Following its lengthy Early Access stay on the Epic Games Store, Darkest Dungeon II finally has a release window for its full release. You can expect Darkest Dungeon II‘s full release on Steam and the EGS in February 2023. In a recent community update, developer Red Hook Studios also laid out a Darkest Dungeon II roadmap ahead of its launch.
Red Hook Studios states: “This revised roadmap favours more frequent updates, and is in service of reaching a complete 1.0 in February 2023 on EGS and Steam. Console releases will follow.” This is not all the community update entails, which is very exciting for many fans who have not heard anything since the last update for the game, “The Shroud of the Deep.”
Darkest Dungeon II roadmap details upcoming changes
In the update, Red Hook states that the current XP system is quite minimal and lacks enough meaningful choices. This is definitely something players have experienced in the Early Access gameplay to this point. Your heroes cannot gain experience or level up. Instead, characters gain “Mastery Points,” a shared resource you spend in between dungeon runs. This is going to be addressed in Darkest Dungeon II 1.0. Red Hook Studios is going to overhaul the experience system to be more like the original game. This means the sequel will offer more decisions that grant or take away experience, as well as different bonuses for each character, which is closer to the original system.
As well as overhauling the experience system, the studio is going to change the way relationships work in Darkest Dungeon II. This feature is the equivalent of afflictions in the original. Relationships impact stats and certain aspects of your run based on how your characters interact. As it currently stands, a player can easily tell when a relationship is heading in a positive or negative direction. This restricts gameplay, as the player won’t need to plan for multiple outcomes in a situation. Essentially, the current relationship system lessens the strategic impact a player has.
Expectation moving forward
Overall, Darkest Dungeon II‘s development cycle will change significantly. Red Hook plans to shorten the time between updates and announcements. Players will be able to see quicker progress, albeit in a smaller capacity than the larger updates. It remains to be seen if this strategy is successful for Red Hook Studios, as Darkest Dungeon had a longer time between updates.
