The developer has announced with a press release that Darkest Dungeon 2’s new mode Kingdoms and its Inhuman Bondage DLC will both be released on January 27. As previously confirmed, the former will be free for all players, while the latter is paid DLC.

Specifically, Kingdoms is described as a standalone, parallel game experience to the Confessions mode, and is kicking off with the first of three themed adventure modules, titled Hunger of the Beast Clan. Meanwhile, the Inhuman Bondage DLC also brings a host of new content, including a new mini-region and playable hero.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Kingdoms and Inhuman Bondage will both be available on PC only upon their launch in January, with console releases coming later.

Remi Racine, Behaviour Interactive CEO and co-founder, said in a press release, “It’s a privilege to welcome a developer of Red Hook’s caliber. Earlier this year, we established an ambitious goal for our future as a publisher – to make Behaviour synonymous with horror and surround Dead by Daylight with a library of similarly exceptional horror games.

“Our acquisition of Red Hook is another emphatic step towards this objective, with more to come.” This seems to imply that other studios specializing in horror titles could be up for acquisition.

Red Hook Studios co-founder Chris Bourassa said, “We’ve found kindred spirits in the Behaviour team. Both studios are Canadian, independent, and devoted to fantastic horror games. Where we differ is scale, which opens the door to new possibilities. Behaviour’s support will help us pursue our vision for Red Hook’s future and focus fully on transforming Darkest Dungeon into an absolute juggernaut of the dark fantasy genre.”

Studio co-founder Tyler Sigman added, “Joining forces with Behaviour is exciting on multiple levels. They have demonstrated a commitment to allowing our team to continue developing Darkest Dungeon in the manner we know best but with the benefit of their considerable knowledge and resources. We are stronger together than apart. Critically, there is a shared love of Darkest Dungeon, and with Behaviour’s help, we can delve even deeper into the franchise.”

How this will affect the direction of the Darkest Dungeon franchise remains to be seen. However, Red Hook Studios will remain independent while operating under Behaviour Interactive’s purview.

In the meantime, the developer is working on Kingdoms, a free new standalone campaign for Darkest Dungeon 2. It releases in three modules, with the first, Hunger of the Beast Clan, out in Q4 2024. There will also be a new paid DLC, Inhuman Bondage, which adds a new region, enemies, and hero with unique Trinkets, palettes, and much more. Head here for more details.

The studio plans on releasing modding support for Darkest Dungeon 2 on PC in incremental stages. Each stage is set to build on top of the previous one, and players will start getting incrementally more options for modding the game as time goes on. The staggered release of the modding tools also allows the studio to take player feedback for future updates.

The first deployment of Darkest Dungeon 2‘s modding tools will focus on initial mod loading, overwriting logic, and integration with the Steam Workshop. Essentially forming a foundation for future modding tools for Darkest Dungeon 2, the initial release will allow mod creators to edit the game’s exposed CSV files where numerical gameplay data is stored.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is currently available on PC. The game is getting a console release down the line, with a PlayStation release set for July 15.

Players will journey across the grueling land, gathering resources, fighting back against incursious, and defending safe haven inns, with three new enemy factions set to be introduced- The Coven, Beastmen, and Crimson Courtiers. Using the resources you gather, you will be upgrading both your heroes and your inns, while you can also expect to jump into new, “extensive” upgrade trees.

Red Hook Studios says playing the base game’s campaign isn’t necessary to play the Kingdoms campaign. Check out its announcement trailer below for a glimpse of what it’ll have in store.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is currently available only on PC, though if a recent age rating in Brazil is anything to go by, it might soon be headed to PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch as well.

Almost a year prior to Darkest Dungeon 2’s full release, developer Red Hook Studios confirmed that it would be coming to consoles at a later date. A launch date or window was never confirmed, but it seems like Darkest Dungeon 2 is headed to a launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in the near future. That’s based on the game being rated for those platforms in Brazil, as caught by Gematsu on Twitter.

Of course, this isn’t concrete evidence that Darkest Dungeon 2 is getting its console ports soon, but age ratings generally tend to come relatively close to launch, especially for games that have already released on other platforms, so there’s a good chance that this ends up getting announced soon. Or so we hope, at any rate.

In our review of Darkest Dungeon 2, we awarded it a score of 8/10, saying, “Darkest Dungeon 2 is a wholly different beast from the original, wrapping branching paths and compelling combat into a rogue-lite package. There are some hiccups and it may not appeal to all fans of the original, but it’s still a fun journey to suffer.” Read the full review through here.

Darkest Dungeon 2 has sold over 500,000 units as of May last year.

Darkest Dungeon II has been rated for PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch in Brazil: https://t.co/gzHcuFNBCJ

It's currently out on PC.

