Dungeon Keeper would inspire several titles throughout gaming’s history. There’s also Dungeons, Realmforge Studios’ franchise, which evolved from killing fully satisfied heroes (don’t ask, I don’t know) to a closer adaptation of Bullfrog’s formula. It mixes dungeon management and building while allowing you to take your forces to the surface to wreak havoc.

"While the story is fairly tongue-in-cheek and doesn’t mess around too much with fantasy tropes, the jokes range from grating to awful."

Over eight years since Dungeons 2 and a whopping 26 years since the original Dungeon Keeper, we have Dungeons 4. It’s bigger, brighter and tries way too hard with the humor, but still an entertaining experience with enough new features.

The story sees Thalya, the Dark Elf, leading her forces against her stepbrother Tristan after murdering her father Tanos. As the Absolute Evil’s servant, Thalya boasts special abilities and can rally nearby units into a frenzy. After laying waste to her brother and seizing his magical gauntlet, she returns to the Dungeon Lord and inadvertently causes their demise. Taking up leadership of the evil armies is outside Thalya’s realm of expertise, and she’s swiftly captured. As the disembodied Evil Hand, it’s your job to rescue her, while going about and laying waste to the forces of good.

While the story is fairly tongue-in-cheek and doesn’t mess around too much with fantasy tropes, the jokes range from grating to awful. You’ll face jokes that mock the Marvel Cinematic Universe, microtransactions, heroic speeches and game design at a rapid clip, with no time to breathe and barely any set-up. It’s like the writers are throwing anything even somewhat relevant to the wall and see if it lands, which rarely happens.

The Narrator tries his best to roll with the punches and deliver them in a deadpan but sophisticated manner, but it all meshes together so horribly. It also doesn’t help that the in-game cinematic sequences (not the 2D cutscenes, which display some noticeable screen-tearing) are so awkwardly put together and executed. I’m not expecting triple-A production values, but these could have been handled better. It may sound overly harsh, but considering how prominent the story and dialogues are during the campaign, it’s a drag every time a new development occurs.

"While it’s possible to pick up and place units anywhere in your dungeon, smacking them around for an added boost, the overworld requires designating spots to attack."

Gameplay-wise, the opening sequence starts with real-time strategy combat. You can select Thalya and different units with the directional pad on the Xbox controller or lasso them all at once. It can get chaotic, especially when thrown into the game for the first time. The good news is that past the annoying story set-up and unfunny circumstances – Thalya doing “the snap” with the Gauntlet of Finitude, har de har – the gameplay proceeds to the actual dungeon building.

You start with a Dungeon Heart and some minions who can mine out different sections underground, discovering Gold Veins and building Treasuries. Hoard enough, and you can spend Gold to hire Goblins, Orcs and Nagas or invest in further research. These units – and many more that pop up during gameplay, like Demons and the Undead – require different resources to sustain themselves. You need to build a Hideout where they can rest and Gobblers to eat.

Demons, on the other hand, don’t need rest but require a Vortex to regenerate if slain. It’s all standard RTS fare, and once you’ve made enough headway with research, you can start constructing Traps to impede any heroes that wander into your dungeon. A new addition to Dungeons 4 are Dwarves, who are also mining for Gold and will try to infiltrate your abode. Since they fall on the side of good, you get some Evil for slaying them, which can bolster your forces and technology.

After enough preparation, you send your forces to the overworld to take out the forces of good. While it’s possible to pick up and place units anywhere in your dungeon, smacking them around for an added boost, the overworld requires designating spots to attack. Sometimes, you encounter other units who are caged – free them, and they join your rampaging army, which further adds to the snowball (and helps get around unit caps).

"Whether you’re underground or in the overworld, environments and character models are vibrant, and the weather effects and lighting can be crisp."

As you destroy more heroic buildings and conquer their armies, the landscape transforms and twists with a dark aura. Assail the required objectives, reap the Evil that comes with them (while building a Vault to store it) and then proceed to the next mission to repeat the process from scratch.

The mission design is decent but not spectacular, and initially familiarizes you with the mechanics while presenting a fun, if not altogether challenging experience, at least on Normal. Getting your bearings can be a little tough initially, especially when your units tire or hunger after a single battle and won’t attack an enemy structure unless plopped next to it. Nevertheless, while it seems lacking in strategic depth, it’s fun to watch your army wash over the enemy and obliterate them.

Maintaining that fervor while adjusting your dungeon, whether it’s traps that slow heroes down and push them into nearby lava, can feel oddly satisfying and somewhat addictive. Being able to rain down magic on unsuspecting enemies also doesn’t hurt and adds to the experience of being the Absolute Evil. The Narrator also doesn’t feel too overbearing throughout all this, though there’s an option to tone down the frequency of his commentary.

Co-op is supported for the campaign and Skirmish, and you can replay missions to unlock different Achievements. Outside of the cutscenes, the presentation is good. Whether you’re underground or in the overworld, environments and character models are vibrant, and the weather effects and lighting can be crisp.

