Darkest Dungeon 2 Review (PS5) – The original Darkest Dungeon was an amazing feat of stunning presentation and addictive gameplay. How does this new iteration stack up against the brilliance of the first? Well, for better or for worse, Darkest Dungeon 2 has a completely different gameplay loop and may not be to everyone’s taste. Coming from Red Hook Studios, welcome to the darkest of dungeons.
In Darkest Dungeon 2, The Scholar has broken down the walls between dimensions. It’s up to you to make it to the mountain and destroy the evil there. Using your stagecoach and a crew of uncanny reprobates, you must face your fears, fend off madness and most of all, stay alive.
Darkest Dungeon 2 Review (PS5) – Sequel Or Sequel Adjacent?
A Different Beast
The massive visual overhaul was the first thing that struck me while playing Darkest Dungeon 2. Don’t get me wrong, it has been quite a while since playing the first but I did look at some old screenshots, you know, for research purposes.
This sequel looks leaps and bounds ahead of the first, gone are the 2D sprites, replaced with bold 3D animations and a more cinematic overall presentation.
The new presentation style is beautiful, it retains what made the first so visually striking while cranking up the cinematography and style. Some of the charm of the original has been lost but what you get in return looks stunning and along with the new UI, the whole thing looks sharper, less busy and extremely stylish.
Rogue-Lite or Rogue-like?
As I said earlier this game is a different beast from the first game, especially from a gameplay mechanic overview. Yes the combat, while improved, is the same. Yes, it still has a lot of what makes Darkest Dungeon a cult-classic but you now have a game that is a lot more rogue-like than the first. It’s easier to get into, less random and far less stressful.
Fans expecting the same mechanics as the first may be disappointed. Instead of longer runs with permadeath and heavy roster management, you get shorter runs in Darkest Dungeon 2 with persistent, between-run upgrades, more like traditional rogue-likes we see today.
No longer can some bad luck or poor decisions end hours upon hours of investment, instead death is encouraged as you will return stronger and with more experience. The sequel feels less of a commitment than the first, which may be to bring more players on board.
A Map, On Wheels?
Your runs in Darkest Dungeon 2 are done in a stagecoach that you navigate to different areas. You can navigate the roads to visit different hotspots and have an all manner of things happen to you and your crew. You also have to keep your stagecoach running, which with things like traps and hazards littering the roads, can sometimes be a game in itself. Along with this, you will run into fights and skirmishes on the way.
Combat has been streamlined and cleaned up massively. The overwhelming amount of stats, percentages and data presented to the player in the first has been alleviated. Buffs and de-buffs have been replaced with tokens, everything is smoother and as with a lot of things in this sequel, more inviting for new players.
More importantly, hitting and missing depending on your stats is no longer a thing with critical hits and other features being more predictable and something you can count on more regularly. It gives the combat system more depth and feels a lot less ‘lucky’. Add to this an improvement in both the quality and number of skills and you have a, in my opinion, much better, reliable combat system.
I will say, with this new presentation style some of the enemies and especially bosses you fight look amazing. Big hulking masses, ugly creatures and the like are all here for you to fell or more likely, be felled by.
Not Better, Just Different
Character-wise. With this game being a more run-based affair, your characters are unlocked more traditionally. Unlike the first where you have randomly generated characters, in Darkest Dungeon 2 you have a constantly improving set of characters that will stick with you throughout the whole game rather than a roster of ever-changing faces.
I touched on the presentation earlier but the sights and sounds of this game are superb. The narrator returns and is as brilliant as ever. He adds so much to the tension and character of the game and adds so much weight to everything, let’s be honest, the game would not be the same without him.
Darkest Dungeon 2 is a hard one for me to give an overall rating and conclusion on really. On the one hand, it’s massively improved, with a more reliable combat system and cleaned-up aesthetic. On the other, some of what made the first game so unique is gone. The gameplay loop is massively different, which some will love and some will hate. I just think it’s different.
I think Darkest Dungeon 2 is a lot less of a sequel and more of a sidestep, mechanically anyway. It does so much to onboard new players and make the whole experience smoother, it shaves off some rough edges beautifully. Unfortunately, some of those rough edges may have been what made the first such a cult hit. I think the game is great and as long as you don’t mind some of the changes, you should give it a go.
Darkest Dungeon 2 is available now for PS5 and PS4.
Review code kindly provided by the publisher.