May 10

May 10 Review | Darkest Dungeon 2 - Smoother and Slicker, But With Less [Grim] Pizzazz

In a 2021 interview with GamingBolt Chris Bourassa, Darkest Dungeon 2’s Creative Lead, shared that Red Hook Studios were not trying to craft a sequel that could surpass the original indie smash hit. Instead, the team were seeking to “let DD2 have its own identity and not evaluate it relative to its older brother”. Two years later, you can see that DD2 is a pretty significant departure from the first, even from a cursory gaze into Darkest Dungeon 2’s abyss. Red Hook Studios’ goal here seems pretty noble then, to offer an alternative experience from the original, not a replacement. It’s tempting to follow Red Hook Studios, to evaluate DD2 without reference to the first, but just as it might be bad faith to constantly compare this game to its massively successful “older brother”, it’s also dishonest to pretend that the first game doesn’t exist when discussing a direct sequel.

Try taking a breather without breathing.

Darkest Dungeon 2’s biggest change is a structural one. While the first game was certainly rogue-lite-esque, the sequel has fully committed to the genre. What this means in practice is that every expedition is longer, and almost entirely separate from previous runs. Even if a hero survives an expedition, or you cut your losses and escape before you reach the final boss, unlike the first game, that hero is gone (more or less). This essentially means that there is no hero management between expeditions. Is this an improvement on the original? For me, someone who found the sanity management slightly grindy and didn’t want to commit hours into crafting the perfect hero roster in the original to be a bit too on the grindy side, maybe yeah- it suits me better.

To a certain extent, I can appreciate that the hero management was one of the systems that made the first game truly stand out in the saturated indie-rogue-lite market. Removing the system definitely feels like the safer option, making the sequel more in line with other titles in the genre, yet it’s hard to shake the feeling that DD2 lost some of what made that first game so special in this process. Tucking into the grisly meat of DD2 brings out this feeling again and again; among all the polish and refinement, it's the flashes of the original that invite visions of a sequel that could have been more compelling by expanding on these elements instead of peeling them back.

Darkest Dungeon 2 has plenty of meat on its bones.

Each expedition is much longer now. The longer run time does make DD2 more suitable for long play sessions than its predecessor, which is a pretty neutral change for me at least. Not every game is better because you can grind away at it every day for 15 minutes, sometimes it is nice to put two solid hours into something and come away feeling like you have progressed. The game’s sense of scale has increased most dramatically thanks to the exponentially bigger scope of your travel. From an on-foot journey into the depths of the estate, to a carriage journey across entire lands, each with their own signature strain of malignancy. Gone are the small rooms and winding corridors that you have to map out and trace in each run, in DD2 progress is always forward. Forks in the road give you control over which obstacles you do or don’t attempt, but notably, there’s no way to go back on yourself. While this new traversal system is more streamlined, it reduces the importance of area layout and route planning. The first game’s randomly generated estate actually added to the cosmic horror, as it gave the impression that the estate was shifting and changing. Every time you returned the rooms were familiar but out of place, it created a constant and subtle unease. Darkest Dungeon 2’s ever-forward traversal isn’t bad, it just doesn’t tie in thematically as neatly.

There are a few things that Darkest Dungeon 2 does that is impressive regardless of its relative lack of character when compared to the original. The first, and perhaps most impressive is the game’s presentation. Enemies, locations, side characters in inns and stores, the overworld and the carriage you use to rattle through it, are creative and so gothicly ghoulish. Plenty of enemies have that “so gross I can’t look away” factor, and even some allies do too. Not to mention that the change to 3D models for heroes and enemies has opened the door to some super slick animations. Much of my early excitement with the game was just trying out abilities and heroes so that I could see how each character twirled around. It can’t really be overstated how fantastic this game is to just look at, every frame in what could have been a very static-looking game is bursting with a vile and corrupted life.

The bubble foetus is a personal favourite of mine.

The combat is also a grim joy, and here the refinements made to the original game’s combat system are a marked improvement. The most significant change is the introduction of tokens, which replace and build upon the dodge and riposte system from 2015. Tokens are essentially card battler-inspired blips that provide buffs and debuffs, similar to Slay the Spire. They give the player greater control of when they want to use skills like dodge, as well as tonnes of new tools for fighting the chthonic hordes. For example, my favourite token is the “Combo” token which can be applied to enemies and does nothing by itself - instead, it adds extra effects to a bunch of other heroes’ abilities. Additions like “Combo” or the Vestal’s “Conviction” add an extra layer of decision-making and player expression to combat, whilst also making combat easier to understand and read.

One of DD2’s most talked about new features is the Relationship system, which adds the possibility that characters in a run will form friendships or become antagonistic. As your heroes travel towards their final destination, there are several opportunities for heroes to gain or lose affinity with each other. At high or low-affinity scores, heroes gain increased chances to form positive or negative relationships with each other. For example, heroes with positive relationships will occasionally banter or flirt on the road or during fights or a friendly hero may intervene to stop their friend being hit (or to hit back). On top of this, heroes with relationships link one ability to the other hero, maybe if two heroes hate each other, when one hero heals, the other hero damages themself out of spite. The issue with this system for me, is that outside of combat it doesn’t really create the emergent narratives you might imagine would be inherent to a system like this. I’m thinking of the kinds of player and system-driven narratives that are only possible through the random generation of roguelike games. None of the relationships between characters are deep or exciting enough outside of combat, for me to tell friends about when talking about the game. This kind of thing would really help to give Darkest Dungeon 2 the character it lacks.

It’s easier than ever to experiment with different hero compositions.

A new feature which hasn’t been discussed too much pre-release is Hero Shrines. These are locations that allow you to delve into the backstory of one of your currently available heroes. Each hero has five chapters of backstory to discover, with the highlight being story combat encounters. The more of these I discover, the more I love this system and wish more had been done with it. Each of the playable story chapters has unique little mechanics to suit the narrative moment, many of them more closely resemble a puzzle than a typical combat encounter. I love seeing the combat systems used in creative ways, and it’s even better that unique mechanics are fitting to each hero’s kit and backstory. I only wish similar puzzle-y story moments had been used outside of the hero shrines. Again it’s something that could have given DD2 the X-factor that its older brother had.

I might sound negative in this critique, but that is only because I enjoy so much what the game was trying to do. In fact, I’ve really had a great time with Darkest Dungeon 2 so far, and will likely forge on to the end of the game. However, I do worry that once I have sunk to the depths of The Mountain for the last time, I won’t come back to it, or think about it as much as I did its predecessor. Darkest Dungeon 2 does not lack content or challenge though, so I guess I should keep my thoughts on the road, and the near-insurmountable tasks along it.