The Tower Still Watches: Rediscovering Return to Dark Tower

I didn’t come to Return to Dark Tower looking for the next great modern board game. I came to it chasing a memory.

In the mid-1980s, Dark Tower was — without question — my favorite game. It wasn’t just something I played; it was something I experienced. It was my first exposure to chunky, physical miniatures that felt important simply because of their size and presence. And that tower — the rotating, electronic centerpiece sitting in the middle of the board — was unlike anything I had ever seen. At a time when most games were cardboard and dice, Dark Tower felt technological, mysterious, and slightly intimidating. It didn’t explain itself. It demanded attention.

That feeling stayed with me long after the game itself disappeared from shelves.

So years later, in mid-2025, I found myself randomly thinking about it again — not prompted by an article or a list, but by one of those uninvited memories that surface out of nowhere. I wondered what had become of it. Expecting little more than grainy photos and expensive relics on resale sites, I went to Google for what felt like one last expedition to the tower.

What I found instead was Return to Dark Tower.

Not a forgotten remake. Not a novelty callback. A fully realized modern game, released in 2022 by Restoration Games, ranked #227 all-time on BoardGameGeek with an 8.2 player score, actively supported with expansions already released and another on the way. It didn’t feel like nostalgia being sold back to me. It felt like discovering that something I loved hadn’t just survived — it had been reborn.

That moment is what pulled me in.

The design is what convinced me to stay.

From the moment Return to Dark Tower hits the table, it’s clear this isn’t a game leaning on its past. The board evokes the original without copying it. The tower returns as a physical centerpiece, but with a different purpose. And the miniatures — especially when paired with the optional Dark Horde expansion — give threats real weight and presence. Dropping a dragon onto the board feels momentous. Watching spiders creep across the map builds tension turn by turn. When a major adversary appears, it feels like something terrible has arrived.

That physicality matters. It grounds everything else the game is doing.

The Dark Horde expansion deserves special mention here. It’s optional and sold separately, but it dramatically enhances the tactile feel of the game. It also did something unexpected for me personally: it pushed me into miniature painting. Painting those figures — something I’d always admired from a distance — became its own extension of the experience. Seeing enemies I’d painted myself emerge onto the board added another layer of connection, another way the game pulled me in.

What truly sets Return to Dark Tower apart, though, is how cleanly it divides responsibility between its two core systems: the app and the tower. Neither tries to do everything. Each does one job extremely well.

The app is the storyteller, the timekeeper, and the decision-maker.

It manages battles, dungeons, quests, and outcomes. It determines how many foes appear, when new creatures enter the board, how monsters move, and how unresolved threats punish neglect. It tracks companions you acquire during the game and weaves their moments of assistance into the narrative at just the right times. It watches the clock relentlessly.

The game unfolds across in-world “months,” each made up of a hidden number of turns. Players know time is advancing — but never how close they are to the next shift. Sometimes you feel like you have breathing room. Sometimes you suddenly don’t. That uncertainty is intentional, and it’s powerful. It prevents the game from ever becoming fully solvable or comfortable.

The app is fair.

It is procedural.

And it is absolutely in charge.

That authority is what makes the end-of-turn ritual so effective — and often agonizing.

When a player finishes their turn, they don’t simply announce it. They take a skull and physically drop it into the top of the tower, like tossing a coin into a wishing well. Through Bluetooth, that action tells the app the turn is complete and that it’s time to issue events. There’s a moment where you and your companion hold your breath. It can be genuinely tense, because you know the app is about to decide something you won’t get to debate.

Sometimes it moves monsters, pushing threats closer or causing them to take action. Sometimes it adds new foes to the board, compounding pressure in places you hoped to ignore. Sometimes it simply charges you for inaction — spirit drained because enemies were left unresolved or corruption was allowed to linger. And occasionally, the app offers a gift: a companion steps in, a small benefit appears, a moment of relief arrives just when you needed it. Those moments are rare enough that they feel earned, not expected.

When the app decides that physical escalation is required, that’s when the tower is called into action.

The tower does not make decisions.

It does not tell the story.

It executes.

Only when instructed by the app does the tower rotate or break a seal. When it rotates, it may release skulls back into kingdoms or reveal glyphs that impose spirit taxes on actions that were previously free. When a seal breaks, it does so permanently — either unveiling new glyphs or opening additional pathways for skulls to be distributed into the world.

The tower’s power is restrained, but precise. It doesn’t overwhelm the game; it reinforces it. It takes abstract cost and makes it physical. You can see the consequences sitting there, impossible to ignore.

This clear division of labor is the game’s greatest strength. The app decides what happens and when. The tower ensures you feel what it costs. The board records the damage. Nothing feels arbitrary, even when it hurts.

Underneath all of this is a ruleset that is far more approachable than the spectacle suggests. Turns are clear. Objectives are always visible. The challenge isn’t understanding what you can do — it’s deciding what you’re willing to spend. Spirit becomes the central currency of tension. Spend it now to stabilize the board, or save it and hope the app doesn’t make that choice for you later.

That tension holds because the game almost never repeats itself. Every playthrough randomizes foes, adversaries, and the main objective. Even conservatively, that creates over 5,000 unique gameplay combinations. Add two difficulty modes — standard and gritty — and you’re comfortably past 10,000 possible scenarios.

Then you add heroes.

The core game includes four characters. The expansions bring that total to ten. Every hero is playable in every configuration, and the combinations matter. Party composition radically changes how the same scenario feels. Some heroes mitigate corruption. Others excel at movement, economy, or combat efficiency. The app doesn’t tailor the world to your choices — it presents the world and lets your party collide with it.

You don’t replay Return to Dark Tower to solve it.

You replay it to see how it behaves this time.

Cooperative play is where all of this shines brightest. Every turn invites discussion, debate, and compromise. Decisions feel shared. Wins feel collective. Losses feel earned. Solo play works just as well, thanks to the app acting as a true dungeon master. Running multiple heroes alone is deeply engaging, and even single-hero runs are viable if you accept that margins are thin. Two quiet hours spent navigating pressure, risk, and consequence can be strangely satisfying.

The game is difficult, but it is honest. My group lost our first three plays, and none felt unfair. We were outpaced, under-resourced, or simply slow to adapt. Over time, you learn. It gets easier — but never easy. And when it does, gritty mode waits patiently.

What ultimately makes Return to Dark Tower resonate with me is how cohesive it feels. The miniatures give threats physical presence. The app provides story, structure, and judgment. The tower gives cost and consequence a tangible form. Every system reinforces the same idea: progress is possible, but it is never free.

You plan.

You debate.

You take a breath.

And then you drop another skull into the tower — not because you failed, but because the game demands its due.

For a kid who once stared at a plastic tower in the 1980s, convinced it held something unknowable inside, rediscovering Return to Dark Tower feels less like nostalgia and more like closure.

The expedition didn’t end.

It just took a long way around.

Pete Fletzer is the author of Who Owns the Myth? Star Wars, Fandom, and the Soul of the Saga, a nonfiction exploration of modern fandom, mythmaking, and the evolving relationship between storytellers and audiences. A longtime Star Wars podcaster and host of Around the Galaxy Live, Fletzer blends personal experience, cultural analysis, and decades of professional marketing and communications leadership to examine how belief, trust, and shared stories shape communities. His work focuses on fandom not as conflict, but as a living conversation—one that reveals how modern myths are created, challenged, and ultimately sustained.