Darkest Dungeon 2 Review (PS5, PS4, GeForce Now, Xbox One, Switch, & PC)

On the road to conquering the darkest dungeon, your party of four will be faced with all kinds of abominations. Zombies, monsters, skeletons, human foes, and more. This isn’t like Darkest Dungeon (2015), at least not in full. While the predecessor gives you the pleasure of pre-planning your next attack, the sequel crafts enemy encounters at random. Thus, you’ll be forced to think on your feet, devising the best combination of the current attacks, buffs, debuffs, status effects, and more, at your disposal. 

It’ll feel never-ending, taking you on a grueling journey that recycles over and over until you’re fully satisfied with your efforts. In all the roguelike madness the sequel provides, one thing remains: Darkest Dungeon 2 is brutally difficult for any gamer to take on. The question is: does the high difficulty pay off? The game came out in 2023 for PC via Epic Games Store and Steam. Now, console folks have the chance to dive into what Red Hook Studios describes as “a roguelike road trip of the damned.” Cue our Darkest Dungeon 2 review.

Road Trip of the Damned

Darkest Dungeon 2 still colors inside the lines of the story and gameplay that its predecessor set. The same dreadful atmosphere looms over your expeditions, ridding the world of the Heart of Darkness. However, this time, we’re introduced to The Scholar, who, in his attempts to control the Iron Crown, unleashes rot back into the world. Eldritch forces take over, with Lovecraftian monsters and demonic beings wreaking havoc across the land. Humanity is once again at risk of extinction, but not if you can help it.

At the behest of The Scholar, you round up an initial party of four and set forth on a treacherous journey to restore peace. Later, you’ll unlock 14 playable characters (or reluctant heroes), all diverse in appearance, stats, skills, background, and class-specific items. The journey unravels uniquely via a carriage that you turn left and right to avoid obstacles or pick item drops randomly scattered along forked roads. It’s all up to you to decide which fork to lead your carriage into, with careful consideration of the perks you stand to gain at the expense of drawbacks. 

Across all five distinct campaigns, complete with different resources and environments, you’ll chip away more of the story and face new threats. With each victory, you’ll draw closer to the final, darkest dungeon that will inevitably pose the greatest challenge of all.

Darkness Abound

All along, The Scholar narrates your expeditions, from the characters you recruit to the cause to the environments you stumble into. His voice will be the ever-present companion by your side, perfectly delivered with vigor and stoicism when appropriate. Meanwhile, the music score complements the darkness in the world with its melancholic undertones and gothic vibe. Tying the story presentation with a bow are intricately designed visuals. 

Each creature has deep black lines that, despite 2D rendering, make them feel uniquely distinct from one another. And as they snap into quick attack and defense animations, they come alive. In the backdrop are mostly dark colors but with bold contrasts that pop the turn-based scenes off the screen. Meanwhile, 3D venturing into the world feels deeply moody, with a heavy emphasis on a grimdark world stricken by darkness.

Controls, on the other hand, work seamlessly. Darkest Dungeon 2 simplifies tutorials with the simple press of respective buttons. And while it can feel like a lot of detail is bombarding you, the menus and UI still make it a point to provide all the information you need to beat the game. On consoles and PC platforms, the visuals run flawlessly, with, of course, 1080p screens divulging the finer details of text and visuals much better.

Wheels of Hope

Gameplay can be broken into two parts: carriage and turn-based. The former sees you exploring five chapters via a carriage. Steering the carriage doesn’t demand much from you, simply guide it to the left and right depending on the obstacles and item drops that come your way. If anything, it can get a tad boring, with little thought or strategy put into controlling the carriage. Still, it makes for perfect “rest stops” to recuperate from the grueling combat encounters. 

To kick off a battle, you’ll steer your carriage onward, clueless of when you might run into trouble. You could run into item drops, a mid-shop to stock up on resources, or ruthless foes. It’s all random and plays into how you choose which roads to take. The best part is that no matter which road you take, you’ll always gain something along the way, in addition to rewards for your troubles, whether buffs, debuffs, upgrades, and more. This way, you can lick your wounds, and once newly stocked, you can always redo a mission and attempt to best your previous run.

Road Less Traveled

Moreover, battle encounters pick up gradually. Your carriage will have a lantern that, at its brightest, gives you combat perks. You can upgrade the lantern to enjoy more perks, like strengthening your carriage against attacks. However, when the lantern grows dimmer, stronger enemies will begin popping up in larger numbers and more frequently. They grow more brave in the dark.  

Meanwhile, you have stress levels to watch out for. Your party isn’t the biggest fan of willingly throwing themselves in danger. And so, as your lantern grows dimmer and as they sustain more damage in battle, their stress levels begin to rise to the point of suffering a meltdown. 

With meltdowns comes a ripple effect that reduces the health of the rest of your party. With luck, though, stress can cause “resolute,” which grants your party more health and status boosts. But beyond watching out for stress levels, you also have relationships to consider. You can build stronger bonds between party members to unlock synergies that turn the tide of battle. 

Patience, Perserverance

At the end of a run, you’ll rest at an inn, where you can also scoop up upgrades and unlock new characters. Each run and inn at the end of it gives you distinct buffs, debuffs, status effects, and more. And with a new set of tools, you can choose to redo the run, thus unlocking more rewards and defeating more enemies. Darkest Dungeon 2 is roguelike, and so each run always has something new to discover. 

But despite always unlocking upgrades and new abilities at the end of a run, returning for another go at it poses more of a challenge. Because at the end of the day, the turn-based battle system is unapologetically brutal. Once battles ensue, they evolve in rapid succession, giving you little time to craft the perfect strategy. Nearly all the aspects of battle are at random. Enemies vary, but so do the abilities, buffs, debuffs, status effects, and more you have at your disposal for the specific run you’re on. 

As a result, you’re always tweaking your strategy, often using trial and error to discover the best combinations. You have to consider character placement, with healers at the back and tanks at the front. You also have to consider each character’s active and passive skills, as not every skill can be tapped into depending on placement, stress levels, debuffs, and more. While there’s plenty to keep track of, Darkest Dungeon 2 never feels overwhelming. Every character has unique chapters that you can go through to unlock all their abilities. Then, you can start to tinker around with upgrades and status boosts to discover which characters gel well together.

Verdict

Darkest Dungeon 2 offers a quicker change of pace compared to its predecessor. So, while it retains the core storytelling and gameplay, it opts for a more rapid succession of combat encounters. It pushes you to think on your feet, giving you a tantalizing variety of attacks, buffs, debuffs, status boosts, and more to tinker around with. And while it can take a long time to find the best combination that nets you the most wins, the process feels highly rewarding. You’re always unlocking something new, with ultimately wide-ranging tools at your disposal to tackle the monstrosities you come across. 

In the end, it depends on the genre you find most satisfying. If you’re looking for all-hands-on-deck gameplay, trying to survive long enough to unlock a new buff or perk, then Darkest Dungeon 2 is the perfect game for you. And not that your entire playthrough will be spent gasping for breath. Gameplay sure demands grinding to begin to feel even a bit of the tide swinging in your favor. But it does have slower-paced moments when you’re steering a carriage, taking in a most stunning grimdark depiction of a world enshrouded in darkness. 

It should take roughly 30 hours to complete Darkest Dungeon 2’s main objectives. But that number can easily stretch to over 100 hours if you comb through every nook and cranny to discover all the areas, resources, and enemies in consecutive runs.