The Ember Depths

Loot · Legend · The Deep Below

A loot-driven pixel-art dungeon crawler with classic tabletop RPG rules, online co-op, pets, a PvP arena and a town to build. Free, right in your browser, on phone, tablet or desktop.

Play free in your browser Join the Discord

No download. No sign-up. Your heroes are saved to the cloud automatically, with a recovery code so you never lose them.

Gameplay trailer and the story intro, captured in-game
Latest v0.10.10 Choose your attuned uniques

Kill. Loot. Compare. Equip. Go deeper.

Everything you want from a dungeon crawler

A wizard casting fire into a swarm of imps on a lava floor

Combat & bosses

Real-time fights with tabletop bones

Every swing rolls a d20 against armour class, spells force saves and crits double the dice. Up front it is fast and tactile: a thumb joystick, auto-attacks, and skills you tap to auto-target or drag to aim.

41 bosses and minibosses each have hand-painted bodies that crack, glow and transform as their health falls, with telegraphed slams, charges and rings you can read and dodge. 139 monster types, 62 item affixes and elite modifiers keep every floor different.

  • Grukk the Goblin KingGrukk the Goblin KingTyrant of the Warcamp
  • Morvaine the NecromancerMorvaine the NecromancerMistress of the Undying Choir
  • Old Gutrot the Swamp OgreOld Gutrot the Swamp OgreLord of the Festering Mire
  • Seraphel the FallenSeraphel the FallenThe Broken Radiance
  • Vhoruun the Ember TyrantVhoruun the Ember TyrantSovereign of the Ember Deep
A unique item card showing rolled stats and a special power

Loot: legendaries & uniques

The drop you were hoping for

Gear rolls rarity, affixes and upgrade badges so you always know whether it is better. Chase 123 legendaries with build-changing powers, including 7 class sets, and 80 uniques: named items with their own lore and powers that attune to you as you fight.

Salvage, upgrade and enchant at the Smithy, stash the keepers, and trade with other players when a drop is perfect for their build.

A hero and their pet fighting side by side in a dungeon

Pets

25 companions who grow with you

Find them in cages, nests and puzzle eggs, or earn them from bosses. Every pet has a role (tank, healer, damage, support or utility), its own skills and talents, and it evolves through stages as your bond deepens. Meet Hearth Hound, Mossback Tortoise, Lantern Moth, Pocket Magpie, Frostfang Fox and Sparkjaw Ferret and more in the Menagerie.

A four-player co-op party in a dungeon

Co-op & social

Bring up to three friends

Send an invite link and your friends drop straight into your party: no codes to type, no accounts to make. Parties of up to four clear dungeons together, with loot for everyone.

Pick a handle, add friends, chat in global, trade and looking-for-group channels, send direct messages, trade items safely and climb the leaderboards. Solo? Hire sellswords at the Tavern instead.

Join the Discord — find a party, share builds, report bugs and hear about patches first.

Two heroes dueling in a PvP arena

PvP arena

Settle it in the arena

Duels, 2v2 teams and free-for-alls across 7 arenas with their own hazards, with Elo ratings, win streaks and titles from Contender to Sovereign of the Pit. Stats can be normalised so skill decides the fight.

  • Hearthold Sparring Yard

  • The Ember Pit

  • Frostglass Ring

  • The Bone Colosseum

  • Stormspire

  • The Sunken Shrine

  • Void Ascent

Hearthold, a lively pixel-art town with a temple, tavern, smithy and merchant

The town

Hearthold grows with every run

Between delves you come home to a living town: villagers going about their day, lanterns at dusk, gossip in the square. Spend what you bring back to upgrade the Smithy, Merchant, Tavern, Temple, Guild Hall, Stash and Menagerie, and each one unlocks new services, sellswords and boons.

Bank gold from Tavern expeditions while you're away, and when you have conquered the Depths, Rebirth at the Guild Hall into a new legend with permanent boons.

Hardcore heroes

One life. Make it count.

Flip the Hardcore switch when you forge a hero and every fight is for keeps. Your name burns ember-red in chat with the skull sigil and the HC chip, so everyone knows what you are risking.

