Darkest Dungeon 2 - Releasing May 8th 2023

[Silver]

Red Hook Studios has announced on Twitter that Darkest Dungeon 2 will be available May 8th 2023 on Steam and Epic Game Store.

It's official! Darkest Dungeon II releases into 1.0 on May 8th, 2023 on Steam and EGS. WISHLIST the game on Steam now to get notified as soon as you can play: http://bit.ly/3HhBaGs Get full details on our 1.0 PC release here: http://bit.ly/40BHBNI

More information.

 

[Pladio]

Oh that's cool - Played the first bits on EA and had a lot more fun with it than I did with DD1. I look forward to playing this one

 

[JDR13]

There's also a playable demo right now for the Steam Next Fest.

 

[Drithius]

Thought this was out over a year ago, to be honest. Must have been EA... *thud*

 

[SveNitoR]

Been playing it a bit now and then. At first I found it too frustrating, but they've done some very good changes, like the change to the altar of hope (upgrades between runs) and a recent one to the relationships and to the banter. Now I enjoy it.

It's been going slow, so I'm not sure if it will be completely ready in May, but I'm guessing they've done a lot of work behind the scenes. The current version is also surprisingly polished to be early access.

 

[Carnifex]

I did enjoy the first game for what it was, not sure if I'd be compelled to try the sequel, though I'll keep an eye here to see what others think on it.

 

[Pladio]

I did enjoy the first game for what it was, not sure if I'd be compelled to try the sequel, though I'll keep an eye here to see what others think on it.

I really did not like the first one - but mostly because of the management element. Not a fan of managing a roster of 20 people. In this one, it's just the 4 you start with. Feels much better to me.

 

[Carnifex]

I'm actually ok with a large stable, assuming those on the bench get some portion of experience as well. If not, nope!

 

[bjon045]

I'm actually ok with a large stable, assuming those on the bench get some portion of experience as well. If not, nope!

Agreed. I find it hard to suffer the lost of a character if you have replaced them with a completely fresh character! I like how in xcom/PP there are training centers that allow soldiers to get up to a solid level of experience but not elite.

 

[Lakorus]

They addressed some of those issues with a patch. It was possible to recruit characters up to level 3(?).
I really enjoyed the "speedrun" variant of the game, in which the grinding was cut back quite a bit. I still have to finish the game, though, because I tried the infamous final dungeon once and had my well-trained squad killed at once or permanently handicapped (I don't quite remember what happened). I quit the game for good then, because the whole game was too long to do "trial and error" in the final dungeon!
I will keep an eye on the sequel.

 

[SveNitoR]

I'm actually ok with a large stable, assuming those on the bench get some portion of experience as well. If not, nope!

There's no experience in this game. There's permanent upgrades and unlocks between runs of whatever characters one enjoys playing with, and some temporary upgrades.

The game goes like this:
1. Start a run, chose which four characters to use.
2. Drive the coach to the Altar of Hope (permanent upgrade mechanic).
3. Short run with some very basic encounters to the first Inn.
4. At the inn, chose some temporary upgrades, choose the next destination, rest and get relationship changes.
5. Do the destination, reach the next inn.
6. Same as 4.
7. Do this loop a maximum of four times or until one beats a boss which allows one to attack the Mountain where one of several final bosses can be fought against.
8. After either retiring (at an Inn) or a wipe, start over with upgrade currency to spend at the Altar of Hope (step 2). A wipe leads to a loss of a lot of the upgrade currency.

During a run one has only four characters, which can get skill upgrades for this run. But if one dies it gets replaced by a random unlocked character at the Inn, so in this case one can get a suboptimal character which sort of sucks.

The upgrade currency (candles of hope) gets decreased a lot if one has a complete wipe, and continuing a run with a non upgraded character increases this risk. So thus far, I've always chosen to quit the run at the Inn if I've lost a char, to be sure I get to keep all the upgrade currency to increase the chances next run instead.