Red Hook Studios, The team behind 2016’s Dark Fantasy RPG Darkest Dungeon, has released an announcement trailer for a sequel. Darkest Dungeon II: The Howling End. The focus of the trailer is a singular large snowy mountain, no doubt to be the setting of this new game. It’s not hard to notice that the setting of Darkest Dungeon is heavily influenced by Lovecraftian Horror. One of the expansions is named The Color of Madness, similar to the Lovecraft title, The Color Out of Space. This Mountain continues to draw those images and brings to mind stories like, “In the Mountains of Madness.” Dark, snowy horror, filled with dreaded abominations, and wild crazed animals.
The trailer goes on to mention the heroes courageous enough to carry “The Flame.” A large part of the first game was managing the light levels of the dungeons. You had to expend torches in order to keep the dungeons well lit, and your company sane. It seems that this idea is going to continue on in Darkest Dungeon II. It’s hard to know exactly to what extent this torch system will play but with addition of A cold harsh mountain, It may also be a means of managing the warmth of the party, as well as the light. The cruel deaths, and slips into insanity were some of the best moments of the first game, and with an added warmth component one can only imagine the depths of this new nightmare. However, this is just speculation.
Continuing on with the trailer we see 6 heroes approach. A clear look is given to us of 6 heroes from the first game. The Hellion, The Leper, The Highwayman, The Plague Doctor, The Man-at-arms, and The Grave Robber. It’s reasonable to assume these 6 heroes will return in the new title. It’s unclear if any of the other old heroes will be back, and no one knew is shown, but learn more before Darkest Dungeon II comes out. Another Character that we can assume will be back is The Narrator. The voice narrating the trailer sounds to be the same as The Narrator of the first game, Wayne June. Having him return for the sequel will be a huge plus.
No other information is given in the announcement trailer. No release date, no time frame for the game, so we can assume that it’s still in development and won’t be out for a while. In the past Red Hook has used an Early Access model for launching their game, there is nothing indicating that this is the case in the announcement, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise if it was the case this time around as well.
Either way, this is super exciting news, Darkest Dungeon was an amazing game focusing on the fatality of the adventures life, preparing for the worst, and having the face the inevitable consequences of your actions. It was brutally unforgiving, deathly hard, and we’re hope that the sequel isn’t any less so.
