Darkest Dungeon 2 | Review (2024)

Darkest Dungeon 2 is a turn-based, balls-hard roguelike strategy title. In a world without hope, besieged by Eldritch forces you will slowly, very slowly, turn the tides of battle and try to rebuild society. A ragtag group will slowly assemble as they attempt to push back the heart of darkness and rekindle mankind’s spirit. It is tough, surprisingly long, full of random chance, and utterly addicting.

Darkest Dungeon 2 takes the misery of the first game and ramps it up. You are an ever-growing team traversing the lands as dark forces and the dregs of humanity try to stop you. Taking place after the first game’s story, where you had to defeat the Heart of Darkness, “The Scholar” is attempting to control an Eldritch energy force known as the Iron Crown. It doesn’t go well, as these things tend to do, and the planet is torn asunder, humanity goes mad, and demonic beings begin to invade.

The Scholar attempts to correct these wrongs by recruiting a team to traverse five distinct chapters and return the world to its proper state. The title takes anywhere from 30 to 100 hours to beat depending on how thorough you want to be. I didn’t beat chapter one of five until I was 10 hours in and it only got harder. It’s a roguelike, so be ready for a lot of repetition as you try again and again to clear every section of a chapter.

Failure is constant, and thankfully so is the power ramp for your crew. Candles are the currency you’ll earn during each run and they can be spent on unlocking new characters, powering them up, unlocking gear & trinkets, and more. It’s a solid system that rarely felt random, unlike the rest of the title. As long as you earn a decent number of candles per run you will feel better prepared for the next one. That doesn’t mean you will progress quickly though as Darkest Dungeon 2 revels in its difficulty.

A Case of the Runs

Every run begins with your carriage, pulled by two horses, traversing through the void. You’ll get a bit of story from The Scholar and then have to choose your four party members. The game works on a unique placement system where each party member is most useful in a certain spot of the – – – – alignment. Tanks upfront, healers in the back, stabby folks just behind the tanks, etc. It makes sense quickly as you realize you can’t slice an enemy in the far right position of the row, nor can you shoot one in the front. The circles on the UI that show Yellow let you know the positioning of your side and blue indicates which attacks can hit certain enemies.

Darkest Dungeon 2 works on a speed system for who can take what turn and one of the chief factors in who goes when is your flame. The world is dark, and full of terrors. Thanks to the light on top of your carriage you can hold them back. The flame works on a number system where at higher levels you gain advantages and as it begins to fade your enemies will come at you faster and harder. The map is a Slay the Spire style crisscross where you’ll have limited knowledge of what is around each corner. As you die, rinse, repeat, and level up with candles you’ll get choices on the trinkets you have to customize your fighters, items for your carriage, different flame types for your roof, and more. Unlocking these also takes candles and everything about this game is a long, death-focused grind.

Like all good roguelikes, every choice matters. Do you go left and lose wagon wheel health but find a healer or do you go right and avoid damage but face a ? instead of a certain reward? Combat is brutal so you will want to do everything you can to avoid damage and stress. While your HP governs whether you live or die, your stress is just as important to maintain. This world sucks and the characters all hate every second of their journey. If your stress level reaches max they’ll either meltdown or be resolute. The latter happens far less often than the former and the results are:

• Meltdown – lose HP and cause stress to other characters
• Resolute – Large heal and add a positive stat to other characters

Finding the right combination of characters, trinkets, use items, and more will take a long time if you go blind. I found it the most fun to learn each class, unlock their story (which gives you all of their abilities), and try different combinations over time. Every level ends when you reach an inn and you can give your party per-run buffs, replace the dead with others from your reserves, fix up your carriage, or choose to end the run there and take the candles you have for the next one.

As a turn-based strategy title Darkest Dungeon 2 builds on the first game’s ideas and pillars, mainly in how damned brutal it can be. If you make a few wrong decisions early on the computer is happy to compound them, adding stress, removing HP, and quickly ending any run you have. Every encounter sees your party vs up to 4 other combatants. They can be zombies, dogs, dog zombies, humans, monsters, and more. Depending on your gear and meta-leveling setup, team choices, and in-run luck you’ll take turns based on your current speed values.

Early on the computer would seemingly get 3 turns to every 1 I had. After I learned the basics, powered my characters up with candles, and got luck with gear drops I turned that number on its head. Using my favored team of a Leperous King as a tank, a shifty fire-loving rogue as my melee damage, a sad*stic cultist as my ranged DPS, and a creepy plague mask healing lady in the back spot the game clicked. Each fight requires you to balance attacks, buffs, debuffs, heals, and moving characters around.

If you go full-glass cannon your run will be a short one, and full-on defense might keep things going for a while but you won’t get that far. It’s tough, brutally so, but after the first few hours, it begins to feel fair in a way I didn’t think it would. There’s still a lot of randomness to each run, it is a roguelike after all. You will unlock the tools to combat almost any bullsh*t scenario in time, though.

Graphics, Sound, and Bugs

Darkest Dungeon 2 goes 3d, dropping the compressed 2d look of the first game and upping the production values. I played primarily on Steam through my PC and Steam Deck early on before spending a lot of time with the Xbox version on Series X. It looks and runs great on everything I’ve tried it on, with a simplistic Unity look that is carried by excellent art style. There isn’t a ton of movement outside of the carriage as you traverse forward. Characters lightly animate during attacks, with a hand-drawn look utilizing heavy black lines. Each chapter sees you in different areas as you go through three zones, desperately trying (and usually failing) to defeat its boss. On Steam Deck and the Legion Go, I was able to set the power draw to 10 watts and run the game at 800p resolution at a locked 40 or 45fps with zero issues.

There is a lot of voice acting in the game, almost entirely from The Scholar. He is the one telling the story, commenting on the combat, and giving the final lines on what happened after the bosses died. His voice is deep, stoic when it needs to be, and never grew old. The music is fantastic, a mix of gothic Danny Elfman at his best for Tim Burton tracks that helped set the dour mood when things went poorly and gave that flicker of hope when they went well for once.

Bug-wise I had only one, on Steam with cloud saves. A few times the game simply would not cloud save after playing on Steam Deck, thankfully that never happened with the Xbox version even if I tried jumping between consoles to play it. It runs great on Xbox and controls well with a pad. You can play it entirely with your mouse or via touch on PC if you want as the team did a great job of making it feel right no matter what input you use.

Wrapping Things Up

Darkest Dungeon 2 is a beautiful, great-sounding, difficult, and addictive roguelike. If you’re into the genre then it’s an easy recommendation on whatever platform you prefer. It works great with a controller and can last 100+ hours if you want to see everything.