  • Permadeath. Fall and the hero is gone for good, with their gear and their bag. Quillon reads the eulogy and carves the stone in the Hall of the Fallen.
  • A realm of your own. Hardcore heroes keep their own gold, stash, town, sellswords and pets, apart from your softcore heroes.
  • Hard or harder. Hard, Epic or Legendary only: Easy and Medium are closed.
  • No trades, no carries. No trading or gifts, and hardcore heroes only party with other hardcore heroes.
  • Their own leaderboards. Highest living level, deepest Endless Descent, fastest campaign, and a wall for the fallen.

Hardcore rules Patch notes Hardcore leaderboards

A hardcore hero's funeral stone reading Here lies Aldric, slain by Seraphel, while Quillon reads the eulogy
The hero creator with the Hardcore switch turned on and its permadeath warning
Global chat where hardcore heroes show ember-red names, the skull sigil and the HC chip

Classes & races

14 classes. 28 subclasses. 9 races.

Build your hero from ability scores, feats and a subclass at level 3, then grow every skill through a mastery path of ranks and build-defining perks. Reach level 20, then keep going with Legend levels, 13 world tiers, the Endless Descent and Rebirth.

The hero creator with race, class and appearance options

  • Fighter

    A master of arms and armor who out-fights anything foolish enough to close the distance.

    Champion · Battle Master

  • Paladin

    A holy warrior whose blade is bound with oath and radiance.

    Oath of Devotion · Oath of Vengeance

  • Rogue

    A quick, cunning blade that finds every opening and exploits it without mercy.

    Thief · Assassin

  • Ranger

    A hunter of the wild deep who never lets prey out of sight — or out of range.

    Hunter · Beast Master

  • Wizard

    A scholar of the arcane who bends fire, frost and lightning to their will.

    Evocation · Infernal Binding

  • Cleric

    A devoted channel of divine power who mends allies and smites the wicked in the same breath.

    Life Domain · Tempest Domain

  • Barbarian

    A storm of muscle and fury who shrugs off wounds that would drop anyone else — and answers with a greataxe.

    Path of the Berserker · Path of the Emberblood

  • Bard

    A spellsinger whose verses sharpen allies' blades and whose insults leave monsters weeping.

    College of Lore · College of the Warhorn

  • Druid

    A keeper of the old green who calls roots, moonlight, beasts and storm down into the deep.

    Circle of the Land · Circle of the Fang

  • Monk

    A disciplined fighter who needs no armor and little weapon — only speed, breath and a hundred precise blows.

    Way of the Open Hand · Way of the Ashen Lotus

  • Sorcerer

    Magic isn't studied, it's in the blood — and it comes out in torrents of fire, frost and lightning.

    Draconic Bloodline · Stormborn Bloodline

  • Warlock

    Power bought from something that lives beyond the stars. The price comes due later. The eldritch blast comes now.

    The Fiend · The Hollow Star

  • Necromancer

    You died once. You took notes. Now the dead answer when you call — and every wound you deal feeds you.

    Bonecaller · Bloodmage

  • Dread Knight

    A knight who walked into the dark and came back wearing it. Your blade remembers the grave.

    Bloodreaver · Doomlord

Play as

Every class, skill & spell Open the compendium

Story

Hearthold needs a hero

Beneath the town of Hearthold lies the Ember Depths, a chasm that goes down further than anyone has dared to follow. Something has woken at its bottom. Fight down through 5 acts and 25 dungeons to the Ember Tyrant himself.

  1. Act 1

    The Goblin Warrens

    A maze of dug-out burrows and looted crypts beneath the Hearthold hills. Grukk has united every warren under one crown — and one crude, brutal will.

  2. Act 2

    The Necropolis of Ash

    A buried city of the dead, its bone-white avenues lit by cold necrotic fire. Morvaine has raised its every citizen to serve her a second, unwilling life.

  3. Act 3

    The Rotting Fen

    A drowned lowland of sinking sewers and stagnant caves where nothing decays cleanly. Old Gutrot has claimed the deepest mire as his own festering throne.

  4. Act 4

    The Fallen Fortress

    A once-holy bastion turned to ruin, its ramparts held by orc warbands and worse. Seraphel fell from grace within these walls and has never truly left.