"The series may never live up to Dungeon Keeper’s legacy, but it’s doing a good enough job of establishing its niche and continuously refining it."

The downside is that performance slogs when multiple units are slaying out. It’s not unplayable, but definitely noticeable – thankfully, the combat speed is easy enough to manage even with these issues. The music can get repetitive, especially if your preferred genre isn’t “low-fi evil schemes to terrorize” but thankfully doesn’t grate (your mileage may vary).

Dungeons 4 doesn’t drastically overhaul the formula of its predecessors, instead focusing on refining and adding to it in fun ways. Realmforge knows its core gameplay loop and how to accentuate it in fun ways without overwhelming the player. Given the effort put into the story and its humor, it’s a shame that it feels so throwaway and the characters so bland.

Nevertheless, if you’re looking to build the dungeon of your dreams (or nightmares) and send evil armies out to cause chaos, Dungeons 4 may scratch that particular itch. The series may never live up to Dungeon Keeper’s legacy, but it’s doing a good enough job of establishing its niche and continuously refining it.

This game was reviewed on Xbox Series X.

GamingBolt spoke to Dungeons 3 producer Christian Schlüetter about the series’ Dungeon Keeper inspirations, what’s changed when it comes to creating dungeons and a whole lot more.

"Defending your dungeon will be a lot more difficult than in Dungeons 2. Good heroes will not only walk in a straight line to your dungeon heart and try to destroy it."

The Dungeons franchise seems to take inspiration from Dungeon Keeper. How does Dungeons 3 move away from that and become its own entity?

Yes, we of course draw inspiration from the big dungeon management games and we love Dungeon Keeper in particular. But the Dungeons franchise very much stands out by itself. For one, of course, we implement what was promised for a never-released Dungeon Keeper 3: A fully-fledged do-gooder overworld to conquer and evilfy with your forces of dark dwellers. And of course Dungeons 3 brings a complete co-op experience and randomly generated skirmish and multiplayer maps for virtually endless evil fun. On top of that, the trademark fairy-tale narrator who delivers the typical Dungeons humour is of course pretty unique.

Tone-wise, what’s changed about Dungeons 3 especially since the focus has shifted from the Dungeon Lord to Thayla?

The narrator (Kevan Brigthing of Stanley Parable fame) will reprise his role as the narrator. But now he has to fight for the players attention with Thalya, the Dungeon Lords’ new favourite pet commander of all things evil. Thalya is a dark elf and as such, evil from birth. But she has been brought up by Tanos, a paladin of the light. Thus, she is always torn between good and evil and as such, the perfect target of the ultimate evil. Thalya will fight with herself throughout the game, torn between burning and pillaging and obeying her boring old upbringing. We won’t tell you which spilt personality part wins, but we can guarentee it will be hilarious!

When it comes to creating your own dungeon, what has changed this time around? What tools will players have at their disposal?

SPOILER ALERT: In the end of the addon Dungeons 2: Game of Winter, the Ultimate Evil managed to unite the forces of evil again and bring the horde, demons and undead together. So in Dungeons 3, the player has access to all three factions at once. This also means that dungeon creation and maintenance becomes much more intricate though. The player needs to decide which rooms, spells and units to research in which order, if they want access to the undead first or would rather like to harvest the power of the demon spells earlier.

Also, a lot of the production chains in the dungeon rely on the factions working together. Magical tool boxes for example, used for the production of high-level doors and traps, can only be produced by combining tool boxes made by horde creatures and mana harvested by demons. In addition, defending your dungeon will be a lot more difficult than in Dungeons 2. Good heroes will not only walk in a straight line to your dungeon heart and try to destroy it. They will have different quests ranging from destruction to gold plundering and they will take different routes through your dungeon making efficient trap laying and dungeon building prime directive.

"We opted to only employ the randomly generated maps in skirmish and multiplayer modes of Dungeons 3. The campaign is still hand-crafted with a lot of evil love."

Luckily, you also have new ways to pester the heroes. You can throw them in jail and let them starve to death, creating nice skeletons to fight for you. Or you can let them rot on the graveyard where they will transform into zombies for your army. Or better yet, you can use the torture chamber to turn them into dark versions of themselves fighting for the ultimate evil!

How has the interface changed in the sequel and how will it make dungeon creation easier?

We have made a lot of small changes to the UI to make it more intuitive and to give a better overview for the player. For example, we have unified the way that research is done. In Dungeons 2, research options were mostly bound to each specific room and the player needed to first select the room and then the different research available. In Dungeons 3, there is a central research screen that lets player unlock new rooms, units, spells, traps and doors. This and many other tweaks will make dungeon creation much more intuitive and fun.

What new units can we look forward to this time around and how can they be customized?

Some of the most beloved units will see a comeback like the snots, the orcs, goblins and succubae. But a few new additions will join the ranks as horde, demon and undead work together. Also, every sub-faction now gets its own titan unit, a superweapon of a monster that packs quite a punch and is unique. The horde employs a giant Ogre, the demons bring a fiery Pitfiend to the party and the undead invoke fear in their enemies with the Grave Golem.

