Red Hook Studios landed a real hit with the dark dungeon crawler Darkest Dungeon, which emerged from a successful Kickstarter campaign. Today the successor Darkest Dungeon 2 leaves the early access phase and appears in the finished version 1.0 in the Epic Games Store and on Steam.
With hand-drawn graphics and roguelike-The developers remain fundamentally true to elements such as turn-based combat. The carriage is new as a vehicle for four heroes, who start the journey through different regions of a dying world to a mountain where the boss is waiting. You have to defeat him to avert the apocalypse.
The story extends over five acts in the usual gloomy setting. The group can be put together from twelve playable characters and, like the carriage itself, equipped for the adventure. A significant part of the game mechanics, namely the influence of the psychological stress on the heroes through the horror they have experienced, must not be missing in the new part either.
Darkest Dungeon 2 (Image: Red Hook Studios)
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The turn-based combat system also makes a return, although “everything from the values to the rules“ has been optimized, according to Red Hook. The new token system gives the gameplay more depth, it says in the brief description on Steam.
In October 2021, Darkest Dungeon 2 was launched as an Early Access version at Epic Games. The finished game will be released today on the Epic Games Store and for the first time too on Steam. Epic Games only charges 35.99 euros at the moment and there is also a discount if you own the predecessor. On Steam, however, the price is 38.99 euros.
Development continues, mod support to follow
But “done” doesn’t mean finished, because like the predecessor, there should be more content after the release, such as new events and opponents. A number of free updates are planned, which also include quality-of-life improvements. Support for modifications is also planned, but the corresponding modding tools should only be introduced at a later date.