Dungeons 3 - Once Upon A Time

I went into Once Upon A Time expecting a lightweight victory lap after the main campaign, and the difficulty curve corrected that assumption within the first fifteen minutes. This is the first DLC drop for Dungeons 3, and Realmforge uses the Fairyland setting as both a comedic device and a genuine mechanical stress test. The premise sends Thalya and the sardonic narrator into a Grimm-tales-inspired region ruled by the Good Fairy, whose defining sin is supplying hero parties with invigorating potions across the overworld. Blocking those supply runs is one of your core objectives across all three maps, and letting the deliveries go through directly buffs the hero waves pushing on your dungeon heart. That optional-but-costly design is exactly the kind of layered risk-reward I want from a dungeon-sim mission. The dual-layer gameplay that made Dungeons 3 compelling is intact here. Underground, you're excavating corridors, placing traps, and managing your evil hubs. On the surface, your creature armies push into a pastel-coloured Fairyland to destroy objectives and intercept those potion caravans. The third map pits you against the Good Fairy herself as a proper boss encounter, complete with escalating buffs. Hero waves arrive at short intervals and climb in tier and level quickly, so the familiar Dungeons 3 move of digging winding maze corridors to buy reaction time is practically mandatory, not optional. New to the DLC is a spider nest trap that lets you weaponise tamed spiders against incoming parties, which adds a small but satisfying tactical wrinkle to your trap layout. The wall tile set is cosmetic, but the new evil hubs at least give the underground a distinct visual identity from the base game. The comedy holds up. Kevan Brighting's narrator remains the headline act, and watching him react to the aggressively wholesome Fairyland with barely-contained horror is consistently funny. The Shrek-adjacent fairy-tale parody angle works because it doesn't overstay its welcome across three maps. Where the DLC stumbles is in unit and building variety: no new creatures, no new structures. The strategic decision space is identical to what you arrived with, which means experienced players are solving familiar problems with familiar tools in a new coat of paint. That's a mild disappointment, but it's not a dealbreaker. One honest warning for newcomers: this DLC is not structured as an entry point. It assumes you have cleared the main campaign and know your creature management rhythms. Dropping in cold will feel punishing rather than challenging. If you are already sold on Dungeons 3 and have the base game hours behind you, this is a compact, well-paced extension with a genuinely amusing premise and tighter mission design than the mid-campaign of the base game. If you are still on the fence about Dungeons 3 itself, start there first and let this be the reward you unlock for finishing it.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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