Randomly generated levels are a first for the franchise with Dungeons 3. How do they change the overall flow of levels?

We opted to only employ the randomly generated maps in skirmish and multiplayer modes of Dungeons 3. The campaign is still hand-crafted with a lot of evil love. That way, we can ensure that the skirmish and multiplayer matches are always unique and that the campaign delivers engaging and fun missions with a deep storyline and surprising twists and turns.

The randomly generated maps actually use a seed feature similar to Minecraft. This means that if you get a particularly tricky or fun map out of the random generation, you can give the seed number to a friend and he can enter it in his game to get the exact same map.

"A game like Dungeons 3, in which the player can alter every tile of the dungeon in each minute, in which he can pick up and drop lots of units everywhere all the time poses a high load on the CPU of each platform."

What can you tell us about co-op and how it plays out? How will players divide responsibilities?

Coop is actually possible in every game mode of Dungeons 3, even in the campaign. Players take care of one dungeon together and share units and resources. That means that one player for example can take care of all the economy in the dungeon and build it up whilst the other is already taking some units to the overworld, wreaking havoc.

What are some of the challenges of bringing a dungeon manager to consoles?

A game like Dungeons 3, in which the player can alter every tile of the dungeon in each minute, in which he can pick up and drop lots of units everywhere all the time poses a high load on the CPU of each platform. This means a lot of optimisation for consoles but we have grown confident having already brought Dungeons 2 to PlayStation 4. The controls are also a bit tricky as generally, strategy games are pretty keyboard/mouse-heavy but we have leveraged the experience from Kalypso’s Tropico, Port Royale and Grand Ages series as well as Dungeons 2 to create an accessible and fluid control scheme for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

How are you addressing some of the criticism levelled at the first two games?

We have had a very close look at the feedback from Dungeons 2 players and while a lot of it was really positive, we saw room for improvements. One thing that people often expressed was that Dungeons 2 was fun but did not deliver enough content. So with Dungeons 3, we are giving players more than double the campaign length and add randomly generated maps for skirmish and multiplayer on top of that which result in tons of replayability. A coop mode was also something that a lot of players asked for and we are bringing it in Dungeons 3. We also broaden the dungeon management experience, giving it more depth and also streamline the overworld RTS part to make both areas more engaging.

Is there anything else you want to tell us before we let you go?

Gandalf should have just flown Frodo to Mount Doom with the eagles but what do we know!

Note: This interview was conducted before the PS4 version was launched.

Dungeon Keeper as a franchise is a classic. What prompted the desire to return to it once more with Dungeons 2?

Dennis Blumenthal: As huge fans of the Dungeon Keeper titles we always wanted to do a similar game, but with our own story and ideas – and we hoped the players would like it. The feedback on Dungeons has been ambivalent. There were players who understood that Dungeons is not (and never should be) a Dungeon Keeper clone and they liked it. And there have been many players who were disappointed by the way we did it. We decided to try again and took the best things from Dungeons and tried to melt it with the best elements of the Dungeon Keeper games – and added some cool new features to expand, but not to change the original game mechanics.

Benjamin Rauscher: For me Dungeons 2 takes in a direction that is the logical consequence of the Dungeon Keeper Franchise. Thus – and this constitutes a huge part of my motivation to build Dungeons 2 – the game establishes some very important core features that Dungeon Keeper was hinting at, but didn’t (yet) implement. Most notably: a complete hand modeled overworld to conquer and “evilfy” and direct control over an army of multiple creatures that the player raised in the dungeon.

"Dungeons 2 consists of two different games and incorporates two different control paradigms: indirect gameplay in the dungeon and direct RTS-like gameplay in the overworld."

What were the goals in the sequel? What did you learn from the development of the first Dungeons game?

Dennis Blumenthal: With Dungeons we tried to give players a Dungeon Keeper themed game with some new mechanics. But after the release of Dungeons we learned, that many players don’t want fundamental changes to the traditional gameplay mechanics, so we decided to give it a new try with Dungeons 2. This time, instead of changing we tried to enhance the mechanics from the Dungeon Keeper games. So our goals for Dungeons 2 have been: Continue the story of Dungeons, add a big pinch of traditional DK mechanics and garnish it with some new features.

The original Dungeons had some interesting mechanics that are absent in the sequel. What was the reason for going back to a more traditional Dungeon Keeper-like experience?

Dennis Blumenthal: The reason for this step was our desire to give players the game they want to play. We gave them Dungeons, they gave us feedback, we gave them Dungeons 2. That’s it.

With Dungeons 2 having released last year for PC, what are your thoughts on criticism for its RTS sections and how simplistic they felt?