Gematsu page: https://t.co/UJ8TzTtTkT pic.twitter.com/np8Qo5pXWD

— Gematsu (@gematsu) March 5, 2024

The two playable heroes, are the Duelist and the Crusader. The Duelist is a fencing-styled fighter capable of switching between Defensive and Aggressive stances, and can ignore enemy defenses with abilities like Riposte.

The Crusader, returning from the original Darkest Dungeon, is a holy warrior capable of smiting enemies with Holy Fire. The Crusader can tank hits by enemies, while at the same time supporting his team with healing and stress recovery.

The Binding Blade DLC also brings with it a new roaming mini-boss, dubbed the Warlord.

Darkest Dungeon 2 spent some time as an early access release, ultimately getting its 1.0 release in May this year. The game has been quite successful, selling over half a million copies in its first week. For more details on Darkest Dungeon 2, check out our review.

The developer thanked players for their support and said it had a “lot planned for the future.” Before launch, it committed to free content updates and mod support. Stay tuned in the meantime for a proper roadmap.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is the follow-up to Red Hook’s hit dungeon crawler from 2016. However, it’s now a rogue-lite turn-based RPG with Slay the Spire-esque branching paths. Players take on different Confessions, choosing from 12 playable heroes and riding a stagecoach through five ruined regions.

Expeditions are usually doomed to failure, but by collecting Candles, you can unlock permanent upgrades at the Altar of Hope. Check out our review here for more details. Darkest Dungeon 2 is also coming to consoles, though a release date has yet to be confirmed.

Thank you for making Darkest Dungeon II's 1st week of 1.0 an incredible journey!

We're proud to welcome over 230k new players so far, which brings us to over 500k copies sold, including early access.

We have a lot planned for the future-thanks for joining us on this expedition! pic.twitter.com/faTrMCz8eD

— Darkest Dungeon (@DarkestDungeon) May 15, 2023

Unlike its predecessor, Darkest Dungeon 2 is a rogue-lite title. Boarding the stagecoach and navigating it through multiple regions, you must battle various enemy factions while deciding the best path. Combat is also revamped, with Tokens representing statuses, effects and damage increases. Don’t worry – your party can still suffer from Stress and even grow to like or hate each other.

Check out our review for more details on the game and what makes it so unique. It’s also coming to consoles at a later date, and the developer is committed to free updates and mod support. Stay tuned in the coming months for updates.

While Darkest Dungeon 2 could have been a prettier version of the original while adding more content, the developer took a different approach. From choosing dungeons en route to conquering the Darkest Dungeon, you’re now on the road, traversing regions to face the horrors that await in the Mountain. The world is on the brink of a new apocalypse, and as cities burn, debauchery spreads, and new monsters awaken, you must bring hope to the world while facing your sins.

"There is that lingering feeling that this entire journey is more meditative and repetitive than anything else."

This time, the narrator is the Academic, a friend of the previous game’s Ancestor, and speaks of the Iron Circle, a pattern present throughout human history. Wayne June returns and voices the character (which probably isn’t foreshadowing anything) and does an excellent job, to no one’s surprise. His inflection and enunciation recounting the calm beginnings of the friendship between the Academic and the Ancestor to the various shifting tides of battle is top tier as always.

Your mileage will vary on the overall story, though, as more details and hints about the duo’s journey from university life to discovering the Iron Crown and ultimately becoming involved with a cult emerges. It’s compelling but also doled out in a few lines per run, which dulls any real impact until you’ve finished the Act and moved on to the next chapter.

Your focus is thus on the road ahead and how you want to tackle its various challenges. Nevertheless, there is that lingering feeling that this entire journey is more meditative and repetitive than anything else.

Even with its turn-based combat and macabre dungeon crawling, the first Darkest Dungeon was more managerial in scope. You recruited and trained heroes, sent them into dungeons with randomly generated layouts, discovered materials to upgrade your estate with new facilities, and ultimately scaled up the operation to take on the ultimate challenge. Trinkets could aid in different ways, and heroes could accumulate enormous Stress, developing Quirks that hampered their well-being. They could even die, turning much of their hard work into ash.

"After choosing your heroes, it’s off to the races…literally, as you have a stagecoach, which you control during the journey."

Darkest Dungeon 2, by comparison, is more of a rogue-lite turn-based RPG with branching paths equivalent to Slay the Spire. The story consists of different Acts, each adding a bit more to the story. You’ll only have access to two regions first, but three more open up in subsequent Acts. Trinkets and most currencies don’t persist through playthroughs, and you choose from established classes like the Highwayman, Man-at-Arms, Grave Robber and Plague Robber before each run. They’re also named and possess tragic backstories.

