Shadow of the Depth: How to Unlock Playable Characters

To unlock new playable characters in Shadow of the Depth, you must complete dungeon floor milestones, bank persistent soul currency across your runs, and purchase character unlocks at their respective pedestals in the base camp hub.

Arthur is available immediately when starting a new profile, while the remaining heroes require specific progression steps and currency investments before you can select them for an expedition.

Camp Hub Recruitment Mechanics

All character recruitment takes place in the central camp hub where your hero respawns between dungeon runs:

Inspect Character Pedestals: Walk up to any locked hero shrine in the camp to view the exact unlock requirements, including required boss defeats or floor milestones.
Retain Soul Meta-Currency: Unlike temporary run-specific gold, souls earned from clearing elite rooms and defeating bosses persist after death.
Confirm Recruitment: Once you meet a hero's progression threshold and hold enough banked souls, interact with their pedestal to permanently unlock them.

Character Unlock Requirements

Each character introduces a distinct playstyle ranging from ranged kiting to elemental area-of-effect spells.

Hero	Combat Archetype	Primary Unlock Condition	Tactical Role
Arthur	Melee / Sword and Shield	Available by default	Blocks and parries attacks while using wide melee sweeps
Phyllis	Physical Ranged / Archer	Clear early chapter content and pay base soul cost	Kites bosses safely from range and controls space with traps
Stephanie	Elemental Magic / Sorceress	Defeat the Chapter 1 boss and bank mid-tier souls	Freezes crowds and applies burning damage with ranged spells
Ginzo	Fast Melee / Katana Specialist	Reach mid-to-late dungeon floors and pay soul cost	Executes rapid multi-hit combos and agile counter-attacks
Arya	Assassin / Dual Daggers	Clear deep dungeon runs and pay high-tier soul cost	Relies on high critical strike damage and evasive dashes

Recommended Unlock Priority

Because soul costs increase significantly for later heroes, unlocking characters in a structured order helps prevent progression stalls:

Recruit Phyllis first: Unlocking Phyllis provides a safe, ranged alternative for encounters that penalize close-range melee combat.
Recruit Stephanie second: Stephanie offers dependable crowd control against dense mob rooms in deeper biomes where physical blocking becomes difficult.
Save for Ginzo and Arya last: These agile melee specialists require precise timing, parrying, and knowledge of enemy attack animations to survive higher-difficulty floors.

After recruiting a character, complete a low-risk run with them to learn their specific attack ranges and defensive abilities before pushing into deeper dungeon milestones.