Dennis Blumenthal: The RTS sections should bring more diversity into the game. Exploring the overworld was a big thing for us and we discussed this a lot, how to make this happen in the best possible way. We decided that entering and conquering the overworld should have to feel different for players compared to building your dungeon under the earth and turning this part of the game into an RTS allowed us to do many cool things.

Benjamin Rauscher: Dungeons 2 consists of two different games and incorporates two different control paradigms: indirect gameplay in the dungeon and direct RTS-like gameplay in the overworld. This approach definitively has risks and will result in a game that cannot be the most cutting edge RTS game. My point is: it also shouldn’t be. The overworld is a playground, an opportunity to use those armies trained in the dungeon and bring the fight to those nasty heroes and their appallingly good world and ultimately to completely conquer this world. As such and in my opinion the overworld part is and should be simplistic by design so that a player can satisfyingly dominate the overworld with his horde of creatures. Or taken the other way round: it would be wrong to model the overworld as a strategically challenging RTS-game demanding a high amount of actions per minute of each player to conquer it and otherwise take great losses to the creatures they lovingly nurtured in the underworld.

I do not mean to say that the criticism is unfounded and we will try to address it should we ever be in a situation to develop a sequel to Dungeons 2, but the point I like to deliver in this respect is that the overworld being simplistic contributes to a great deal to the Dungeon Keeper charm and spirit we wanted to capture in the game.

"We had to change controls and user interface quite fundamentally to make it work."

Dungeons 2 sees the Ultimate Evil split into separate pieces and there’s a larger reliance on your units than before. What kinds of twists and turns can PS4 players expect?

Wouldn’t it be boring to tell this beforehand? What I can say is this: Realmforge and Kalypso have put a lot of hard work and effort into Dungeons 2 to make it a fun and entertaining experience from the beginning to the end.

With the ability to venture into the Overworld and wreck heroes’ holdings, how does this change up the traditional Dungeon Keeper formula? What other benefits does this kind of expansion hold for players?

It doesn’t change the traditional formula; it takes it – literally – to the next level. And it brings more variety into the game. Now you are not only building your dungeon and recruiting monsters who are waiting to defend you. You take your army, step up to the overworld and conquer it! And while you are fighting somewhere on the overworld, some heroes might meanwhile attack you in your dungeon, what makes the game more exciting and challenging.

Benjamin Rauscher: In addition to everything said before the overworld allows us to build much more diverse and interesting levels both in respect to visual variety (we have deserts, woods, landscapes covered in snow, etc.) as well as in terms of gameplay variety.

How difficult was it to translate the RTS and management elements of Dungeons 2 to the PlayStation 4, especially with the limited options that a controller provides?

Benjamin Rauscher: We had to change controls and user interface quite fundamentally to make it work. And having two different control paradigms in the dungeon and the overworld didn’t help in this respect. So it took us quite some time to make the game work with controllers.

But on the other hand it worked much better than we expected – bearing in mind that there aren’t that many (if any?) dungeon management games or RTS games on PS4 …

"All patches for the PC version of the game have been integrated in the PS4 version, as well. In addition to that we significantly improved the performance of the game."

What improvements have been made to the core gameplay since last year’s PC release?

Benjamin Rauscher: All patches for the PC version of the game have been integrated in the PS4 version, as well. In addition to that we significantly improved the performance of the game. But we didn’t change any core gameplay features that hadn’t been touched by previous PC patches just for the console.

So Dungeons 2 plays exactly the same on PS4 compared to the latest PC version. Apart from having different controls and user interface, of course.

Will there be any new multiplayer modes with the PS4 release?

Dennis Blumenthal: There are no new multiplayer modes, no – but: With the PS4 version players get not only Dungeons 2, they get also the DLCs “Pixieville”, “Morningwood”, “A Chance of Dragons”, “A Song of Sand and Fire” and “A Clash of Pumpkins”. This brings new maps, new opponents and over 30 hours of additional gametime.

Was there a specific reason why you are only bringing this to one console (PS4) and not on the Xbox One?

Dennis Blumenthal: We love both of these great consoles and would have loved to see Dungeons 2 on Xbox One, but as our human and technical resources are limited, we wanted to focus on one console first to deliver the best possible experience for players. The decision whether to develop for Xbox One or for PS4 was a tough one, but as the PS4 is the more successful at this moment we chose the PS4.

Will the PS4 version run at 1080p and 60fps?

Dennis Blumenthal: 1080p yes, constant 60fps no.

How closely will the PS4 version stack up against the PC build in terms of visuals?

Benjamin Rauscher: Dungeons 2 is visually completely equivalent to the PC version of the game in all but one aspect: for performance reasons we had to remove grass planes in the overworld.

What does the future hold for the Dungeons franchise? Will there be a third game or something completely different but in the same genre?

Dennis Blumenthal: I could tell you, but then I would get fired. And I don’t like getting fired. Sorry.

Thanks for your time. Is there anything else you want to tell us before we let you go?

Dennis Blumenthal: Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams.

