Cheating

Darkest Dungeon is a great game with lots of innovative and intriguing features. Nevertheless, the game is far from perfection due to many reasons. The game is often criticized for being too difficult, frustrating and unforgiving (even on normal difficulty) and unnecessarily time-consuming. Many people think the game quickly becomes a grind-fest which alas makes it lose its charm. The page contains cheats and mods that can bring about a whole new experience into the game, from the simplest to more complicated methods. Disclaimer: we don't own any of the files mentioned, they are collected from many sources.

Editing Game Data
Saving the game manually: Darkest Dungeon automatically saves as the game progresses, making all the actions and choices permanent. However, you can still save the game manually. Save files are stored in Documents/Darkest/profile_0/1/2. Back them up before an important point, e.g. before embarking on a quest (while the game is not running) and replace the file saves if things don't go the way you expect.

Remove level restriction: Heroes of high level can now go to dungeons with lower difficulty with a simple modification. Go to your installation folder at Darkest Dungeon/campaign/quest/quest.json and open the file with notepad. Scroll down to the end of the file and change all numbers in "restriction" section to 99. It should look like this. "difficulty": { "comment": "This table restricts what level heroes can go on what level quest. ROWS are DIFFICULTY, COLs are QUEST LENGTH", "resolve_level_threshold_table": [ 99,               99,                99,                99,                99,                99,                99

"Scardycat Skip"
When the player retreats from a normal expedition, the game will not advance the week. However, this does not apply to retreated expeditions from the Darkest Dungeon; the week will advance as if the expedition was successful. To perform this exploit, send a single hero to the Darkest Dungeon and immediately retreat. Since the game advances one week, expedition quests and the stagecoach will be refreshed, and activities in the Hamlet will advance. A similar exploit can be done with the first expedition to the ruins, but it will not refresh the stagecoach or the expedition quests.

"Scardyboost"
When the player retreats from the Darkest Dungeon with a resolve level 5 or 6 hero, the game will provide a 2-times multiplier to resolve experience boost to the next quest expedition. This effect stacks and can be exploited. The increase from this buff is not exponential and instead adds the additional amount of experience that is normally gained. For example, a short apprentice expedition will normally yield two resolve experience; one stack of the boost will yield four experience, two stacks will yield six experience, and so on.

"Scardywarp"
To perform this exploit, select a expedition that will not be blocked by a hero's resolve level and click embark. While the game is transitioning to the provision screen, immediately select your desired dungeon (this can require fast clicking). If done successfully, your heroes will bypass any expedition restrictions that normally occur. This exploit can be used to send Shard Mercenaries on normal dungeon expeditions and can be used to bypass resolve level restrictions in all difficulty levels. This can also be used to access the Courtyard without any invitations. This exploit can only be done on the PC and Switch versions of the game, as the PS4 version lacks the controls needed.

"Virtue Scam"
When a hero receives their resolve check, open up the options menu with the [Esc] key and exit to the main menu when an undesirable resolve check occurs; when the hero becomes afflicted, the background will turn red; when the hero becomes virtuous, the background will lighten up. Upon returning to the game, the hero will receive another resolve check. This exploit only works before the affliction/virtue cut-scene. Because afflictions and virtues are not pre-determined, multiple resolve checks will yield different results. This exploit can be used to ensure that heroes will not become afflicted and can be used to get the special Sleeper achievement that requires two afflicted and two virtuous heroes.

"Talisman Dupe"
Send two resolve level zero heroes with two Talisman of the Flame trinkets into the second Darkest Dungeon mission. Upon retreating, one hero will perish, but a fourth "talisman" will be given. This occurs as the game will always supply at least three talismans into the trinket inventory. When the surviving hero returns, an additional talisman is returned, resulting in four trinkets. This exploit can be used to bypass the need for heroes with guard abilities in DD2.

These are based on Cryfor's video on Darkest Dungeon Speedrunning. These exploits have not been patched.

Archived Cheats
Remove Abomination party restriction: Abomination no longer troubles other god-fearing heroes. Go to Darkest Dungeon/heroes/abomination and open the file abomination.info.darkes with Note pad. Delete the last line "incompatible_party_member: .id abomination_religion .hero_tag religious" and now everyone will be happy. No more "Werewolverism".

Cheat engine / Artmoney: Most of the basic values in the games like Money, Heirlooms can be searched and modified easily with Cheat Engine / Artmoney. If you don't feel like grinding your way through all the expenses and upgrade, you can skip the time-consuming (but possibly very rewarding) process with these programs. Players can use the pre-made table for more choices. The table can be found here. #REDIRECT [] Note: Not everything in that table works, especially the remove level restriction function. Use the method mentioned above for that. Furthermore, do not increase your heroes's health with that table if they are at Death's Door. You need to get them off the Death's Door first (by healing in the game) then you can increase their HP using CE, otherwise they will be stuck with Death's door penalty even when they are at full health. Similarly, if your heroes have an affliction, change the stress to 1 and reduce it further in the game to remove the affliction completely. Otherwise, the affliction won't disappear just like Death's door status. (Link broken).