Darkest Dungeon 2 review - There's light in the dark if you don't get overwhelmed

Darkest Dungeon was one of the harder roguelikes I’ve played. It’s brilliant, but always tricky. One of those games where at any moment everything can go wrong. If you haven’t played it, you choose a group of four adventurers and explore various dungeons fighting grisly and ghostly creatures while monitoring their sanity levels. No matter what you did, unless you analysed every detail of the attacks and characters sheets, everything could fall apart.

It’s a game, now a franchise, that inspires fear and high levels of tension. Playing the sequel, Darkest Dungeon 2, I was forever worried about how I could mess things up. Would my heroes succumb to stress and literally go mad? Would we attempt one fight too many and get pulped by a hulking mass of muscle?

One thing I want to get out of the way straight off the bat, there is no point in me going into every detail, rule, or mechanic of this game. There are far too many to count. When you glance at the buffs and debuffs that can impact your party it can feel a little overwhelming, with so many that can be applied by various enemies. This kind of sums up the game nicely, it’s deep, complex, and, if you’re a fiend for stats, incredibly satisfying.

Darkest Dungeon 2 - Red Hook Studios

It’s helpful that the developers have given players an easy-to-read glossary because it feels like something new pops up every minute of the opening hour. Darkest Dungeon 2 takes everything that made the first game so engaging and attempts to elevate the experience via lots of new additions. While it may feel a bit too much at first, the learning curve is relatively gradual, though if you’re anything like me you’ll be checking the rules and symbols constantly as there are a lot to track.

Now, for those who never played the first game, your four heroes will move from battle to battle, previously through dungeons, this time across a haunted landscape of Lovecraftian proportions. Rather than schlepping around on foot, you travel via a wagon, along some visually gorgeous avenues, through clustered cities and towns. The art style, which has a Mike Mignola-esque style of vivid colours and stark blacks, has never looked better.

You’ll navigate these roads occasionally stopping for fights, talking to villagers, or scavenging through points of interest for items. Your goal is to make it to ‘the end’ - a point at which your party survives and you keep the light of hope alight. It’s literally represented by a burning torch. Your success depends on a few things; the kinds of items you find, how well you fight, and of course, battling against the randomness of the genre.

One run might see you do very well in each fight, finding enemies that go a little easier on you than others would, all while picking up and buying items that buff your fighters in battle. Another run could be a complete disaster, seeing you tackle a lair that features waves of enemies, gradually getting tougher, in the hopes of scoring some huge rewards, but getting your ass handed to you.

Each fight starts the same way. Your four adventurers facing off against up to four enemies. Before the run starts you put your characters into ranks, for example, your tank character goes at the front, and your ranged fighter will stand at the back. This can get shaken up via abilities performed or enemies shoving them around, but let’s not worry about that for now.

Darkest Dungeon 2 - Red Hook Studios

Combat begins and you can use battle items, which are limited, or abilities that aren’t. You choose enemies to attack depending on which ability will hit their position in the team and try to wipe them out before they kill you. It’s rather simple before you bring in the hundreds of combinations of abilities, damage stats, buffs, debuffs, positional power in the team, the randomness of damage and defence, plus the ongoing madness that can consume your team.

Essentially, everything is trying to kill you. When you take damage, a stress metre rises and your character gets closer to a breakdown. Reach that point and they can become useless, nearing death or being unable to act in the usual way.

When I say that everything is trying to kill you, I mean it. Aside from the Inn, where each area of the map ends and you can rest and spend money, place trinkets, and upgrade your heroes, everywhere you look is danger. Darkest Dungeon 2 is far from easy. In fact, I still haven’t successfully completed a run, despite sinking many hours into it.

Because this is a roguelike, much of your success depends on the randomness of everything from the areas you traverse to what items you find along the way. You can improve your item, trinket, and even hero selection by using candles, a reward you get for succeeding up to checkpoints.

I feel like saying more or diving into every little feature, would either overwhelm you, or I’d end up writing an essay - let’s just say you'll be spoiled for choice when it comes to how you play this game. There are various character types, lots to unlock as you play, and you’ll learn new mechanics and skills to use in combat.

The game has been out for a while on PC and it’s seen a lot of success. When you’re taking what made the first game brilliant and improving on it in most ways, it’s going to be well received. However, this review is for the console version of the game and I will say that playing on Nintendo Switch was a bit of a pain. The UI isn’t overly accessible and the myriad of options available often clutters the screen, combine that with playing in handheld and you’ll be squinting a lot or losing your cursor.

Darkest Dungeon 2 - Red Hook Studios

It’s clear this is a PC game - it really needs a mouse to feel right. Scrolling through countless menus just doesn’t work as well on a controller. It’s serviceable, but you’ll wish there was an easier way.

I can’t fault the content of the game. It’s a challenge that many will rise to and the battles combined with the sprawling world - which constantly looks lush - are a joy. Playing on a handheld just isn’t as ideal as I would have liked. I can imagine that Xbox or PlayStation offers a better experience, but you’ll still have to scroll through many menus using shoulder buttons.

What this issue highlights is that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. The first game was a much simpler time and the sequel, while still enjoyable, can feel impenetrable at times. There are too many times where I had to remind myself of a mechanic or a trait that was picked up by a member of the team. It can become frustrating when all you want to do is fight, though hardcore tacticians will love the sheer number of things that can sway a battle.

In many ways, Darkest Dungeon 2 is an upgrade, but some may think it went too far. When you boil it down to exploring and fighting, it’s a joy even when the enemies are slamming you around. And you will sink many hours into working your way through the various biomes in the hope of surviving this nightmare world.

Pros: Stylish horror, superb battle system, intricate upgrading

Cons: Very challenging for some, overwhelming, cluttered menus

For fans of: Slay the Spire, Hades, Roguelikes

6/10: Good

Darkest Dungeon 2 is available now on Nintendo Switch (version tested), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and PC. Review code was provided by the publisher. Find a complete guide to GAMINGbible's review scores here.