You have only a few choices available, but visiting Hero Shrines and reliving their pasts grants more abilities. They also present some genuinely compelling stories about each and how they arrived at that point. How this connects to Darkest Dungeon is kept vague but adds to the overall theme of human avarice and redemption.

After choosing your heroes, it’s off to the races…literally, as you have a stagecoach, which you control during the journey. It’s always trudging forward, smashing through any rubble and obstacles (netting some currency and items, if lucky), and carrying the last Flame of hope for humanity. You then choose a route on the map, with different paths leading to unique nodes.

Will you opt for an Assistance Encounter and net any items that could benefit your heroes while replenishing the Flame? Look for Watchtowers that can provide more details on the various points of interest littering the map, including any hazards? Or delve into Creature Dens for monster parts and Lairs with powerful bosses that offer Trophies on defeat.

Whichever path you choose, enemies usually crop up in a less-than-friendly fashion. Your stagecoach also has limited armor and wheel durability that protects from ambushes. When either break, you’ll enter a battle where one random hero has to repair it while the others fend off the onslaught.

Other points of interest abound like Field Hospitals to heal heroes and remove any random Quirks and diseases; the Hoarder, the Caretaker from the first game who sells items with the same sickening smile; and the Academic’s Cache, which provides resources and relics. There’s also the Academic’s Study, which provides Trinkets, diseases and an encounter with the Shambler, among other rewards. Each decision matters, and you must contemplate whether a route’s hazards are worth traversing to reach some resources.

Some routes are also necessary to reach Lairs since defeating the boss for their Trophy is necessary from Act 2 onwards. Clearing each region sees you facing the Occultists and ultimately overcoming them to rest at the next Inn.

Combat seems akin to the original, but has undergone numerous changes. Your party still occupies different “ranks” in combat, some excelling based on their positioning. For instance, the Plague Doctor is usually good in the third and fourth rows, since she can blind enemies, inflict Blight and heal allies.

The Man-at-Arms, however, is generally good in the front, tanking damage, knocking back enemies and protecting allies. Turn order is devised based on combatant speed, and upon an enemy’s health depleting, they’ll live behind corpses to clear. You’ll want to clear them usually since they can buff existing enemies, or block access to units in the back row.

If a hero’s health is depleted, they’re under the effect of Death’s Door, inflicting less damage with their next attack, suffering Stress, and facing possible death on the next hit. While it’s a situation to panic, healing the party member will take them out of it. In a neat twist, Elite enemies and bosses can also suffer Death’s Door, staying in the fight until your heroes can seal the deal.

"As you progress through the Acts, new Ordained enemies emerge with more health and different buffs."

Unlike the first game, there are Tokens which affect different combat statuses. When blinding an enemy, they’ll gain a Token, which causes their next attack to have a 50 percent chance to miss. Tokens are depleted when taking or dealing damage, though others require certain skills – if any enemy is in stealth, for example, the Runaway’s Hearthlight will expose them. You can also combo different skills, increasing the chance of Bleed and Burn status, dazing enemies or outright stunning them.

Overall, they remove much of the randomness and chance that could occur in the original, providing more agency but still keeping things unpredictable. Some enemies can resist effects and statuses – like The Sprawl’s Fanatics being resistant to Burn damage – so you’re still rolling the dice in some cases.

I do somewhat miss my heart-stopping with each attack in the original, unsure if my characters would successfully land attacks to turn the tide or hilariously miss, and doom us all. However, the current system still has plenty of opportunities for heartache. Just more controlled.

As you progress through the Acts, new Ordained enemies emerge with more health and different buffs. I could appreciate the added challenge as my party grew stronger. However, dealing with enemies like the Ghoul, who keeps regaining Block Tokens after each action, and having other buffs was annoying, especially when facing two at once during an ambush battle.

"You also unlock permanent upgrades for your heroes (including Hero Paths, which serve as different classes), and Memories provide buffs to heroes based on previous successful runs where they survived."

Your heroes can still accumulate Stress throughout a journey and suffer adverse conditions like Meltdown, which depletes their health, adversely affects relationships and forms different quirks. Conversely, they can become Resolute, gaining health and buffs to fight back against the horror. Managing Stress is a key part of ensuring a hero’s survival, and it can depend on the routes taken and the enemies faced. Heroes also can’t die from Stress anymore, which is a bummer since it somewhat diminishes the effect of overloads.

The Flame is also important, though it works differently from the previous game. When it’s bright, you gain extra speed, resistance to deathblows and a chance for enemies to be blinded at the start of each round. As it grows dimmer, your foes will start gaining an advantage while yours begin to dwindle. There are more avenues to replenish the Flame, but the trade-off is that it no longer provides additional rewards as its brightness dwindles.

