Madness has taken over the land in Darkest Dungeon 2, and it's up to you to hinder its spread! Read on to see our full review of the game and decide whether it’s worth your money!
Darkest Dungeon 2 Review and Score Explanation
Darkest Dungeon 2 Score Explanation
| Overall | One of the more unique RPGs that came out in 2023, Darkest Dungeon 2 promises to give you a stressful, harrowing, and adrenaline-fueled romp around the world to save it from absolute evil. |
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| Story | Aside from the premise and main quest, there are many character backstories that you can explore as you make repeated expeditions for the Mountain, each one a story of human despair and willpower. The game has a dark and very entertaining story overall. |
| Gameplay | Gameplay is Darkest Dungeon 2’s strongest suit, offering both intense turn-based action in its fights and a unique progression system that encourages you to play the game, again and again, to get stronger. |
| Visuals | Darkest Dungeon 2 has retained the original Darkest Dungeon’s art style despite its shift to 2.5D, featuring a grittier, more dilapidated world inspired by Western fantasy and comic books. |
| Audio | The game’s music is intense with its use of drums, violins, and choral arrangements to emphasize how desperate the situation is for your heroes. It’s a very compelling soundtrack. |
| Value for Money | It’ll take you a good while to complete the game’s Altar of Hope upgrades, so the game is jam-packed for $39.99. You’ll get your money’s worth even after a few playthroughs. |
Darkest Dungeon 2 Review: Highway to Hell
Darkest Dungeon 2 is a brutal trip across the world where you’ll be facing off against all manner of abominations in a desperate attempt to bring peace to the world once more. With its gritty and grotesque graphics, compelling sound design, and great turn-based gameplay, this is an indie game you won’t regret getting your hands on.
Darkest Dungeon 2 Full Game Review
Pros of Darkest Dungeon 2
| Things Darkest Dungeon 2 Got Right |
|---|
 Streamlined Gameplay Loop Encourages Multiple Playthroughs Gritty Art Style and Compelling Audio Mesh Together Well Lots of Content to Unlock For a $40 Game |
Streamlined Gameplay Loop Encourages Multiple Playthroughs
The core gameplay of Darkest Dungeon 2 has little changed from that of Darkest Dungeon 1. You’ll have four party members, whose turns are dictated by an order list. Whoever has the highest speed, be it one of your heroes or an enemy, gets to move first. During your move, you can either attack an enemy, use an ability, use an item, or move between the left or right of the line.
Those who manage to survive win. But if one of your heroes dies, it’s curtains for them - they’ll have to be replaced with another hero, or else you’ll have to complete an expedition with 3 heroes instead of four. If you think you can’t go on, you can go to the nearest inn and end your expedition in exchange for all the Candles of Hope you have earned during your playthrough.
Candles of Hope are the key to Darkest Dungeon 2’s new progression system. By using these Candles before every playthrough, you can unlock new characters, upgrade existing heroes, upgrade your wagon, and many other things. Gone are the base-building elements you saw back in Darkest Dungeon 1’s village; just keep sending expeditions toward the Mountain and you’ll upgrade your stuff in no time.
Gritty Art Style and Compelling Audio Mesh Together Well
Despite shifting to 2.5D, Darkest Dungeon 2 still retains the gritty and thick-lined graphics of its predecessor. This makes it similar to other games with a comic-inspired art style like Borderlands. But this change does not detract from the game’s looks. Each hero is intricately detailed with shield colors, capes, and other little trinkets. The enemies are also equally detailed but much more grotesque, with flesh melting off their bones like candle wax, or tentacles growing from beyond the mortal plane.
But what really takes the show away are the regions you go through in your journey toward the Mountain. There are seven locations in total, with at least five that you’ll probably go through during a run. From the burning Sprawl to the rotting Foetor to the mysterious Sluice, you'll be greeted with twisted visuals of rotting mounts of flesh growing forth from the earth, book burnings, and the Color Out of Space.
There’s a real character to the game’s graphics, and this is only enhanced by its audio suite. The soundtrack has a lot of compelling music made up of violins, drums, pianos, and other instruments that work together to create a tense and unsettling atmosphere. Even when you’re at an inn, the violin and din of whatever lurks outside will make you feel uneasy about the next region you’ll have to explore.
Lots of Content to Unlock For a $40 Game
For a $40 (or $30 if you bought it at early access) game, Darkest Dungeon 2 has a lot of stuff to do. Most of it involves unlocking the upgrades available through the Altar of Hope. But you’ll also be experimenting with different teams, working out strategies against certain bosses, unlocking hero backstories, and overall just playing around with the game’s systems.
$60 game is capable of giving you far less. Also, going by how Darkest Dungeon 1 went and expanded itself through DLC, there’s a lot more content in store for those who buy the game now and stick with it.
Cons of Darkest Dungeon 2
| Things That Darkest Dungeon 2 Can Improve |
|---|
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Grinding for Candles Can Get Tiring Progression System Might Turn Off Fans of Original Darkest Dungeon Performance Issues Present in Steam Release |
Grinding for Candles Can Get Tiring
While you’re on the road to getting Candles for upgrades, sometimes the gameplay loop can get repetitive. Unless you’re visiting a lot of places along the way that netted candles for you, you'll spend most of your time getting 40 or so candles per playthrough. That may sound a lot, but that’s actually rather low.
The game incentivizes players to try out attaching Infernal Torches to their stagecoach, so they could play Hard Mode and earn more than a hundred candles per playthrough. But other players might be turned off by the idea of trudging through harder versions of maps they have already grinded candles from, and eventually stop playing.