Realmforge Studios’ strategy and simulation game Dungeons 2 will be launching on the PlayStation 4 next month. However at this point the developers have no plans to launch an Xbox One build of the game. GamingBolt recently caught up with Dennis Blumenthal, Product Manager at Kalypso Media and Benjamin Rauscher, Head of Studio at Realmforge Studios and asked them whether there is any specific reason behind the lack of an Xbox One version.

“We love both of these great consoles and would have loved to see Dungeons 2 on Xbox One, but as our human and technical resources are limited, we wanted to focus on one console first to deliver the best possible experience for players. The decision to develop for Xbox One or for PS4 was a tough one, but as the PS4 is the more successful [console] at this moment, we chose the PS4,” Dennis said to GamingBolt.

Given that Microsoft has reportedly sold around 20 million units compared to the PlayStation 4 which is probably close to 40 million by now, the decision taken by Kalypso Media seems to make sense. After all, developers and publishers want to play it safe and launch only on a platform that is selling well in the market. However this does not mean that the game will never launch on the Xbox One as the developers may start working on it if they have enough free resources and also, whether it will be able to garner higher sales figure.

Perhaps the developers just bit off more than they could chew, deciding to combine a fundamental dungeon manager that calls back to the good old days of that genre, with a real-time strategy mode game. It would seem, and I’d imagine the creators believed that the combination of the two modes would make a compelling game. Instead the shortfalls of both modes takes away from the overall enjoyment and made me wonder why they didn’t just try and perfect one or the other.

"To be fair, there were also some things I really liked about the way Dungeons 2 is laid out, but in the end there wasn’t enough to make me fall in love or even lust with the title as a whole."

The story of Dungeons 2 revolves around playing as the Ultimate Evil (and his hand). I had to first build up my dungeon as that disembodied hand and this part of the game is actually pretty fun. I had to first order a few of the lowliest of my lowly minions, known as “Snots” to start clearing away walls and rubble and building me rooms. I also needed to get a few of them to start mining gold.

This mode also introduces something that seems to be new to dungeon management games as a whole in which I could actually tell my Snots they needed to work faster by slapping them. Whether or not this really serves a purpose, other than eliciting a chuckle seems unclear. The game has a number of jokes running throughout, including a voiceover by a narrator who basically serves as an extended tutorial, mapping out what I was supposed to do the deeper I got into the title. Several times, this narrator breaks the third wall in a way that is genuinely funny and could be pointed to as one of the best features of Dungeons 2.

Eventually I’m able to “recruit” additional units to my cause, with the first armed forces being Orcs. This is also where the game seems to start to go off the rails, because it’s never quite clear what the rules are for recruiting additional minions. There is a number that serves as the max number of units I could have, but there isn’t any sort of easy to determine cost for creating. Once I “made” an Orc, the label for this unit becomes shaded for a while in what appears to be a waiting period, but once that waiting period ends, there still isn’t a tried and true way to create another unit right away.

"The dragging and dropping also causes a bit of a problem because when I dropped an Orc right next to an enemy, the Orc was dazed for a bit and always suffered from a preemptive attack."

It would have been nice if the narrator would cover this topic if I tried to create another Orc too soon. While most of the battle takes place outside the dungeon, there are a couple of fights right there in that first level, including against a number of spiders as well as their queen. While picking up and dragging a unit into the fray is sort of a neat feature, it’s also pretty annoying considering there seems to be almost no AI involved. Despite the fact that the narrator noted enemies forces were marching on my dungeon, my army seemed completely oblivious.

The dragging and dropping also causes a bit of a problem because when I dropped an Orc right next to an enemy, the Orc was dazed for a bit and always suffered from a preemptive attack. Being unable to select more than one unit at a time, and then having to drag them to the fight also made the fight drag out entirely too long. If there was a better way to do this, it wasn’t remotely evident. This was also a problem I noted in my preview of the game and it’s a shame that wasn’t fixed.

Eventually and too long after it begins, the fight against the spiders is over and I was able to begin the second part of Dungeons 2’s gameplay. This is the RTS side and always takes place outside the dungeons. The combat here is easier to command, because I could actually select all of my units and point them to where they needed to go instead of having to drag them around.

"There is a cartoonish approach to Dungeons 2 which makes the game look pretty. The lighting and shading in the dungeons are impressive as well. Building dungeons is also quite fun, especially when building rooms like the brewery."

The complete lack of any real combat AI sticks out here even more, unfortunately. While the pointing and clicking is easier, if I happen to point and click at a point that is beyond where the enemy is located, my forces don’t stop and fight. Instead they wander by the enemy and wait for new orders. It’s fortunate the enemy does the same, but this is a feature I had assumed was ironed out years ago. Still having to say “no, idiots, there’s who you’re supposed to fight, stop waking past them,” in an RTS game in 2015 was disappointing to say the least.

