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PC Darkest Dungeon II

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PC Darkest Dungeon II

Unread postby recoil » 20 Feb 2019 03:45

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https://www.pcgamer.com/darkest-dungeon ... -pcgamertw

Evan Lahti wrote:One of the most brutal and enjoyable RPGs of the last few years is getting a direct sequel.

Red Hook Studios is making Darkest Dungeon 2, a follow-up to the wonderfully grim turn-based roguelike that was our favorite RPG of 2016.

The studio isn't announcing many details beyond the game's existence and the teaser above, but did speak to us exclusively, saying that although Darkest Dungeon's combat system will be returning in a recognizable but "tuned-up" form, the studio is focused on creating a "completely different" structure for its metagame. Darkest Dungeon 2 will initially release in Early Access.

The teaser video above features six familiar character classes—the Grave Robber, Leper, Man-at-Arms, Plague Doctor, Highwayman, and Hellion—standing before a mountain range, indicating that Darkest Dungeon 2's setting could take your party over dangerous, snowy passes. The video is voiced by Wayne June—Red Hook confirmed to me that the voice of Darkest Dungeon will make a return along with the rest of its original audio contributors: composer Stuart Chatwood and SFX-crafters Power Up.

PC Gamer: What's interesting to you about making a direct sequel to Darkest Dungeon?

Tyler Sigman and Chris Bourassa, Red Hook Studios: We love our dysfunctional cast of characters, our atmosphere, and our world. Horror is a fantastic space to explore interesting and unconventional ideas, and we have a lot more story we want to tell. Mechanically, we also think we have some valuable nuggets (e.g. combat) and there is more there that we’d like to explore and build on. Above all, we are committed to crafting Darkest Dungeon 2 to be its own experience; it will have its own creative and thematic identity.

What gameplay and other changes are you able to talk to us about at this time?

We’re playing this pretty close to the chest! Our combat system is making a return, but we’re giving it a significant tune-up—mechanically, and in terms of presentation. Most significantly, however, we are working with a completely different metagame structure. Darkest Dungeon 2 is a game about enduring a gruelling journey, not cleaning up your backyard.

What's one of the major learnings you're bringing into the development of Darkest Dungeon 2?

We created a lot of Darkest Dungeon with only five people on the team. It took its toll on us physically and mentally, just like an epic Warrens clearing run. We can afford to be a bit more sensible this time around, and have been growing staff to match scope more reliably and realistically. However, the small team agility and creativity is still key, and we look to keep that. Ultimately, a game is only as good as the team you have making it. We put a lot of value on finding the right people and giving them an environment to be motivated creatively. We think it’s easier to do that while remaining somewhat small.

Darkest Dungeon's corrupted setting is an inseparable part of its appeal. Will the sequel be focused on the Estate and its surroundings, or a new location?

In Darkest Dungeon 2, we’re giving players a glimpse of the supernatural apocalypse twisting and distorting the world beyond the estate... and that’s all we’re going to say about that for now.

How many people is Red Hook Studios right now, and is that size something you'd like to maintain throughout this project, or change as you continue development? How would you describe the culture of the studio?

We have grown to 14 at this point, and anticipate adding another half-dozen more in the coming 18 months. Cultural fit is extremely important to us, and we aren’t in a rush to grow. We enjoy each other’s company, share drinks and play games together, but above all, we value hard work and passion. Open, ego-less discussion and brainstorming are an important part of our process—our goal as a team is to find the best possible choice, and we enjoy challenging each other and playing devil’s advocate in pursuit of that end.

What development structure do you expect to take? Will Early Access be a good fit for this project?

It’s no secret that we are big fans of the Early Access model, but we also are advocates for only doing Early Access if it makes sense for the specific game. Although there are some massive differences in structure between DD1 and DD2, the sequel is still very appropriate for an Early Access type approach.

The ability to get something into fans’ hands faster, kick the tires of the systems, and give those fans the opportunity to help shape the finishing of the game are both really important to us. Early Access is also really great for being able to alter your production plan depending on reception—a big reception can be a clear signal to invest even more in the project and pull in some of the wishlist items (there are always wishlist items) and turn them into reality.

You can sign up to Red Hook Studios' mailing list to get notified first for updates about Darkest Dungeon 2.


