Get ready for another round of punishment, because Darkest Dungeon II officially exits early access today. The original Darkest Dungeon was one of the games that kicked off the current roguelike revival back in the mid-2010s, and needless to say, the market has become a lot more saturated since then. That said, Vancouver-based developer Red Hook Studios are mixing up the formula with Darkest Dungeon II. The roguelike elements are still there, but this time around the traditional dungeon has been replaced by a deadly road trip as your party rides a stagecoach through very unfriendly terrain. You can check out the launch trailer for Darkest Dungeon II, below.
Looking appropriately bleak! Here’s a rundown of what Darkest Dungeon II will offer at launch, and in the months beyond…
“At launch the game will feature 12 playable characters with a complete narrative featuring 5 acts. Each act is a challenging expedition in which you assemble a party of four heroes and then navigate a series of deadly regions in a quest to reach the Mountain, which houses an imposing end boss themed to that particular Confession. The final two acts and our blight-fueled 12th playable character, The Flagellant, will be new to our 1.0 release. You can also expect to see corpse art, hero palettes, weapon kits, radiant and infernal flames, achievements and a plethora of other features.
Looking forward, we have a number of free updates planned that range from content to quality-of-life. We’ve already committed to new monsters (the Collector and the Gaunt Chirurgeon), playable hero origin skins, and of course, ongoing balance and tuning based on your feedback. Like we did on the original Darkest Dungeon, we are also planning to devote time to developing modding tools after our 1.0 release.”
Already a fan of the Darkest Dungeon franchise? Well, if you buy on Steam, you can get a discount on Darkest Dungeon II if you own the first game. And if you’re new to the series, you can grab both games for 25 percent off by buying the limited-time “The Iron Crown” bundle.
Darkest Dungeon is available now on PC (via both the Epic Games Store and Steam).