I’ll stop here and note that I’ve been almost entirely negative about Dungeons 2 so far, but there are positives in the game. The look of the game is actually quite good and while the characters are ones you’ve seen before, they have a nice look and feel. There is a cartoonish approach to Dungeons 2 which makes the game look pretty. The lighting and shading in the dungeons are impressive as well. Building dungeons is also quite fun, especially when building rooms like the brewery (which is needed for the orcs.) It’s also fun to have Snots take out entire walls of the dungeon in order to expand my domain.

The problem is that there just isn’t enough here. The combat is not only frustrating but it’s nothing that hasn’t been seen a ton of different times. The problem is that the game attempted to bring something new by combining two features into one package and both came out pretty mediocre.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Dungeons 2 is currently being developed by Realmforge Studios, a Germany based developer that was founded by Kalyspo Media as majority shareholder and who will act as publisher for the same. Realmforge has worked on Dungeons, it’s stand alone expansion and the vampire based action RPG, Dark while Kalypso Media is better known for the Tropico series. Dungeons 2 is currently set to launch on PC, Mac and Linux on April 24th and it is available for pre-order on the Steam platform.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Factions

Development

Dungeons 2 has already received a fair amount of praise in the lead up to its release as a true successor to EA’s much loved Dungeon Keeper video game but details are fairly sparse regarding its development.

Unlike most games, which are typically announced during press conferences or by way of a press release, Dungeons 2 was given a stealth announcement. Players of the critically underwhelming vampire action role playing game Dark, came across an Easter Egg in the game that served as both the official reveal and announcement of the game, despite initially being considered a joke on the part of the developers.

The Easter Egg came in the form of graffiti in a shadowed alleyway, largely being out of view. The graffiti depicts a goblin-esque character resting his hands on a skull that might be a cane. Text above and below the goblin creature reads, “Brace Yourselves Dungeons 2 Is Coming.”

Speaking about some of the new mechanics and visuals that have been implemented into the game, namely the real time strategy portion, Viktor Linke, Art Director of Dungeons 2, has said, “I think a lot of people expected the first Dungeons to be another Dungeon Keeper, and it really wasn’t. It was more like a tower defence game. So we knew we wanted to have more management for the sequel, like you have to manage your dungeon, build up your creatures, care for your creatures.”

It was this demand for a more Dungeon Keeper-esque management system in the game that led to a fundamental shift in the games art style. Linke goes on to talk about how things have been made “chunkier, bigger” and “more cartoonish”.

The game also made an appearance at GamesCom 2014 alongside other Kalypso titles like Crookz, Crowntakers and Grand Ages Medieval. It was announced to include “2 playable factions, 26 unique creatures, multiple types of heroes and game modes”.

Although information is scarce, the game will support multiplayer for up to four players and stretch across four game modes.

While avoiding giving details about the gameplay modes on offer, Christian Wolfertstetter, Creative Director at Realmforge Studios,  has said, “The missions have very different objectives. One time there’s another Dungeon Lord to destroy, another time you will have to collect a special artifact, protect creatures traveling through your dungeon, kill heroes roaming through your dungeon, pervert heroes to join your side or just survive waves after waves of heroes.”

Plans are also underway to make sure the level editor sees a release to the public for use in-game. “We use an in-house level editor to create these missions and we’re planning to make this tool public after the release of the game,” according to Wolfertstetter.

Story

The Dungeon Lord, also known as the Dark Lord, is back on a quest of vengeance that will see him recruiting all manner of creatures from every part of the world. Not content with his domain in the underworld, he is setting his sights on the overworld of the human realm.

Gameplay

Gameplay remains largely unchanged from the original Dungeons game which means the player will be charged with the upkeep and maintenance of Heroes and not the minions that so populate the halls of your dungeons. This is what makes the game so different from Dungeon Keeper.

Perhaps the biggest change in Dungeons 2 is the inclusion of the “Hand of Terror”. This hand of influence gives you control of your units and enables you to give them commands that will let you attack your foes with directly. It’s this new inclusion in the game that has seen it receive the real time strategy classification.

The game offers two gameplay aspects, one of which is a Dungeon Manager Sim in the classical sense and the other mode is set in the outside world in the realm of humans which introduces players to real time strategy.

The game is said to sport a “thrilling single player campaign” that contains two playable factions.

Factions

At this time, only two Factions have been announced. One faction is the Combative Horde, with the other yet to be named.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

Dungeons 2 allows me to do this in a number of ways and while the game isn’t completely finished, what I got to see and play of the title seems to be one that I will certainly continue to play when everything it has to offer is indeed rolled out. That rollout isn’t too far away, which also had me quite excited because I honestly want to see what the full game has to offer compared to what the developer says is admittedly a held back version of Dungeons 2.

"Another way Dungeons 2 wants to stand out from the pack of games quite a bit like this is that it wants to bring quite a bit of humor to the title."

The game opens up by letting me take the role of the “Ultimate Evil” as I lay waste to a number of encampments of Alliance troops before eventually taking out their main castle. This is basically an introduction to one half of the gameplay that Dungeons 2 has to offer. Known as the “Overworld”, this is the kind of sim game type where you have to give orders to your troops and make sure you move them out of harms way before they drop dead.

