I find it almost as hard to summariseDarkest Dungeon 2as I do to survive within it.
What was once a kind of hellish workplace simulator has become the world’s worst commute.
Your coach follows the road automatically - the horses, mercifully, appear to be unkillable.
Defeat is routine, and the bloody compost from which victory eventually springs.
Choice of route is shaped by a fairly dizzying assortment of overarching world variables and resource pressures.
As inDarkest Dungeon, you bear a flame of hope which strengthens you or weakens enemies when blazing brightly.
These torrid intimacies and grudges part-replace the first game’s Afflictions and Virtues.
They form part of a larger emphasis on collaboration in combat, which has been extensively retuned.
It makes for some enjoyable tactical chemistry.
But each has been artfully redesigned, and it’s a pleasure to discover how.
Good luck defeating these grander grotesques without foreknowledge of their abilities.
The game takes a medieval delight in the spectacle of mental or physical suffering.
Every foe is some kind of study in bodily corruption and decay.
I myself found it disturbingly convenient and compulsive as a lunchbreak game, with its 15-30 minute dungeon loops.
The new roguelike format works well, and the smaller tweaks are devious and delightful to uncover.
