Dungeons 3

Dungeons 3 is Realmforge's third entry in the dungeon-management series openly indebted to Dungeon Keeper, this time with a substantially larger scope and a fully reworked overworld component. The setup is the dungeon manager's classic dream realised — you're the Dungeon Lord, your underground empire is unified at last, and the next step in the campaign of evil is expansion. To that end you've enticed Thalya, a dark elf priestess, away from the surface to become your chief lieutenant.

Underneath your fortress you design a vast network of rooms, traps and structures, hiring increasingly despicable creatures — orcs, succubae, zombies and more — to staff your forces. Above ground, you guide Thalya and your army through an RTS-style overworld to corrupt the land and dispatch anything cute, heroic or vaguely unicorn-shaped. The two halves of the game alternate fluidly, and one of the third entry's biggest additions is randomly generated levels that mix new layouts into each campaign run rather than locking you into the same handcrafted scenarios.

The single-player campaign covers twenty missions and more than twenty hours of playtime, and a new two-player co-op mode lets a friend share the throne. Extra rooms, additional unique abilities and a wider creature roster expand the toolkit beyond the previous games, and the franchise's fan-favourite sardonic narrator returns to comment on everything you do, with the same dry self-aware tone the series has cultivated since the first entry.