There isn’t much danger of that as the Ultimate Evil, at least not that I saw. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since this is basically the introduction of the game and its initial controls. After getting through that particular level, the real meat of the game begins as I was transported to a dungeon that had very rudimentary construction and minions to control with a disembodied hand.

Another way Dungeons 2 wants to stand out from the pack of games quite a bit like this is that it wants to bring quite a bit of humor to the title. The voice over and text throughout the game is there to tell you how to get through one small mission after another, but it attempts to do so in a rather funny way. Sometimes the dialogue will be straightforward and other times the “narrator” will meander off on a tangent, having to snap himself back into the action that is being carried out on screen. The humor is sort of hit or miss. I laughed out loud at some of pop culture references but other times, I just sighed and wished the developers weren’t trying quite so hard.

"One annoying aspect of Dungeons 2 is that no matter what the personalities, they aren’t very smart. This doesn’t appear to be a “Orcs are dumb so your army is dumb” rather this appears to be a problem with the artificial intelligence in the game."

The art style of Dungeons 2 is pretty impressive and you are zoomed in enough to tell when you are selecting one of several different kinds of minions who you need to set to specific jobs. One annoying aspect of Dungeons 2 is that no matter what the personalities, they aren’t very smart. This doesn’t appear to be a “Orcs are dumb so your army is dumb” rather this appears to be a problem with the artificial intelligence in the game.

When enemies come into your dungeon, whether they are Alliance troops or other dungeon dwelling creatures, your forces aren’t going to respond automatically. At least they didn’t for me in this particular build of the game. In order to get troops to the battlefront, I had to use my disembodied hand to pick them up and move them right to where the enemy was situated. Even if a soldier seemed like he should have been in eyeshot of the enemy, they wouldn’t go and attack every time. This becomes a real problem when talking about a management game, especially when non-combatants also won’t move out of the line of fire automatically.

This particular feature might have been the single most annoying part of the entire game. If the developer isn’t able to address what appears to be a rather obvious problem with the A.I. then the game is going to be tiresome, especially as the game offers up more difficult enemies farther into the game.

"When all is said and done, the game offers enough fun and interesting aspects that I want to play more. This is a game I was able to lose an hour in pretty easily and not feel as though I was playing in circles."

When talking about the Overworld, there is less of a problem of your forces needing to recognize the enemy, since you are on the march already. Still I noticed an issue that plagues a lot of these types of games, where once I had defeated one assigned enemy, my forces would kind of mill around. Since this isn’t a problem that is limited to Dungeons 2, it’s probably not a problem I should expect to get fixed once the game is finished.

When all is said and done, the game offers enough fun and interesting aspects that I want to play more. This is a game I was able to lose an hour in pretty easily and not feel as though I was playing in circles. Being able to recruit new kinds of troops by journeying out of my dungeon was an interesting twist on this kind of game. Making my dungeon bigger and more efficient for my evil army was also quite a bit of fun.

If there’s another thing I’d love to see it would be a wide variety of rooms that can actually be built, but there was enough available that it didn’t feel needlessly repetitive. The game has a few shortfalls and it’s not going to knock anyone over with originality, but Dungeons 2 was truly a fun time and a game I’ll hopefully return to when the final build launches.

This game was previewed on the PC.

DARK, the stealth action game from Kalypso Media, in which the player assumes the role of a vampire to stalk and murder prey, will be receiving a new DLC come this December. Cult of the Dead will center once again on series protagonist Eric Bane as he embarks on another gruesome adventure.

Plot-wise here’s what we’re looking at: Eric Bane, after escaping the M17 Vampires that plagued him in the original events of DARK. He hears tell of a mysterious boos, The Book Of The Dead, which promises to give its possessor the ability to control death itself. Eric seeks this book in hops of both learning more about his kind, and preventing harm from coming to both the living and dead.

His newest adversaries are necromancers, who are in cahoots to stop Eric with the remaining forces of M17. Here are some new features we can look forward to:

– A brand new mission centered on The Book of the Dead
– Five all new challenge mode maps
– A new opponanet called The Deadly Sniper
– And a new boss named, The Cultise

The Cult Of The Dead will be available for PC download on December 5th for the price of $4.99.

Sadly, the new vampire stealth RPG Dark from Realmforge Studios and Kalypso Media dispenses with most of that cool stuff and somehow manages to make being a fanged assassin a rather more mundane experience. Turns out our protagonist Eric Bane IS susceptible to gun fire, dies frequently and doesn’t possess the strength of a superhero. Bummer.

"Visually, the game looks reasonable with cel-shaded graphics and a minimal colour palette."

