Every time I/you boot up Darkest Dungeon II, there’s a reminder that this is miserable game about making the best out of a seemingly hopeless situation. This most flagellant of turn-based roguelikes revels in the pain it inflicts, and challenges you to dig deep and fully examine the range of tactical options available to your party before letting you make any sort of forward progress.
I’m a sucker for misery in a dark dungeon and so it was with a profound sense of dread and also eager anticipation that I booted up Kingdoms, the newly released campaign mode that has been added to Darkest Dungeon II as a free update this month. Hunger of the Beast Clan is the first third of a new three-part campaign, with parts two and three in the works over at Red Hook Studios. There’s more yet to come, then.
Kingdoms & Confessions
From the outside looking in on the fandom, I’d say that the biggest crime committed by DD2 is that it’s not Darkest Dungeon. I get this, because I loved the original and I played it a lot back in the day, and I think I probably just about prefer the mission structure of old over the road-tripping format of the sequel.
Having said that, I still really like Darkest Dungeon II, and I was happy to dive back in for another bruising encounter in the new mode.
Kingdoms retains the foundational building blocks that differentiate the two games, namely the bits that take place in the coach when you’re moving between key objectives. It is in these more limited moments where you get a sense of your forward progress through the world and thus your campaign, and it is during each leg of your journey that procedurally generated elements are arranged for you to encounter.
Confessions, the original campaign mode, was all about the aforementioned journey, with a defined start and a similarly defined end. Kingdoms is a different beast(man) altogether, because instead of a path ahead to follow diligently unto its conclusion, the world is an interlocking grid of bases to visit, level up, and defend from your new enemy. I think I prefer this new found rigidity.
Meet the Beastmen
A big chunk of the Kingdoms update is the new faction that you’ll be facing off against, the Beastmen. These gnarly, goatish brutes represented a stern challenge during my first hours with the new campaign, which takes place over an extended number of turns and feels very differently paced to Confessions because of it.
I’m writing this up after my latest full team wipe, and it took place right at the end of an attempt to get across the map in time to stop an assault on one of my inns/bases. Frustrating to die in such agonising circumstances? Yes, but that’s the nature of the beast, I’d say.
Darkest Dungeon II remains a compelling video game to savour, and the new enemies look and feel at home in this increasingly macabre rogues’ gallery of monsters. Red Hook’s brilliant and distinctive visual style has never looked better – the elegant expression of the studio’s audio-visual style consistently impresses.
Inhuman Bondage
Not only did Darkest Dungeon II just get a chunky a free update, there’s also some paid-for DLC to tempt you in deeper in the form of the Inhuman Bondage character pack.
This expansion sees the return of the Abomination, and I spent much of my campaign with this shape-shifting beast at the vanguard of my attack. Naturally, it’s not good when you transform in-front of your teammates and they shit themselves a little in the process, but it’s good to have a fearsome fighter on the front row.
The Abomination is always a great addition to a party and I’m glad to see him back. That’s not all you get for your money, though, as there’s a new location to explore. I actually quite liked the new Catacombs biome and the slimey new enemies that await down there, as it adds further variety to an already interesting assortment of regions.
While I would say that it’s borderline cynical to put fan-favourite characters behind a post-launch pay-wall like this, if that’s what it takes to keep the lights on at Red Hook, then so be it. I personally think it makes the paid content quite easy to bear when there is a whole new way to play the game thrown in for free.
Darker than ever?
Regardless of whether you have Inhuman Bondage installed or not, the new Kingdoms mode is very playable. I tried it before activating the DLC code kindly sent by Red Hook, and before I purchased The Binding Blade (the other DLC) to complete the package. You just have fewer party members to choose from and a bit less gameplay variety, but it’s fine.
The final question to answer, then, is whether or not this new way to play represents the pinnacle of Red Hook’s work to date. I’d venture that Kingdoms is a great complement to Confessions, and even a marginal improvement. The new structure is an elegant rejigging of the gameplay fundamentals and it transforms the overall experience into something new and more robust.
The original Darkest Dungeon will always hold a special place in my twisted heart that I doubt will ever be supplanted, but Kingdoms is a fine alternative that stands alongside the original. What’s more, there’s a clear roadmap of new content ahead, and with two more chapters in the works and more character packs likely follow, too, there’s plenty of life left in the old dungeon crawler yet.
Kingdoms is out now as free update for the PC version of Darkest Dungeon II, which I played via access provided by the developer (my original review can be read here). The console version of the update is still in the works, with a release date still to be confirmed.
