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The game description directly says it is "roguelike", and boast about its meaningful permadeath, procedural generated stuff and replay value. But then I tried googling, and it looked like there were ... conflicting opinions regarding its roguelike status:

Topic: The game is missing critical roguelike elements
Opinion - How to turn this game into a roguelike
I like this game but I don't consider it a roguelike at all...

So, what's the truth here? Is it roguelike, or absolutely NOT roguelike, or sorta-roguelike ... or some kinda hybrid thing?
Well, it is not "like Rogue", which is where that originated from.
Darkest Dungeon is a "roguelite", as it's called now, in addition to being a resource management game.
Both are important, but of course you spend the most hours in dungeons, directing your group of mercs.

Typical features of that are indeed permadeath (a concept that is in RL just known as "death" ;P ) of characters, procedural dungeon generation and...

...

...I think that's it? Someone else will have to pipe in there.

Another thing that differentiates it from a classic rogue-like is that it is indeed long. Many hours will be spend on a single game, since you cannot fail the game per se.
Even if all your mercs die (and you fail that particular dungeon delve) you typically can return to the hamlet to recruit more. They're expendable.
Post edited August 02, 2016 by Domochevsky
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Domochevsky: Another thing that differentiates it from a classic rogue-like is that it is indeed long. Many hours will be spend on a single game, since you cannot fail the game per se.
Even if all your mercs die (and you fail that particular dungeon delve) you typically can return to the hamlet to recruit more. They're expendable.
Permadeath where you cannot fail? Sounds intriguing. I'm pretty sure this is why certain folks question its roguelike status! :)

Thanks for your answer - I got a little closer to understanding what this games roguelike-ish.
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KasperHviid: Permadeath where you cannot fail? Sounds intriguing. I'm pretty sure this is why certain folks question its roguelike status! :)
It's more like managerial type game to me (Hamlet developing) and as long you have spare gold to hire merc (champions) you're good to go.
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KasperHviid: Permadeath where you cannot fail? Sounds intriguing. I'm pretty sure this is why certain folks question its roguelike status! :)
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thk47: It's more like managerial type game to me (Hamlet developing) and as long you have spare gold to hire merc (champions) you're good to go.
This.

The "permadeath" applies to your characters when they die in the dungeons - but unlike permadeath in something like FTL - where it's a game over - you just replace the characters and go crawling some more.

Even if you never lose anyone (!) you'll still change the team you send in pretty regularly (possibly every mission). In that way (only!) it's reminiscent of XCOM - you send in small teams that tend to have a high casualty rate, but they mostly improve if they survive.

I say "mostly" because they may also (quite often!) gain negative attributes due to the stresses of dungeon combat (which is the idea the whole game was originally created around).
it's not realy roge like.
more like xcom cross final fantasy