Though you’ll collect various currencies, Mastery Points to upgrade hero skills for the remainder of a run, and items to boost hero stats at inns before the next region, nothing carries over after death, except for Candles. These are your meta progression currency, spent at the Altar of Hope before selecting an Act to unlock new Relics and items for combat, the stagecoach and the Inn.

You also unlock permanent upgrades for your heroes (including Hero Paths, which serve as different classes), and Memories provide buffs to heroes based on previous successful runs where they survived. You can also upgrade the stagecoach to be more durable and have more inventory space, slots for various benefits (like increased damage in certain regions) and skins.

Candles are granted for completing different hero goals, reaching specific nodes, clearing a region, finishing an Act with surviving heroes – the list goes on. There is plenty to unlock that makes future runs significantly better (if not less rage-inducing). While it can feel slightly grindy, as your power grows and you progress, more Candles should be earned in no time.

Relationships are another new mechanic in Darkest Dungeon 2. Depending on your actions and items used, certain heroes can take a liking or loathing to each other. If they take like each other, certain abilities can be altered to provide buffs, remove ailments, and even heal the other party member. If they don’t, look forward to your heroes inflicting weakness, drawing attention to themselves and other idiotic actions.

This could add to the frustration, but because this is a rogue-lite title, you can rest assured that it doesn’t matter in the long run. The nature of the title also lends to runs where things are going very smoothly and suddenly take a turn for the worse, but with more forewarning than the previous game. As such, you could also have a run where you’re constantly ambushed and defeat the Act’s final boss by the skin of your teeth, with only one hero left.

However, being a rogue-lite also means that you’ll be venturing across many of the same paths and facing many of the same enemies. It is offset somewhat by having something new to unlock, whether it’s a new ability or Trinkets, and relationship boons that alter skills in unique ways, encouraging you to maximize synergy. Finding out the best set-ups for Trinkets, especially since some can only work if you have a specific type already equipped, also mixes things up.

But sometimes, you’ll fail a mostly smooth run in the first region or two, making incremental upgrades and getting further on the next before falling again. Having other regions become available in subsequent Acts keeps things fresh, even though many don’t offer many “new” nodes or events (but have new bosses and other threats). It was also odd not to see any Fisherfolk throughout The Shroud when I accessed it for the first time, but other factions – like the Plague Eaters in The Foetor – lay in wait in all their grotesque glory.

I have to praise the bosses – each feels unique and fun/horrifying to fight against. The Mountain bosses are also sufficiently overwhelming and go above and beyond with their presentation and mechanics.

Speaking of the presentation, Darkest Dungeon 2 ditches the original’s 2D graphics for 3D. The art style is still intact and lovingly gruesome, while each character looks downright amazing. Little details like your heroes changing stances when prepping skills or hanging corpses in the environments add much more to the whole affair, and the music is phenomenal.

It’s hard to judge Darkest Dungeon 2 as a “sequel” in the traditional sense. Yes, it continues the mythos, features familiar combat and mechanics, and pushes players to the brink. However, its rogue-lite nature, branching paths and events, and story-telling are pretty significant departures from the dungeon crawler many love and/or hate. Whether that’s good or bad depends on how much you loved the original and how much you can appreciate the sequel for trying something new.

"Overall, I feel like Darkest Dungeon 2 works well, though I’d appreciate more node variety and finer tuning of some enemies."

That includes The Radiant Flame, which reduces Flame Drain and increases healing while traveling or the Infernal Flame, which keeps the Flame level at 1 but grants more Candles as a reward. Both are great ways to ease some players while providing others with more challenge and reason to revisit previous Acts.

Overall, I feel like Darkest Dungeon 2 works well, though I’d appreciate some node variety and finer tuning of some enemies. It may not exactly inspire a wave of pretenders like the original but adds its own disturbing twist on familiar genres while providing plenty of replay value. Ruin may have finally found players with its exit from early access, but it’s an enjoyable road to redemption regardless.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Despite featuring a narrator that focuses on the Darkest Dungeon 2 setting and story, the trailer actually shows off quite a bit of gameplay from various aspects of the upcoming RPG title.

The launch trailer gives us a glimpse at a little bit of the Darkest Dungeon 2 combat experience, as well as how its on-rails roguelite exploration works, and how players will have to manage their caravan of potential heroes.

Back in March, Darkest Dungeon 2 got its final update as part of its early access period. The update, titled Redemption Road, brought changes to the game’s map traversal, alongside introducing pets to the game.

If the May 8 launch still seems too far for you, Darkest Dungeon 2 is available as an early access title on the Epic Games Store. The title’s Steam release will coincide with its exit from early access.