Gothic roguelike ‘Darkest Dungeon 2’ will leave Early Access in May

8 February, 2023

Darkest Dungeon II

Redhook Studios has confirmed that Darkest Dungeon 2 is set to leave Early Access later this year, and will be available on Steam.

In October 2021, Darkest Dungeon 2 was released in Early Access via the Epic Games Store. Since then, the gothic roguelike has received multiple upgrades and expansions but now Redhook Studios has confirmed the title is due to leave Early Access on May 8, 2023.

The same day, Darkest Dungeon 2 will be officially released on Steam and is available to wishlist now.

“Darkest Dungeon 2 is a roguelike road trip of the damned,” reads the description. “Form a party, equip your stagecoach, and set off across the decaying landscape on a last gasp quest to avert the apocalypse. The greatest dangers you face, however, may come from within.”

Players can currently download a Darkest Dungeon 2 demo on Steam, which provides access to four starting heroes and two of the game’s five regions. However progress isn’t saved between attempts and only one region can be explored per run. A similar demo is available via Epic.

The Darkest Dungeon 2 demo is part of Steam Next Fest 2023, which gives gamers the opportunity to play roughly 900 demos before February 13.

The original Darkest Dungeon was released in 2016 and tasked players with recruiting, then leading a party of heroes through a variety of gothic-looking dungeons, battling a variety of monsters in a turn-based combat system while managing a variety of potential afflictions that affect how heroes handle the adventure.

Speaking to NME about Darkest Dungeon 2’s wider world, creative director Chris Bourassa said: “We wanted to escalate the stakes, and explore a world beyond the confines of the Hamlet. Technically speaking, the regions are dungeons, but it’s been fun implying a scale of destruction that we couldn’t in Darkest Dungeon.”

“The Hamlet was great and was crucial to the structure of [the first game], but it seemed lacklustre to follow it up with another hamlet or city or fortress or camp of some kind,” added Tyler Sigman. “Freeing things up from a single base allowed us to lean into the journey aspect.”

In other news Judas, the debut game from BioShock creator Ken Levine’s Ghost Story Games, has been given an official release window by parent company Take-Two.

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