  5. Act 5

    The Infernal Descent

    The last stair, a wound torn straight down into the burning dark. Vhoruun waits at its bottom, patient as only something eternal can afford to be.

A boss fight lit by violet magic

Join the Hearthold community

The Ember Depths is built in the open, and the Discord is where it happens.

  • Find a party for co-op, the Daily Descent or a Hardcore run
  • Patch notes, sneak peeks and new features before anyone else
  • Report bugs and pitch ideas straight to the developer
  • Show off your uniques, builds and legendary pulls
Join the Discord

Quillon keeps the door open

Free to join.
Bring friends.

Channels for looking-for-group, builds, trading, bug reports and fan art — and a creator who actually reads them.

Live from the Depths

Hall of Heroes

  • …adventurers
  • …online now
  • …monsters slain
  • …bosses felled

Highest level

  1. Loading…

Endless Descent

  1. Loading…

Arena rating

  1. Loading…

Full leaderboards & stats

Media

Screenshots

Tap any picture to see it full size. Press and creators: the press kit has full-resolution screenshots, trailers and icons.

  • Hardcore heroes: a funeral stone in the Hall of the Fallen, and hardcore players' ember-red names in chat
  • Fast, readable real-time combat against a pack of fire imps
  • Seraphel the Fallen, one of the act bosses, mid-fight
  • A boss erupting into a rain of legendaries, set pieces and uniques
  • Walking through a pile of uniques and legendaries
  • An online co-op party of four
  • A pet fighting at its owner's side
  • Hero creation: race, class and looks
  • Hearthold, the town you build up between runs
  • A PvP arena match
  • Unique and legendary item cards with their powers
  • The hero sheet
  • The title screen
  • The hero creator with the Hardcore switch on and its permadeath warning
  • A unique item card with its powers
  • The Menagerie, where pets live and grow

The Deep is waiting

One tap and you are making your first hero. Nothing to install.

Play free in your browser Join the Discord

FAQ

Questions, answered

Is it really free?

Yes. The Ember Depths is free to play in your browser at play.emberdepths.io: no download and no sign-up.

What can I play it on?

Any modern browser: phones and tablets (landscape), laptops and desktops. On touch screens you get a thumb joystick and a skill cluster; on desktop, WASD or click-to-move with number keys for skills. You can add it to your home screen to launch it like an app.

Where is my save? Do I need an account?

No account or sign-up needed. Your heroes are saved to the cloud automatically as you play, and kept in your browser too, so the game still works offline. The cloud keeps your last few versions as backups. Make a recovery code in Settings (Cloud save & recovery) to get your heroes back on a new device or after clearing your browser. Online features use an anonymous player id plus a public handle you choose.

Can I play on my phone and my computer?

Yes. On the device you already play on, open Settings, Cloud save & recovery, Link a device, then enter the 8-character code on the other device under Restore from cloud. Both play the same heroes and stay in sync. If both changed while offline, the game asks which save to keep and stores the other as a backup.

I played on emberdepths.mctl.io or dungeon2.mctl.io. Is my hero lost?

No. Open your old link once in the same browser: it packs your hero, your friends and your handle and carries them over to play.emberdepths.io automatically.

How does co-op work?

Open Party in town and share the invite link, or join a friend from your friends list, the player list or the looking-for-group channel. Up to four heroes per party; the party leader's device runs the dungeon, and loot is instanced, so every player gets their own drops.

Is this Dungeons & Dragons?

No, but it is inspired by the fifth edition rules: ability scores, d20 attack rolls, armour class, saving throws, proficiency, feats and subclasses. Rules content comes from the System Reference Document 5.1 (CC-BY-4.0) or is original.

How long is it?

The campaign runs 5 acts and 25 dungeons. After that come world tiers up to Torment X, Legend levels, the Endless Descent (infinite floors), Rebirth, 80 uniques to collect, 25 pets to raise and the arena ladder.

Can I play solo?

Absolutely. Everything can be played alone, and the Tavern's 17 sellswords can fill out your party.

About the studio

The Ember Depths is made by Emptyset Media, an independent studio.

It is built for the open web: one link, any device, and your friends one tap away.

emptyset.io