Dave the Diver: In the Jungle takes the Blue Hole crew out of saltwater and drops them into a remote jungle settlement called Utara, where a freshwater lake has gone foul and prehistoric carcasses keep washing ashore. It is built as the biggest expansion the game has had, layering relationship-building, an explorable village, and turn-based jungle fights on top of the familiar dive-and-cook loop. The result feels close to a small sequel, even though it is sold as downloadable content.
Quick answer: In the Jungle launched June 18, 2026 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2. It runs about 10 hours across seven chapters, with roughly 80 catchable fish, 30 bug species, a new Bancho Grill restaurant, and the multifunction Jungle Gun. You can buy it on the Steam store page.
What In the Jungle is and how it differs from the base game
The core premise stays intact. You dive by day, gather ingredients, and run a restaurant at night. What changes is everything around that loop. The ocean is replaced by a jungle lake, the sushi bar becomes a grill, and Utara Village is a real-time, isometric overworld you can walk through, talk in, and build up over time. Dave even gets his own customizable home in the village.
| Element | Base game | In the Jungle |
|---|---|---|
| Diving environment | Ocean (saltwater) | Utara Lake (freshwater) |
| Restaurant | Bancho Sushi | Bancho Grill |
| Overworld | Minimal hubs | Real-time isometric village |
| Villager system | Basic interactions | Affinity / relationship-building |
| Land combat | None | Turn-based battles |
| Length | 20–30 hours | ~10 hours, 7 chapters |
Utara Village and the Affinity system
You reach Utara by boat after word spreads of a strange creature on its shores. The locals are wary of outsiders at first, and the village chief, Panutah, is the one who eases the introductions. Trust is earned through an Affinity system. You complete small tasks and hand over gifts matched to each villager’s interests, and as their hearts fill, they begin visiting your restaurant and unlocking new daily activities.
The cast carries a lot of the charm. There is a couple where the husband sneaks off to gamble while dreading his wife finding out, a girl named Lipah who collects fireflies and lizards for her garden, and a coming-of-age ritual you take part in for a nervous boy. New faces drift in over time too, including a group of UFO enthusiasts and a rock guitarist, several of whom you can hire as staff. The everyday side stories land more cleanly than the main plot, which plays out as a fairly standard mystery for anyone who finished the original.
Freshwater diving and the Jungle Gun
The lake feels conceptually like the Blue Hole, with a layout that shifts between dives but keeps an underlying structure you can learn. The difference is the wildlife. Freshwater means dozens of new creatures, with crocodiles, electric eels, and giant sturgeon among the tougher catches. Hydrogen sulphide pollution blocks you from diving too deep early on, so you upgrade a purification filter to push past that barrier. Clean the water and the environment turns lush, with fresh species appearing.
Because you arrive with none of your old gear, the difficulty resets. That makes the dives genuinely threatening again, which the late base game stopped being once everything was fully upgraded. The Jungle Gun anchors your loadout. It combines a net, a sniper rifle, a shotgun, and a basic rifle into one tool you can switch between mid-dive, with a separate upgrade tree for each mode through Muna, the research assistant stationed in the village.
The dive boss fights mix in small puzzle wrinkles. You can trap the village’s terrorizing black caiman in branches or wedge a branch in its mouth as it lunges, and a prehistoric shark can be lured into stone pillars to stun it. The deeper story leads you to ruins of the ancient Sunang civilization, where you recover old equipment that aids future dives.
Bancho Grill and restaurant changes
Bancho Grill replaces the sushi bar and uses the village’s local ingredients for new recipes. The night service is familiar, but a few twists fit the open-air setting. Dave now works a skewer grill alongside running plates from the kitchen, drinks are served through minigames, and the isometric movement comes into play as you cover more ground. You also have to shoo away monkeys before they swipe a plate of food.
The grill streamlines some of the busywork. The full vetting and training of new hires is trimmed down, so building your staff is quicker. Villagers only start eating there once you have raised their relationship level, which ties the restaurant directly to the social systems. The menu itself draws on real Southeast Asian cuisine, with the team having researched regional cooking processes and seasonings firsthand.
New activities and turn-based jungle combat
Utara packs in side content that fills your daily schedule. The minigames and systems are simple by design, sitting closer to a Stardew Valley-lite than a deep simulation, but there is a lot of it.
- A shooting range and an animal-stacking sculpture challenge
- Beetle battles decided through a rock-paper-scissors showdown
- Catching and raising lizards in terrariums
- Traditional fishing and bug catching, with about 30 bug species to collect
- Resource gathering like chopping wood and mining ore for furniture
The headline addition is full turn-based combat. Once unlocked, you venture into the jungle and temple areas and fight beetles and beasts in a Pokemon-style system, buying better weapons from Rimbo. This is where opinions split most. The fights become repetitive, and the bosses act as damage sponges with large health pools and little flair, which is a noticeable step down from the more reactive dive bosses. A practical warning applies here. Do not flee every encounter, or you will be badly underleveled when a story boss forces a fight.
The narrative issue worth knowing about
The framing of the main story has drawn sharp criticism. The setup positions Bancho, a sushi chef, as the expert who must teach the villagers how to cook freshwater fish to avoid parasites, which leans on a tired colonial trope and undercuts its own worldbuilding. It is the single most divisive element and the main reason scores stretch from the low 90s down to a 40 out of 100. If that kind of premise bothers you, go in aware of it.
Platforms, length, and where it sits
The expansion released June 18, 2026 and is rated E10+. It carries seven chapters, in line with the base game, but with fewer fish (around 80 versus more than 100) and a shorter runtime, which is part of why it is downloadable content rather than a numbered sequel. The 2.5D pixel art runs smoothly on modern hardware, the color palette pops during set pieces like the coming-of-age ritual, and stability is solid aside from occasional rare hitches.
If the original Dave the Diver clicked for you, In the Jungle gives you a generous new setting that keeps the gathering, cooking, and diving rhythm intact while throwing half a dozen fresh ideas at the wall. Not all of them stick, the turn-based fights and the central story being the weakest links, but the village, its oddball residents, and the reset difficulty of freshwater diving carry the experience. The ending also hints at more to come, and a Bancho-focused spin-off is on the way, so this expansion reads as a sign the series intends to keep growing.
