Darkest Dungeon 2 Review

The biggest question that most will have heading into Darkest Dungeon 2 will be if it’s better than Darkest Dungeon? The short answer is yes.

It’s hard to be critical about a new game without referencing the previous work of the studio and it’s even more difficult to talk about Darkest Dungeon 2 without mentioning Darkest Dungeon. The sequel has made a number of changes that will likely alienate some, but will overall welcome more newcomers as well as bring back fans of the original to this little hamlet for a different experience.

Getting the biggest gripe out of the way, you don’t form the same relationship with certain characters that you did in the original as Darkest Dungeon 2 is focused on a shorter run based gameplay loop. Where you pick 4 of the familiar classes to form your party and venture out towards the mountain to defeat the main source of evil that is currently spreading. If you die, which you will, often, you start back at the start, fully able to equip the same four classes again, if you choose to do so.

The main journey is basically a much darker version of The Oregon Trail as you travel badlands trying to survive from one Inn to the next. You do this by basically traversing an interactive Slay the Spire style map. Sadly, this is one of the least fun areas of the game as it feels sluggish to control and slows down the time between the fun parts of managing your party and slaying evil. Fixing or even removing this system would have drastically helped the pacing of the game, which can feel slower at times.

The good news is that the main pillar of Darkest Dungeon 2 is the tried and true turn based combat mechanics that you remember from the first. There have been some tweaks to it but for the most part, the beloved but extremely difficult combat system remains firmly in place.

Immediately in DD2, you can feel a much higher level of refinement and polish with the most obvious being the visuals moving to 3D as well as the addition of intros, title cards, animations and a score that sets a much higher level of atmosphere and cinematic quality that Darkest Dungeon didn't have.

While you might not be able to become close with certain characters, one of the new features is the introduction of origin stories for each class that are an absolutely amazing addition. In some cases it’s just a little bit of lore and in other cases you are thrown into a recreation of a memory such as the highwayman and his beginnings as a prisoner and how he managed his escape, which was the first of five backstories for that character class.

Most rogue-lites are much more challenging at the start but when you add in a level of complexity that Darkest Dungeon already had with its multitude of systems, it feels like you are making little to no progress. However, once you start unlocking things and learning from your failures, things begin to go much smoother.

One of the biggest disappointments with Darkest Dungeon 2 is that it isn’t optimized for the Steam Deck, which comes as a surprise since DD1 already worked perfectly on consoles. It still works on Steam Deck but it requires awkward controls for the most part. The good news is that Red Hook have already confirmed that this is a priority for them, which is great because the nature of the game lends itself to jumping in for a battle when you have a few minutes to spare.

Conclusion

Darkest Dungeon 2 is still extremely difficult and at times bordering on the point of unfair thanks to an RNG system that can easy turn the tide of a battle either way. Darkest Dungeon 2 feels much more like a roguelite than the first as runs can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours but your untimely demise is party of the journey as you learn from your losses, grab you earnings, upgrade what you can and head back out slightly stronger.

Red Hook kept what was great about the original and made some changes with some of the pain points to provide a much more refined experince this time around. It still isn’t a welcoming game by any means as the barrier to entry is still high but it’s slightly less than before.

8.5