Thinking of picking up Don’t Starve but wondering whether you should grab a DLC at the same time? Or maybe you’re already a Don’t Starve veteran, and are just looking for the most ideal expansion for you.
Either way, we’ve got you covered with this guide to the best of the Don’t Starve DLCs and expansions.
Want more wilderness survival game goodness? Check out our curated list of the 10 best wilderness survival games available in 2018.
Reign of Giants
Unsurprisingly, Reign of Giants is primarily based around adding a set of new boss creatures for the player to defeat—as well as new items and crafts to help you defeat them.
However, it offers a lot more than just new challenges. There are new characters, seasons, monsters, biomes and a lot more, all set within the baseline vanilla game of Don’t Starve.
You’ll also get to experience a full year of seasons, each with unique challenges and benefits, running from the food-gathering extravaganza of Spring right through to the frigid combat of Winter. Weather plays a big part in each of these seasons, acting as either a help or a hindrance—mostly the latter.
There’s even a new environmental challenge in the form of ‘wetness’. Stand in the rain too long, and your items will lock up, your health will drop, and you’ll eventually freeze to death.
Pros
- Provides lots of new challenges that forces you to rethink your strategies.
- Gives you plenty of new items and biomes to experiment with.
- Makes the base game feel brand new—an upgrade of the excellent baseline experience.
Cons
- Extremely difficult, even for seasoned players.
Recommended for seasoned players looking for a new challenge in vanilla Don’t Starve.
Shipwrecked
While Don’t Starve vanilla is mostly set on a series of large continents made up of individual biomes, Shipwrecked throws the player into the deep end—literally.
You’ll start off on a single island and will need to build a raft to start exploring the surrounding lands. Along the way, you’ll encounter a slew of new water-borne enemies, collect a whole heap of new resources and explore an entirely new world.
It’s a solid little game that switches up the Don’t Starve formula with a bit of a nautical theme, and honestly makes it feel like an entirely new game with the same excellence of the original.
One additional thing to note: if you own both Reign of Giants and Shipwrecked, you can merge the two together. This way, you can take the items from one game into the other.
Pros
- Encourages early-game exploration rather than immediate base-building.
- Brand new world with all-new mechanics to explore.
Cons
- Necessary items can end up being spawned far away, making the early game something of a chore.
- No integration into multiplayer.
- Still pretty buggy.
Recommended for island survival fans and those who want a more significant exploration bent to Don’t Starve.
Don’t Starve Together
Take Don’t Starve, add Reign of Giants, some additional unique content, and a multiplayer mode, and you get Don’t Starve Together, the standalone expansion.
This new expansion also includes some fresh story content, designed primarily to be played in a group. It expands the game to an eye-watering degree, but alongside all that new stuff to gather, fight and explore, you’ll also find a far higher difficulty curve if playing solo.
Pros
- Single standalone expansion that includes Reign of Giants content
- Starve with your friends and explore lots of new challenges that you don’t get with the base game.
- You get two copies of the game with each purchase, allowing you to share the game immediately with a buddy.
Cons
- Doesn’t include Shipwrecked content.
- Includes multiplayer-designed content that may be too difficult for a single player to take on alone.
Recommended for those who want a higher challenge and some mates to enjoy it with.
Which is the best Don’t Starve expansion?
If you are a veteran Don’t Starve player who loves the vanilla game and just want more, you should pick up Reign of Giants.
If you like the overall gameplay Don’t Starve, but are keen to explore more of the world and don’t like building bases as much, you should pick up Shipwrecked.
If you are a beginner and want to get shown the ropes, or want to enjoy the game alongside a few friends, you should pick up Don’t Starve Together. Remember, it’s a standalone expansion—you don’t need to buy the baseline game first!
But if I only had to buy one, which would it be? It’d have to be Don’t Starve Together. The sheer amount of content you get, combined with the fact you can enjoy it with friends, makes it easily the best expansion in my eyes.
Happy starving!
Which Don’t Starve expansion is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below!
Rad or Shite Gaming 
I totally agree with the verdict! Don’t Starve Together is the way to go. And as far as the singleplayer goes Shipwrecked doesn’t even come cloese to the Reign of Giants.
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