The player inherits a gothic estate from an Ancestor who, in his pursuit of ambiguous ambitions, excavated the dungeons beneath his manor and unleashed terrible creatures upon the surrounding lands. Now the new owner must recruit adventurers and mount expeditions into the corrupted grounds to cleanse them. As the player explores deeper, they uncover their Ancestor's memoirs detailing the horrible deeds he committed in pursuit of knowledge and power. The path leads eventually to the Darkest Dungeon itself, the source of all the corruption, where something ancient and world-ending stirs beneath the surface.