Teaser: "The Howling End": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlGMsJgyORk

TBA.
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recoil
 
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Unread postby Some guy » 26 Oct 2020 22:15

Teaser: "A Glimmer of Hope"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90qCpMSV7I

Red Hook Studios wrote:It’s time to face the failures of the past.

Lash your gear to the stagecoach, fix your eyes on the horizon, and prepare to roll into Early Access on the Epic Games Store in 2021!

Wishlist Today: https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p ... eon-2/home
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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Oct 2021 22:30

Road of Ruin - Early Access Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ6Gdd- ... XVyolQO3wj

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Looks good. The carriage is the new mechanics.

Red Hook Studios wrote:Form a party, equip your stagecoach, and set off across a decaying landscape in a last gasp attempt to avert the apocalypse.


October 26 on Epic: https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p ... -dungeon-2
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CULT LIVE: Darkest Dungeon II

Unread postby ChevRage » 13 Mar 2022 16:33

Darkest Dungeon II with ChevRage 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJZIQkMlwVw

Ruin has come to Red Hook Games. Once a venerable developer, opulent and imperial, now reduced to fabricating a trifling roguelite...

Okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but the roguelite bit at least is true. The game seems like it's a big step down from the first. You no longer manage a hamlet (such as it was), having to deal with every hero's stress in between each foray into the dungeons, or building and upgrading buildings that can improve on their equipment, recruit more heroes, etc. Now you just upgrade your stagecoach when you rest at an inn, manage your trinkets and probably some other stuff I didn't get up to. No more stress either, it takes a different form with relationships between each of your four characters. They can form really good bonds with each other which give them some buffs in combat, or they can hate other characters and hurt them "accidentally", refuse healing, and so on. It functions somewhat similarly to how it was in the previous game, but there's no more tests of resolve any more, nor heart attacks with too much stress. Lame.

You only choose four characters at the start and then go on back-to-back "dungeons" of sorts until they all die. Your progress then nets you some XP for your, rather lazily titled, "Profile Level", which can unlock different characters or some variant personalities, and then you start again. I guess at least you can't double up on characters now like you could before.

Some people really like the changes, and I'm guessing it's mostly because they haven't played the first game on the Bloodmoon difficulty, which adds a time (and death) restriction on your game. Without that difficulty, it basically let them grind their characters up to whatever they wanted freely, and deaths didn't matter that much since they could eventually grind another character back up. So naturally they didn't feel the weight of their actions as much as in this new game.

For what it's worth, Darkest Dungeon didn't have the Bloodmoon difficulty when it was early access. And if I had to compare both games as they were before they officially released, this one is by far superior so far. The combat is more complex, with every hero having more moves, there are more status effects, some enemies get their own death's door status (which is fucking huge, holy shit). The "dungeons", now replaced with a stagecoach ride with multiple paths, are far superior to how they were in the previous game, you actually have to make more significant routing decisions this time over just taking the shortest, most obvious one. It's not terribly complex, but still an improvement.

The game looks way better too. I was a little worried when I heard they were going 3D with it, but it really looks gorgeous. The stagecoach ride with the abundantly growing brush zooming past, and even the combat with the new cool animations are a huge step up from the previous game.

I'm not a huge fan of the stagecoach myself though, it's super-sluggish and hard to control. You're supposed to, somewhat counterintuitively, hit all the obstacles in your path in order to gain resources, but I eventually just gave up and let the coach follow the walls up until every split path because it was annoying.

And the roguelite structure of the game, while lame, doesn't seem to offer significant benefits towards grinding your Profile Level up. It's the type that just increases the variety of what you have available at the start rather than a direct increase in strength. Or at least that's how it seems to me. It's not as good as the roguelites that have no Profile Level at all, but it could be worse I guess.

At any rate, I'm still up for playing it eventually. But I think I'll wait for it to get released first. Hopefully there's going to be some hard mode that is similar to Bloodmoon (although I don't see how that would be possible). And it'll be nice to get some variety in the locations. I didn't get very far, but I only crossed samey-looking areas.
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Mar 2022 03:17

I give them credit for trying something new with the stagecoach. They could very easily have kept the exact same formula. Let's hope they manage to improve the new formula then. They're probably aware of the issues and are working on them. If they had gone on Steam, they would have had much better feedback than on Epic though...

1080p wallpaper: https://www.global-esports.news/wp-cont ... 2-game.jpg

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I used it to make the banner for the release calendar.
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