Darkest Dungeon opens with the Ancestor’s voiced narration: a confession about what he did to the estate, to the town, to his family’s legacy. The narration frames the entire game as his penance — the player is his descendant, sent to correct his crimes.
The Ancestor’s confession is incomplete. As dungeons are cleared and boss encounters are won, additional Ancestor memories unlock: short narrative fragments revealing that the Ancestor did not merely dabble in forbidden knowledge. He murdered people. He experimented on his servants. He invited the Darkness into the Hamlet deliberately because the power it offered was worth what it cost everyone else.
Red Hook built a villain protagonist whose confession, delivered earnestly in the game’s most gothic register, is revealed to be a heavily edited version of events. The full picture of what the Ancestor did is worse than the opening monologue implies, accessible only through completion of content he is ostensibly helping you clear.
The final Ancestor memory, unlocked after defeating the Darkest Dungeon final boss, is the closest thing to genuine contrition in the character — and it arrives after a hundred hours of you cleaning up his crimes.
Currently on my first run and now I have to go back and look for this. Worth the detour.
Found this by accident on my third run. Came here to understand what I was actually looking at. Great write-up.