Red Hook Studios has announced a February 2023 release window for Darkest Dungeon 2, the sequel to turn-based roguelike Darkest Dungeon.
For those playing the game already, you should know changes are coming to the game, and the team has shaken up the update pipeline a bit.
The Early Access game’s most recent update, The Shroud of the Deep, contained a large amount of new content, mechanics, and quality-of-life improvements. The team is now squashing some of the last bugs and plans to introduce final improvements.
In a development update, Red Hook Studios also announced it will release more frequent updates in the form of smaller-scoped milestone releases.
The team also noted there are three main areas of the game requiring work and dedicated focus. These are progression, relationships, and driving. The studio will be assigning additional time and team members to these areas which the studio believes are essential to creating a great game.
With progression, the current system is getting a complete overhaul and will provide a much “stronger and compelling link” between expeditions, and is focused around a hub through which you will increase your capabilities and unlock new items.
Because the studio feels relationships aren’t currently as engaging as they should be, and the plan is to add some tension and surprise, more meaningful choice to the system, and make both benefits and drawbacks more active and tactical.
Driving will change too as the team feels it needs more tension such as the possibility of stumbling on a trap, or the possibility of a blockage, or even an ambush. It is also looking to add new decision-making layers to the driving sequences, which in turn will open up new avenues to enhance the preparatory aspects of journeying.
Since the studio will be prioritizing the aforementioned, it will be moving away from creating a new region/faction. Instead of creating a new region’s worth of world content, the studio is focusing the environment team on enriching the current set of regions with new sights and route variation. This will make existing regions more interesting when going on repeated runs.
Because they are refocusing the character team away from another region-specific faction, the move will be to new minibosses that can appear anywhere. The number of playable characters, final bosses, and overall character scope and production effort remain unchanged.
The next milestone will be a Trinket overhaul, after which the studio will be reinforcing the Cultist faction with new units and a new home. Following that, the progression overhaul will be rolled out.
Announced in 2019, the game went into Early Access through the Epic Games Store back in 2021.
Darkest Dungeon 2 will be released through the Epic Games Store and Steam with consoles to follow. You can still get in on the Early Access period if you like for $26.99.
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