Dave the Diver In the Jungle is a paid content pack that launched on June 18 2026 across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch, and it pulls the series away from the reef to deliver more than ten hours of fresh story, a reworked combat system, and a stack of new mini games. Reviewers have treated it less like a small add on and more like a pseudo sequel, with several outlets noting that it plays like an entirely separate game built on the same charming foundation.
The original Dave the Diver was one of the breakout hits of its year, a genre blender that mixed relaxed underwater exploration with frantic sushi restaurant management. In the Jungle keeps studio Mintrocket's willingness to throw wildly different ideas into one package, but it swaps the blue depths for dense green canopy and asks players to adapt everything they learned below the waves to a completely different environment.
What does the In the Jungle DLC actually add?
The pack adds a lengthy standalone narrative, new exploration challenges, a new combat system, and a set of new characters and mini games. Where the base game framed every dive as a loop of gathering ingredients and then serving them at night, the jungle setting reshuffles that rhythm and introduces systems that lean harder on traversal and encounter design than on the cooking cycle that defined the original.
That reinvention is the whole pitch. Reviewers at PC Gamer described it as packed to the gills with activities and full of great characters, while Game8 handed it an 88 and called it a must have for anyone who liked the base game. The praise is not universal, and at least one outlet docked it hard for a narrative that wanders, but the consensus is that the moment to moment play is rich enough to carry it.
Is it worth buying for fans of the original?
For people who sank dozens of hours into the first game, In the Jungle is an easy recommendation because it respects what made the original tick while refusing to simply repeat it. The combat overhaul alone gives returning players a reason to relearn the systems, and the volume of content is generous for a content pack rather than a full priced release.
Newcomers are in a slightly trickier spot, since the pack assumes some familiarity with the loop and the cast, and it lands with the most weight if you already understand the world it is bending out of shape. The smartest move is to play the base game first and then treat this as the second act it clearly wants to be. Either way, it is one more sign that Mintrocket has no interest in making the same game twice.