Dungeon Crawler Carl Is Officially Replacing Carl In New November 2026 Release

Published Oct 1, 2026, 8:42 AM EDT

Nicholas Becher is a gaming journalist with an MFA in Creative Writing from FAU. With extensive experience playing video games, he covers all forms of gaming content at Screen Rant, from breaking news to the latest fan theories. Most-played games range from Clair Obscur to Civ to Elden Ring to Halo 2 and beyond. 

Dungeon Crawler Carl has gone from a cult LitRPG favorite to a full-blown publishing phenomenon, and anticipation surrounding the end of Matt Dinniman's series is now at an all-time high. Following A Parade of Horribles, the story is barreling toward its biggest installment yet, with the concluding adventure expected to be so massive that it will be divided across two volumes rather than contained in a single release.

That gives Dinniman plenty of room to resolve the increasingly sprawling World Dungeon storyline while bringing Carl and Princess Donut's journey toward its long-awaited conclusion. Carl, in particular, has become inseparable from the franchise, serving as its protagonist and emotional center from the moment Earth was transformed into the galaxy's deadliest game show.

However, fans will soon have an opportunity to experience Dungeon Crawler Carl without Carl occupying that central role in an official new release arriving in November 2026.

Dungeon Crawler Carl Gives Us A New Main Character In November

The upcoming Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game will effectively accomplish something the novels never could, which is replacing Carl as the protagonist of the World Dungeon. The RPG gives us a new take and removes us from Carl's perspective, with Renegade Game Studios' official tabletop RPG allowing players to create their own crawlers and experience the dungeon as the stars of their own adventure.

Players build characters using combinations of backgrounds, skills, races, and classes, with the game offering dozens of options alongside tools for creating entirely original ones. Crawlers initially enter the dungeon with backgrounds inspired by their lives before the collapse, develop their statistics and skills, and, provided they survive until the third floor, gain access to race and class selection. From there, their personal campaign can involve everything from battling mobs and bosses to collecting loot, earning achievements, attracting followers, and dealing with the System AI and the dungeon's various factions.

The RPG specifically allows fans to play established characters including Carl, Donut, Florin, and Prepotente if they prefer. However, its central character-creation system makes the player's own crawler the focus, effectively putting someone new in Carl's boots and allowing an entirely different protagonist to navigate the World Dungeon.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG & Unstoppable Arrive This Fall

Fans will not have to wait much longer to enter the World Dungeon themselves. Renegade Game Studios originally targeted October 2026 for fulfillment of the crowdfunded Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game and Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable, with the overall BackerKit campaign listing an estimated ship date of October 31. The latest October 1 update confirms fulfillment is moving forward, with nearly 90,000 packages being prepared for more than 55,000 backers across over 50 countries.

That means many crowdfunding supporters should begin receiving their games around October and November 2026, while the wider retail launch is planned for late November. Renegade is already taking pre-orders for both games, with its store listing November releases for the RPG's Core Rulebook and accessories as well as Unstoppable, its Crawler Chaos expansion, and the Iron Tangle expansion.

November is only the beginning for the RPG, however. Its first digital Season Pass is scheduled to run from November 2026 through October 2027, delivering 10 content drops containing new neighborhoods, enemies, classes, races, equipment, and pre-generated crawlers. Between the two tabletop games, expansions, and continued RPG support, Dungeon Crawler Carl is poised to enter a new era in gaming this Fall.

Dungeon Crawler Carl