists, the extraction loop can turn to grind, and its status as a brand-new solo game leaves questions of scale and balance to confirm. But the essential is there: Skills & Raids captures Darkest Dungeon's spirit without copying it, and dares an identity of its own that makes it thrilling to follow. A worthy successor? Not exactly. Something more interesting: an heir that decided to carve its own path, and that deserves company on the way.

Verdict

A dark-fantasy real-time-with-pause extraction RPG that takes Darkest Dungeon's punishing soul into a brand-new architecture: more than a successor, an ambitious hybrid, with the reservations of a just-released solo game.

Strengths:

• Darkest Dungeon's dark, punishing spirit, tension of risk and reward
• Real time with pause, marrying nervousness and tactical reflection
• The extraction structure and crafting of gear and skills
• A real identity that goes beyond mere homage

Weaknesses:

• The shift to real time that will divide turn-based purists
• An extraction loop that can turn to grind
• A brand-new solo-developer project, with scale and balance to confirm

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Tested on PC.