Some weeks, the biggest review story is not a new platform war or a sequel with a billboard budget. It is a smaller thing that arrives with less noise, then keeps gathering praise because the people who played it sound faintly surprised by how much game is in there.
That is where Dave the Diver: In the Jungle sits right now. OpenCritic lists Mintrocket's expansion with a 92 Top Critic Average, 93 percent Critics Recommend, and 31 critic reviews. For a $10 DLC, that is not just healthy. It is loud in the specific way review aggregation can be loud: a lot of different writers circling the same thought from different angles. This is more than a side dish.
The basic facts are simple enough. Dave the Diver: In the Jungle released on June 18, 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo Switch, according to OpenCritic. It moves Dave away from the familiar Blue Hole and into a remote village, where a lake, a jungle, Bancho's new grill setup, and a pile of fresh minigames reshape the old loop without throwing it away.
The consensus is unusually clean: critics think In the Jungle is generous, charming, and bigger than its DLC label suggests. The interesting part is where the praise gets a little nervous. Several reviews also point at the same pressure point. Dave the Diver was already a game about being pulled in ten directions. In the Jungle adds even more directions.
Dave the Diver: In the Jungle review scores point to a very strong consensus
The headline number is the 92 OpenCritic average. The score spread at the top is narrow enough to tell its own story. PC Gamer gave it 90/100. Digital Chumps scored it 9.3/10. Gamers Heroes landed at 90/100. Gamer Social Club gave it 9/10. DayOne scored it 9.5/10. Uagna gave it 9/10. Loot Level Chill went with 9.5/10, and Game8 scored it 88/100.
That is not a polarized reception. It is a chorus with a few careful notes underneath.
PC Gamer's Christopher Livingston called it "packed to the gills with activities and swimming with great characters," adding that In the Jungle is "just as charming and surprising as the base game." The full review makes clear that the surprise is scale. Livingston writes about spending more than 25 hours with what he expected to be a weekend distraction, then finding boss fights, bird hunting, beetle management, car chases, fishing, turn-based combat, restaurant work, and village relationships layered into the expansion.
Digital Chumps' Will Silberman reached a similar place from a slightly more cautious angle. His verdict says In the Jungle is "a meaningful expansion of the Dave the Diver-verse" that opens the world beyond the Blue Hole, adds new minigames, and builds Dave's relationship with a cast of villagers. He also notes that his review period included some instability on Nintendo Switch 2, including input lag and random crashes, though some crashes had been patched by the time he wrote.
Gamer Social Club's Vikki McGowan described the DLC as the game's "newest and most expansive expansion" and praised its mystery, new dishes, and the sheer amount to do. Her review also has the line that may be the most honest criticism in the bunch: there may be "a few too many new things to juggle down in the jungle." That is the whole argument in one sentence. In the Jungle is strong because it is overflowing. It is also occasionally tiring because it is overflowing.
The praise: critics like the way In the Jungle makes Dave feel more rooted
The strongest thread across the reviews is not just that there is more content. Reviewers keep coming back to how the new setting changes the feel of the day.
In the base game, Dave's life has a clean rhythm: dive, gather, survive, serve sushi, repeat. In the Jungle keeps the diving and restaurant bones, but it lets the surface breathe more. PC Gamer points to the village as the piece that makes the expansion feel less segmented. Dave can wake up in a cabin, walk into the village, gather plants, cut wood, mine ore, speak to locals, then head into the lake. Livingston writes that In the Jungle makes Dave feel like he is "really living in the world" in a way the original game did not.
That matters because Dave the Diver has always worked partly because Dave himself is easy to root for. He is not a blank mascot. He is a tired, kind, slightly overwhelmed man who keeps saying yes to everybody. In the Jungle leans into that. The villagers have relationship meters, likes and dislikes, side quests, and reasons to slowly trust Dave and Bancho. Digital Chumps reads that shift as meaningful because Bancho's Grill depends less on online hype and more on interpersonal relationships with the village. That is a small mechanical change with a nice emotional consequence. You are not just optimizing a restaurant. You are trying to belong somewhere.
