In Darkest Dungeon 2, Dismas is the name of the singular Highwayman you use in every run and that you’ll develop over every campaign by unlocking skills at the same time you’ll see each character's backstory in flashbacks that occasionally have little combat puzzles in them. In the first Darkest Dungeon, Dismas was a name given to one of several members of the Highwayman class you'd be likely to recruit.
On the other hand, a major knock-on effect of the smaller campaign focus is that Darkest Dungeon 2's characters feel like distinct individuals instead of classes. It all makes characters feel like people instead of merely cogs in a machine. There's no longer-term emergent storytelling happening in Darkest Dungeon 2, and this makes it overall less exciting, even if it is more manageable. This makes it a lot easier to jump in and out of a run, but I personally miss the feeling of managing a large team of characters in a tactics game, like the original Darkest Dungeon, XCOM, Battletech, or even something like Football Manager. Instead of being a larger strategic management challenge, it's only about the four people who happen to be in the wagon at a given time. The biggest is that it shrinks the story, both of the campaign directly and the one that you can tell yourself over the course of a run. Brilliant narration and stiff yet surprisingly expressive animation make it easy to be drawn into its vague but tantalizing world, though the end feels artificially out of reach. Both take the experience in fascinating, if not always good, new directions.ĭarkest Dungeon is a grim and merciless tactical strategy game whose great tension comes from its many layers of complexity, unpredictable randomization, and willingness to put our fragile characters in mortal danger if we dare to venture into its depths in search of treasure and glory.
The less good news is that there are some pretty significant tweaks that seem necessary before it can really hold a torch to the original.Īside from the switch to animated 3D graphics that closely match the gritty style of the original’s 2D paper doll characters, there are two massive changes to Darkest Dungeon 2: the campaign is significantly smaller in scope, and character relationships are now the center of the stress system instead of individual mentality. The good news is that this sequel has a different enough structure and technical improvements that it more than justifies its existence, taking the original formula into surprisingly new directions instead of simple additions we often see in follow ups. It’s a tough act to follow, but Red Hook Games has given it a worthy shot with the early access launch of Darkest Dungeon 2. The tension-filled roguelike-ish design, the stress system on top of a Lovecraftian horror setting, and especially the sound, amazingly atmospheric narrator, and music combined to create an instant classic of a tactical role-playing game that was then refined into an outstanding and distinctive final version a year later.
When Darkest Dungeon was first released in early access in 2015, it was a minor miracle.
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