That sounds like plenty to be getting on with, but Darkest Dungeon 2 is a game that just keeps on giving, building on top of the stress system with the shiny new affinity mechanic. Capping out your stress is a risk you’ll want to avoid more often than not, necessitating the use of Skills and items to manage your party’s stress levels throughout your run. At this point, characters will either remain resolute and rally themselves for another round, or have a meltdown, taking serious damage in the process. Stress levels rise and fall based on various factors, with decisive moments being triggered once a character’s stress level reaches ten. This was the original game’s big innovation, a means of measuring the mental health of your party members in addition to the physical, and it makes a welcome return here. Monsters will still find a way to block your path through road barricades and unavoidable locations, and the stagecoach itself brings with it new layers of management, demanding that you keep its wheels and carriage intact lest you break down and fall victim to the creatures of the roadside.Īnd while you’re fighting for your life, keeping a close eye on your party’s health, another gear is spinning in subtle synchronicity: the stress system. There’s a high level of incidental detail visible if you take the time to scope out the roadside, and you’ll find unique locations in each region that grant each their own mechanical and visual identity.ĭon’t think that traveling in the relative comfort of a stagecoach will dull the edge of the game’s difficulty, however. It also lets Red Hook Studios flex their worldbuilding muscles by crafting entire regions as opposed to just additional series’ of dank corridors.

This change adds a more dynamic feel to the experience overall, letting you manually steer your stagecoach to collect items on the road, and make decisions at key points along each region’s branching path: paths which, when viewed from above via the in-game map, bear a striking resemblance to a certain Spire you may have Slain in your time.

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