The sequel to Dungeons 3 and the fourth entry in the Dungeons game series by Realmforge Studios, published by Kalypso Media. The game was released on on 10 November, 2023. Much like the previous title, the game features a dungeon system that allows the player to command all three factions of evil from the earlier games. Some features of gameplay and dungeon-building have been either changed or updated, building heavily upon the mechanics of the previous game.
The story continues after the events of Dungeons 3. The Hero-Slaughtering Evil had led the armies of Horde, Demons and Undead to a war against Tanos the paladin, his heroic companions, and eventually the Goddess of Light herself – and won. All the lands of the Overworld are (once again) under the literal iron fist of the World-Conquering Evil.
All the lands of the Overworld? Not quite! Because there just so happens to be one small village of indomitable Heroes still holding out against the invading forces of the French Comics Referencing Evil. To deal with these pesky do-gooders, the Minion Commanding Evil sends on the case it's most successful commander, the Dark Elf sorceress Thalya and the Villain Protagonist of the previous game.
Thalya is more than happy to get back to kicking heroic ass, especially since it turns out the remaining heroes are led by none other than her stepbrother and Tanos' foster son Tristan! Thalya has more than a few bones to pick with her stepbrother – despite the fact that he was nowhere to be seen in the previous game.
There's a huge battle and the creatures of Evil are victorious, even though Tristan manages to flee. However, Thalya acquires a surprisingly familiar-looking Gauntlet of Finitude as a trophy of her victory.
And then she decides to snap her fingers while wearing the gauntlet, which results in the Absolute Evil being completely obliterated. Thalya doesn't mourn for long, though – for this means she can rule the forces of Evil and the world by herself! Now, she has no actual experience at being a ruler, but it can't be too hard, now can it?
Cue Tristan capturing Thalya and routing the forces of Evil exactly 10 minutes later.
However, the once-again-having-its-physical-body-destroyed-Evil is nevertheless not finished. It sets out to rebuild it's armies and free Thalya. However, in order to regain it's full power, the Reduced to a Disembodied Spirit Evil requires a new vessel to act as a new body. So it's up to Thalya to build dungeons and defend them, recruit creatures of Evil to fight the forces of Good in the dungeon and in the Overworld alike, find a new suitable body for the Absolute Evil, take down every Hero that stands in their way and conquer the entire world in the name of the all-powerful Evil.
This time, it's personal.
Dungeons 4 contains examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Rather than being produced by creatures, resources such as Toolboxes or Mana are now generated by the Little Snots, meaning you don't have to balance sending them out to battle and keeping them in the base to produce them. The only exception is Blight, which is produced by Undead units at a Sacrificial Pit.
- Thalya has a new ability called 'To the Dungeonheart!'. It immediately transports Thalya and the creatures of Evil near her to the Dungeonheart for a small cost of Evilness. The purpose of the ability is to provide an easy way to immediately return to the Dungeonheart, most likely to defend it in the event a group of enemies managed to reach it unnoticed while the player was focused on other things in the Overworld.
- Back from the Dead: Tanos gets revived thanks to the Gauntlet of Finitude. He later uses it's powers to revive other dead heroes to fight for him.
- Continuing is Painful: If Thalya dies, rather than simply paying money to quickly bring her back all of the Little Snots have to perform a ritual in order to bring her back, meaning that her death brings your economy to a screeching halt.
- Drunk on the Dark Side: Absorbing the power of the Gauntlet of Finitude causes Tanos to go even more insane, especially once he realizes it can be powered by Evilness. As such, this leads to a mission where he and Thalya are competing for Evilness by going around raiding villages with him justifying it as being for the greater good.
- Fake Longevity: Lampshaded, where the penultimate missions are split into two parts (finding the Stones of Finitude and enacting an hour-long ritual) where Thalya complains that this was done purely to pad out the length of the game.
- Horse of a Different Color: On the side of Evil, Goblin champions are Worg Riders riding Direwolves at the cost of their stealth ability. On the side of Good, there are the Goat Riders of the Dwarves. Both cavalry units have the ability to charge, temporarily knocking enemy units down.
- Night of the Living Mooks: The Undead are once again recruitable as one of the three factions fighting under the banner of Evil. Even more fitting, since this time Undead units can also summon minions to fight by their side in exchange for Blight.
- Sequel Hook: The ending brings up several of these, specifically that Tristan and Brynnhild are still alive while the Council of Little Snots may have their own agendas.
- Shout-Out: As usual, the series makes use of parodies on the nose it might as well be superglued.
- The Gauntlet of Finitude and the Stones of Finitude are a blatant riff on The Infinity Gauntlet and the Infinity Stones. Tanos upon reviving and absorbing the energy of the gauntlet becomes a purple giant like Thanos.
- Gorgu, the baby Little Snot used as a vessel for the Absolute Evil is clearly based on Grogu
- Summon Bigger Fish: One of Thalya's new abilities is to summon the Dungeonlord to temporarily wreck the opponent. Granted, this ability costs a hefty amount of Evilness, which is primarily used for research.
