Darkest Dungeon studio requests additional funding due to shipping costs

The publisher behind Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game has requested additional funding from its backers.

Mythic Games Inc, the studio responsible for releasing Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game, has apologised for the late delivery of the upcoming board game – which was originally due to ship to backers in November 2021 – and asked its backers for additional funding in order to cover increased manufacturing and production costs for the game.

In an project update on the Kickstarter crowdfunding page, which was also sent out to backers in a newsletter, Mythic revealed that due to “the unsustainable increase in costs” required to complete manufacturing and shipping of the various Kickstarter versions of Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game, backers would need to pay a contribution.

Mythic highlighted the changing situation between the start of the Kickstarter for Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game – which began its crowdfunding campaign in October 2020 and ended in November 2020 - and now, with the studio citing the effect that the COVID 19 Pandemic and the war in Ukraine has had on the industry. According to Mythic, shipping costs have increased by an average of 600%, with the cost of raw materials going up by at least 30%.

A graph was included in the Kickstarter update depicting the cost of containers in both Europe and North America for several of Mythic Games’s tabletop titles, with the price steadily increasing with each new release. Mythic has revealed that the shipping cost for Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game is $3.1 million, with an additional manufacturing cost of $350,000 on top of that, resulting in a total of $1.75 million in costs that cannot be covered by the $1.7 million paid by backers.

As such, Mythic – with permission from Red Hook, the studio behind the original Darkest Dungeon video game – has requested that its backers help to contribute 50% of the additional costs required to manufacture and ship Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game. Red Hook and Mythic will be covering the other 50%, with backers being asked to contribute a flat amount per item, regardless of which country they’re based in.

Mythic has provided a table listing the contributions that backers are being asked to pay per item, as well as contribution per pledge level – with backers who pledged for the core board game being required to contribute an extra $18 (£15). Backers will be able to pay their contribution whenever they’re ready to, however they will need to provide it before 1st August in order for it be included in the first containers that are set to be shipped from mid-august.

Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game has become one of several tabletop titles that have led to their publishers facing increasing shipping and manufacturing costs, primarily in response to the COVID 19 pandemic. Root studio Leder Games had to bid almost $20,000 for a single container when attempting to ship copies of its most recent release, Oath, with Triton Noir also requesting additional funding from its backers in order to deliver copies of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice.

Based on the indie video game released in 2015, Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game is a tabletop adaptation that sees players taking control of a party of treasure hunters and adventurers who venture into terrifying places and face horrible foes. The video game board game challenges players to explore a variety of dangerous environments, dealing with the multitude of status effects that their characters will collect along the way and attempting to survive the waves of enemies.

Mythic Games has confirmed that it will focus on completing existing orders before launching any further Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns. Future projects from Mythic will aim to be more condensed, reducing the physical size of the games and – hopefully – their shipping costs.