Graveyard Keeper is a 2018 video game that takes place in a graveyard. It was created by a Russian independent game studio called Lazy Bear Games and published by tinyBuild. The game's alpha version, which is an early test version, was released for Windows in May 2018. A full version of the game was later released for Windows and Xbox One in the same year. The game was also released for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 on June 27, 2019. It became available in Japan on February 6, 2020.
Gameplay
Graveyard Keeper is a management simulation game inspired by Stardew Valley and based on Harvest Moon. At the beginning of the game, the player receives a piece of land that includes a small graveyard once owned by a previous person near a small town. The cemetery is initially filled with rocks, trees, stumps, and weeds. The player must clear these to restart the graveyard's operation, care for graves, and maintain the church to earn money and collect donations. The main goal is to open a portal back to the player's old world. To achieve this, the player must gather information and help from non-player characters (NPCs) by completing their tasks or quests. These quests often involve collecting or crafting items such as oil or honey. As the game progresses, new areas and gameplay features become available as the player unlocks new technologies. The game's skill system is called the Technology Tree, and players unlock new technologies to advance. After the early stages of the game, players need three types of experience points—Red, Blue, and Green—to unlock most technologies. In addition to maintaining the graveyard and clearing obstacles, the game includes activities such as farming, blacksmithing, basic combat, multi-level dungeons, fishing, and a detailed crafting system.
Story
The player takes on the role of a person who was hit by a car and wakes up in a strange world with a medieval fantasy setting. In this world, the player is assigned the task of caring for a local cemetery and church. The player is determined to return home and reunite with his lover. While helping the village's people with their problems, the player interacts with the locals. Later, the player discovers a portal that can be used to return home, but it requires special magical items. These items are held by some of the village's most important people. After gaining their trust and collecting the items, the player says goodbye to his friends. However, instead of returning home, the portal brings his lover to him. Additional content in the game explains that the player cannot return home because he has a sacred duty to act as a bridge between the village's people and the afterlife. It is revealed that an Ancient God brought him to this world and divided him into two parts: One part, filled with anger, remains in the town. The other part, which forgets recent events, becomes the new graveyard keeper. This is why the keeper cannot enter the town and dies every time he tries.
DLC
The DLC for Graveyard Keeper, called "Breaking Dead," was announced in 2018. It was free for players who owned the base game on PC but required payment for console owners. This DLC adds a resurrection table to the player's morgue, allowing them to reanimate corpses and assign them tasks such as gathering materials, crafting items, writing books, tending to a garden, and transporting goods to market. If enough high-quality zombies are created, the player can automate their entire supply chain, freeing them to focus on the main story.
A second DLC, "Stranger Sins," was released on October 28, 2019. It expands the game's story and characters by introducing a new tavern that players can manage by producing and selling food and drinks at high prices. It also adds a new quest-line that gives personalities to previously silent villagers and includes a new ending for completing the main game after finishing the DLC's quests. Players must complete complex quests with different characters to find relics that increase the tavern's reputation. A higher reputation allows the sale of higher-quality drinks. Events in the game also let players sell food, and there are four known events.
A third DLC, "Game of Crone," was released on October 27, 2020. It adds new story content, including a refugee camp from the Inquisition that the player must help develop while investigating a vampire haunting the village. It also includes a side quest involving a donkey that brings corpses and asks the player to help start a communist revolution.
A fourth DLC, "Better Save Soul," was released on October 28, 2021. It allows players to investigate the sins of the corpses they receive. With the help of a new character named Euric and an amnesiac half-ghost named Smiler, players must remove sins from both the living and the dead. This DLC also introduces new methods to improve corpse quality and adds remote control features for some crafting stations.
Physical version
A physical copy of the game, called Graveyard Keeper – Undead Edition, was released for the Nintendo Switch by Atari on February 21, 2025. This release includes the main game and all three DLC packs.