The progression has been streamlined, but it might still be too slow for others.
Progression System Might Turn Off Fans of Original Darkest Dungeon
Gone is the Village from Darkest Dungeon 1. All of its functions have been replaced by the Altar of Hope and the Inn. That means you can’t have your heroes go to church anymore or get condemned as mental patients. But this also makes Darkest Dungeon 2 easier to pick up compared to 1, since all the mental health care/upgrade options have been compressed into two locations.
Those who played the original Darkest Dungeon 1 might not like this streamlining, either because it made Darkest Dungeon 2 ‘easier’ or because certain immersion aspects (like getting mental help for your heroes) have been removed.
Performance Issues Present in Steam Release
Something that I noticed immediately between the Darkest Dungeon 2 Steam version and the one on the Epic Games Store is the performance drop. It gets laggy in certain areas for some reason, even though I never experienced this with the EGS version. Hopefully, these lag spikes are just an optimization problem that can be fixed with a few future patches.
Darkest Dungeon 2 Story Plot
The sequel to the acclaimed 2016 dungeon crawler Darkest Dungeon, Darkest Dungeon 2 by Red Hook Studios sees you facing an eldritch madness that has spread all over the land. The malignancy comes from a mountain, and you and a party of four adventurers must drive your stagecoach to its very heart and destroy whatever is responsible for this catastrophe.
But between you and the Mountain lies a cursed Earth filled with monsters, cultists, madmen, and the few people who have managed to retain their sanity through these dark times. Just like in the previous Darkest Dungeon, you and your party must fight cultists, the undead, and all manner of horrors beyond the realm of reality. On top of that, you must manage the sanity of your party members and keep their morale up, lest infighting overtakes them.
Instead of trodding through an estate like in the first game, you have to explore the land and choose your routes carefully. Your stagecoach is easily destructible, and many beings wish to waylay you on the road. But you and your men can find respite at fortified inns filled with people who have yet to succumb to the madness. Upgrade your coach, stock up on supplies, and keep the morale of your adventurers up, and you may just be able to push back the horrors that threaten to swallow your world whole.
Even if your expedition fails, you can always send another one that’s stronger from all the Candles of Hope you gained from the last playthrough.
Who Should Play Darkest Dungeon 2?
Darkest Dungeon 2 is Recommended if You Enjoy:
• Darkest Dungeon 1
• Souls-Like Games
• Inscryption
Obviously those who liked Darkest Dungeon 1 will love Darkest Dungeon 2. But the game also has the kind of progression system that will appeal to players who like Souls-like games where they’ll (eventually) surmount difficult obstacles, as well as the decision-based gameplay that’s offered by games like Inscryption. Every choice you make on the map will probably affect your whole playthrough in some way in Darkest Dungeon 2, so those who like that kind of thrill will be in for a treat.
How Darkest Dungeon 2 Matches Up to Recently-Released Games
| Games That Came Out Recently | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom |
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a more light-hearted story compared to Darkest Dungeon 2. So if you’re in the mood for anything dark, depressing, and stressful, $40 wouldn’t be that much to spend. | TLoZ TotK is an open world game, so players will have a freer experience compared to Darkest Dungeon 2. |
 Redfall |
Darkest Dungeon 2 manages to drive home a more terrifying atmosphere than Redfall. That’s on top of not having as many technical problems as Redfall did on release. | Like TotK, Redfall is an open-world game, so some players might like that over Darkest Dungeon 2’s more traditional turn-based RPG gameplay. |  The Lord of the Rings: Gollum |
Darkest Dungeon 2 is an RPG while 'Gollum' is a stealth-action game, though DD2 still offers a more stressful, grittier experience. | 'Gollum' is in full 3D, and its stealth action elements might scratch the itch of fantasy fans, especially if they're fans of The Lord of the Rings. |
How Darkest Dungeon 2 Matches Up to Similar Games
| Games Similar to Darkest Dungeon 2 | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
 Darkest Dungeon |
Darkest Dungeon 2 is much easier to pick up compared to Darkest Dungeon 1, which had different systems to upgrade your heroes and take care of their physical and mental health. In Darkest Dungeon 2, these systems have been streamlined | However, the streamlining of the progression and care systems for your heroes has also eliminated the systems introduced in Darkest Dungeon 1. Fans of DD1 might not like DD2 because it’s ‘easier’. |
 XCOM 1 and 2 |
Darkest Dungeon 2 is a fantasy-focused permadeath roguelike RPG, while the XCOM games (and their original versions back in the 90s) are all sci-fi. Also, DD2 is easier to pick up compared to the new XCOM games, | DD2 doesn’t have the tactical depth of the XCOM games, so those who like turn-based tactics will want to play those instead. |
 Fire Emblem: Engage |
Darkest Dungeon 2’s aesthetic is the polar opposite of Fire Emblem Engage - dark, gritty, and somewhat realistic compared to Engage’s cutesy anime-esque visuals. So RPG fans who don’t like anime will find a better game in DD2. | But Engage has a great anime aesthetic, has great turn-based tactical gameplay, and is a bigger game overall. So if you’re a fan of the FE series and you don’t mind anime, you can play Engage instead. |
Darkest Dungeon 2 Trailer
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Darkest Dungeon 2 Product Information
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| Title | Darkest Dungeon 2 |
|---|---|
| Release Date | May 8, 2023 |
| Developer | Red Hook Studios |
| Supported Platforms | PC, PS4, Xbox One |
| Genre | Roguelike Dungeon Crawler RPG |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | Teen |
| Official Website | https://www.darkestdungeon.com/darkest-dungeon-2/ |