The other big point of praise is variety. Reviewers describe freshwater diving, the Jungle Gun with multiple modes, grill management, furniture crafting, resource gathering, turn-based jungle combat, timing-based guards and attacks, beetle battles, bird hunting, block puzzles, music minigames, fishing ponds, and a shooting range. Written out like that, it sounds absurd. In practice, critics mostly say the absurdity is the appeal.
DayOne's Jesse Norris summed that up by saying the "quality and variety" are something few games can match. Loot Level Chill went even further, saying In the Jungle is "packed full of new ideas and jungle charm" and could almost be sold as a game in its own right. That is probably the clearest explanation for the high aggregate score. Critics are reviewing DLC, but many of them are reacting as if Mintrocket shipped a second campaign.
The criticism: there is a limit to how much charm can carry
The caveats do not sink the reception, but they are worth taking seriously.
Digital Chumps is the most useful review here because it praises the expansion while naming the friction. Silberman calls out Switch 2 instability during the review window. He also argues that the village and jungle can make Dave feel heavy. The base game's charm came from an elegant split between sea exploration and restaurant service. In the Jungle adds more land movement, real-time village routines, and daily choice pressure. That gives the world more texture, but it also means Dave spends more time trudging through spaces that do not always move with the same snap as his underwater life.
Gamer Social Club makes the related point from a player-feel perspective. McGowan liked most of the new systems, including the turn-based combat, but she still felt the pile-up. Furniture crafting, shooting range, block-stacking, relationship work, fishing, restaurant service, diving, combat, side quests. Any one of these can be charming. Together, they risk the specific kind of Dave the Diver overload where you laugh at the next surprise, then quietly wonder when you are supposed to get back to the thing you set out to do.
The beetle battle minigame appears to be the clearest miss among the reviews I checked. Digital Chumps calls it far too dependent on randomness and says it is impossible to master in a satisfying way. That does not seem to damage the overall recommendation, but it matters because Dave the Diver's design bargain is built on trust. The game keeps throwing new systems at you, and you accept them because most of them are better than they need to be. When one feels thin, the spell breaks for a minute.
That is the useful caution in the consensus. In the Jungle is not being praised because every piece is perfect. It is being praised because the messy whole still feels generous, funny, and alive.
Why this reception matters
Review aggregation can flatten games into numbers too quickly. A 92 sounds clean. The actual story is warmer and weirder than that.
In the Jungle is scoring like a major release because critics are responding to craft density. Mintrocket took a game already known for changing shape every few hours and made an expansion that changes shape even more. It gives Dave a new place to inhabit, gives Bancho a reason to cook differently, gives the villagers enough personality to make relationship-building matter, and gives reviewers a surprising amount to describe.
For Perthro, that is the kind of review story worth saving. Not just the score, but the reason you cared. If you track Dave the Diver as played, plan to play In the Jungle next, or write a few lines after finishing it, the useful part is the note you leave yourself: critics loved the village, the generosity, the weird minigames, and Dave's humble pull through all of it. They were less sure about the occasional overload and the rougher side activities. That is a better memory than a number alone.
The verdict from critics
Dave the Diver: In the Jungle looks like one of the better-reviewed expansions of 2026 so far. The score range is tight, the praise is specific, and the criticisms are more about excess than absence. PC Gamer, Digital Chumps, Gamer Social Club, Game8, DayOne, and others all point toward the same conclusion: this is a large, warm, slightly overstuffed expansion that understands why people liked Dave in the first place.
If you bounced off the base game because its endless variety felt like busywork, In the Jungle probably will not change your mind. It adds more systems, not fewer. But if your favorite part of Dave the Diver was never knowing what strange job the game would hand you next, critics seem unusually confident about this one. It is a DLC that behaves like a sequel, for better and occasionally for too much.
That feels about right for Dave. He goes on vacation, finds a polluted lake, opens a grill, makes friends, fights monsters, manages beetles, and somehow still looks embarrassed when anyone says thank you. Critics noticed. So should anyone trying to decide what to play after the big releases stop shouting for a minute.