The game opens with Eric in a club called The Sanctuary; the music is thumping and so is his head. Remembering little of what’s left him feeling so groggy, he encounters security guard Tom, owner Rose and twins, April and June – all of whom have a dark secret. The cut scenes that follow explain – with all the subtlety of a brick – that Eric has been bitten by a vampire and must track down whoever was responsible, else he’ll turn into a mindless ghoul. To be honest, he takes the news remarkably well. The dialogue and voice acting is almost comedic, with barely any effort to lip sync the words that spill from the characters’ mouths, which makes the scene even more humorous. It’s not a great start, to be honest… and things don’t get much better.

Visually, the game looks reasonable with cel-shaded graphics and a minimal colour palette. largely consisting of purple and black. However, the character models are clunky and poorly animated. The levels include varied environments ranging from night clubs to a museum, laboratories and offices – but all are much of a muchness, requiring you to navigate a room without raising the alarm using the ample cover on offer.

"That's right, there's no jump button. You can't leap onto on unsuspecting prey, there's no scaling walls or dropping silently behind your target. "

Rooms filled with enemies should be a veritable playground for someone with the skills and abilities of a vampire. Unfortunately, the slightly ropey controls, poor cover system and disappointing powers early on put paid to a promising concept. In my mind, vampires are fairly agile creatures… in this game, you can’t even jump. That’s right, there’s no jump button. You can’t leap onto on unsuspecting prey, there’s no scaling walls or dropping silently behind your target. There is the Shadow Leap ability, which instantly transports Eric to a nearby location or ledge but with this needing a recharge after each use, it doesn’t make life easy when trying to evade multiple enemies and escape an area quickly. Besides which, you’re often unable to direct exactly where you want to go, and end up pointlessly leaping just a few feet away instead.

A bit of parkour like in Assassin’s Creed could have been cool, as would Batman’s ability to soar into the skies to a nearby platform to avoid enemies. Even hiding in a box or cupboard like Solid Snake would have been handy too! Alas, your only option in this stealth-em-up is to hide behind tables or walls and wait for an opportune moment to leave your cover. It’s fairly disappointing.

Holding down one of the triggers hugs you to the wall and allows you to take cover. The other activates your vampire vision, allowing you to see through walls and best plan how to avoid enemies and reach your objective.

To be fair, when the stealth element works, the game can be fun. Watching the routes taken by guards, for example, and waiting to sneak past or take them out is quite exciting. But make no bones about it, this is a tricky game and even on the easiest difficulty setting, you’ll find it a challenge. On the hardest setting, you’ll want to pull your hair out in frustration!

"This is a puzzle game more than anything else, each room may have a few alternative paths but the trick is to find which will get you to the exit without drawing attention."

The AI is abysmal. Some bad guys won’t react if you wander past them, whereas other eagle eyed enemies can see you from miles off. Before long, however, you’ll realise that there’s little point in painstakingly creeping through a level only to be seen and shot to pieces. You’re sometimes far better off attracting the attention of an enemy, running away and hiding behind a wall ready to pick off all hapless AI bad guys one by one as they come searching for you.

Combat is certainly one of the weaker aspects of the game and involves getting close enough to a target to press a button for an insta-kill. Alternatively, holding said button allows you to sink your teeth into them – this option often not worth the risk as it takes an exorbitant amount of time to drain your victim and, for some inexplicable reason, Eric’s a very noisy eater and therefore likely to attract the attention of a nearby guard. Should you be able to pull off the bloodsucking attack without being discovered, it will fill a segment of your all-important Vitae gauge. Without this you’ll be unable to use any of the powers you unlock and you’ll remain a fairly limp killing machine rather than a reasonably powerful assassin.

This is a puzzle game more than anything else, each room may have a few alternative paths but the trick is to find which will get you to the exit without drawing attention. Otherwise, there’s also no real need or incentive to explore, except to find a couple of PDA collectibles that are dotted about the levels.

There’s nothing more irritating part than having spent the best part of half an hour navigating a level only to be seen and be set upon by a mob of angry, gun-wielding enemies. As soon as your cover is blown, you’re pretty much screwed and destined to play through the entire section again because of the miserly checkpoints.

"It’s definitely a grower but you can’t help but feel it’s a bit of a missed opportunity."

XP from kills and completing objectives allows you to pick from the various skill trees to unlock inherent, vampiric and passive powers. Many of these have cooldown periods and use your vitae, so some strategy is required when using them. Some of the abilities (Shadow Kill, Domination, Obfuscation, Domination) when fully levelled up, do at least give Eric some decent powers and make you feel slightly more badass!

To summarise, Dark doesn’t quite live up to its early promise but it is a decent enough game if you persist and power up. My initial impressions weren’t great but I persisted for the purpose of this review and am now very glad I did. Unlock some of the better skills, learn the game’s quirks and the experience becomes far more enjoyable. It’s definitely a grower but you can’t help but feel it’s a bit of a missed opportunity.

 This game was was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Game Overview:

DARK is a stealth action game along with role playing elements (like skills/levels). Players take a role of a vampire and features a world full of darkness.

The game is developed by Realmforge Studios and published by Kalypso Media.

The game is available for the PC and Xbox 360.

Check out the video walkthrough of DARK below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.