Darkest Dungeon II

[Ronnie]

Time to get the hype wagon rolling on this one, literally because it's seemingly Oregon Trail meets Slay the Spire. 

Reveal trailer from 2019:

 

 

Teaser trailer from 2020:

 

Exclusive article in PC Gamer a week and a bit ago with the first gameplay info

Summary:

- New structure! Roguelite road trip with progression between runs (DD1 had you making lots of runs to the same 4/5 areas, but it was one linear campaign)
- 2.5D visuals during combat, 3D visuals for overworld exploration in your wagon
- 5 areas. Successful run would take 5 hours
- "Every region is divided into branching paths, each hode a battle or ruin to investigate or an encounter with survivors who need your help"
- 9 characters at launch, 8 returning, 1 new. Skills for each have been expanded from 7 to 11. More characters on the way.
- You pick 4 classes and they're with you until you win or lose.
- Permadeath, character quirks and stress level are still a big part of gameplay, but now so are relationships between characters. Gameplay choices you make impact those relations.
- Combat similar but more strategic and less reliant on RNG stats like accuracy (I think that's what they're getting at at least)
- Lots of upgrades
- DD1 made by five people. DD2 a team of 20.

There's tons more in the article I'm probably forgetting.

Releasing in Early Access in Q3 2021, full release about a year later. Lots of updates planned for the game, similar to DD1.

 

Screenshots:

Edited June 7, 2021 by Ronnie

[Ronnie]

First gameplay footage:

Looks fantastic. 

[LazyBoy]

Have they just made the original 3D? Looks like all the classes are the same.

[Ronnie]

There's one new class for Early Access with more on the way apparently.

It's a totally different gameplay loop outside of battles. They said they didn't want to just make DD but better, they wanted to make a brand new game.

[Ronnie]

Early Access is out now, full release about a year away. It seems to be getting rave reviews and sounds like the Red Hook team are onto another winner with the sequel.

 

 

 

[LazyBoy]

Yeah quite psyched for this after reading all that. It sounds like the biggest change is from the more classic 'level select' structure, to the more zeitgeist-y rogue like 'run' structure, which is a fairly substaintial change, and one I welcome. Its a wierd one, because part of the reason I was originally attracted to the first was that you had the Fire Emblem esque character building system, with the members of your party developing over time. However because life is so cheap in the first game, and often a character would have to sit it out after only one run to recover, it was really hard to build those bonds between yourself and the characters that makes FE games so rich (at least in the old games before they started having fucking tea parties). Also it looks incredible - those battle animations! Will wait for the switch port.