Editing Darkest Dungeon (section)

==Sequel==

As of February 12, 2019, Red Hook Studios has officially announced that they are creating Darkest Dungeon 2. 

The trailer is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlGMsJgyORk here].

Another trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90qCpMSV7I here].

Preliminary tests show the game is a *direct* inversion of the first one, the setting a mixture between the traveling vampire hunters' caravan from "Vampire hunter D", archaic 1990 Amiga-500 game "The Lost Patrol" and roguelikes like ADOM set in a Daemon World or last days of Cadia or Warhammer Fantasy world. Think [[End Times]] with no faction stable enough to draw breath as you dash to save yourselves in a mad plan across a planet turned into a warzone. So basically the entire game is flipped upside down: say goodbye to the single-stable town system with well-defined, selectable, niche dungeons with one, solid, 50+ hour playthrough with no game overs; hello to randomly generated travels with no towns, randomly forked roads leading to random encounters with random party builds and less than half an hour of fighting and re-starting the whole game a la Roguelite. Even the narrator changed its tone: the first game had the resigned inevitability of the Ancestor that the world's heart would crack open and consume all life. The sequel has the same voice actor being an angry, determined, and yet hopeful Professor of a non-descript university who pushes you out of your room and encourages you to try and stop the madness no matter how many heroes you lose, how many fights you go through, and how many pains you suffer, claiming hope will always blaze forth in a dark night.

===The Story===

So far it's a jar of [[Skub]]. The following part is likely speculative, so read with a pinch of salt. (a grain would be too harsh)

Turns out killing the Heart of Darkness (last game's final boss) may not have been the the best of ideas. The entire world has gone mad, cultists burning and [[Cannibalism|eating each other]], plague infested "Hamlets" with sick fuckery that would scare Nurgle away, and everyone outside isolated camps and inns are mad and/or dying. The economy does not exist; you barter with relics and looted supplies with no sale option. Refugees beg you for help every step, and if you don't help, the fire of hope will diminish. You rest at inns between regions and take a breather, eat, drink, and play cards. 

Survivors of the first game, the four-man/woman party drives towards the mountain which is literally CLEAVED in two, carrying a mythical fire of hope tied to the stagecoach. The mountain itself has eldritch abominations the size of cities peeking out of the ice. 

Inside the mountain, where you can only enter if you killed a "boss" creature in your journey, the party faces iconic Eldritch mutaions resembling organs describing by the following order: Denial(Brain denying the party abilities), Resentment(Raging lungs with breath attacks), Obsession(Focusing eldritch eyes), Ambition(Gnarled hands), Cowardice(a gutless, spineless godling sitting on a throne of oblivion, you fight the disembodied guts, eyes, then the creature)

The entire fight and the scene vaguely details that victory will mean that our heroes will move on from their past traumas, forgive themselves and move on. While not necessarily bad, the story is a direct contrast to the first game, not just the gamestyle:

Instead of unstoppable Eldritch abominations that make humanity a mote of dust in the universe, the sequel is ''entirely'' human-centric. It is heavily implied that the cosmic order was shattered precisely because the professor's lingering failures in his mind, and psychological self-healing and facing one's own deepest fears and overcoming it actually *destroys* the final boss, who salutes you and disappears, and the heroes use their skills for good and move on with their lives.

The iconic stress and affliction system has been replaced with a new relationship system: Party member relationships are *very* well nuanced, actions and pastimes at taverns changing the relationships from love to hate, and anything in between. Said relationships give bonuses or maluses in combat, such as a lover rushing to defend his/her lover with a riposte. This ties into the new game's greater emphasis on the individual characters themselves, forging a more tightly knit narratives between established characters compared to the first game, where you can have duplicates of each class and the focus is on managing a large, varied roster of anti-heroes. 

Every character will also have an interactive backstory you can view as flashback events at special nodes during your runs, expanding and/or [[Retcon|revising]] the backstories of each character, sometimes through creative minigames using the battle system. These events also unlock new skills for each character so it's in your interest to view them. To give a few examples:
* The Man-At-Arms was changed to a rookie commander who had gotten his position through nepotism and [[Indrick Boreale|unsurprisingly fucked up his first battle thanks to his inexperience]]. Since then he developed a case of survivor's guilt, returned to the battlefield to put his comrades' restless spirits (literally - their angry ghosts haunted him every night) to rest and demoted himself into a mere sergeant so he could learn how to be a commander the proper way. 
* The Leper was revealed to have contracted his condition by [[Salamanders|showing compassion towards his subjects]] against the wishes of [[High Lords of Terra|his treacherous advisors]], comforting supplicating beggars of which one of them had the disease. As his condition got worse, he [[Awesome|outsmarted the advisors who wanted to assassinate him and install a puppet king]], [[Not As Planned|rooting them out and killing them]] before willingly going into exile. The fact that his story is tragically heroic and he didn't screw up in any way (he knew the risks of taking care and helping the afflicted) is also symbolised by his drawing at the shrine. While everyone lean over, back to the light, ashamed in darkness, [[Noblebright|he stands tall and proud, looking directly at it]].
* The Hellion actually ''did'' fight in a raid against a column of knights, alongside her clansmen; rather than freezing up and hiding as her brethren were butchered, she instead ran from the battlefield when it became clear the raid was a lost cause as the clansmen were doing some heinously awful DPS. She returned home to be confronted by the grieving widows of those slain in the raid, who drove her out of the camp as a dishonoured exile.
* The Grave Robber was trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband, being subject to his drunken rages and lusts. She ended up poisoning him to death after snapping from the abuse, only to find that his drunken habits and wasteful ways had run the family's fortunes into the ground. Faced with crippling debts, she resolved to rob his tomb and retrieve the valuable jewellery within only to be caught mid-deed by some night watchmen, whom she murdered to get away cleanly. Despite being able to pay her debts, she left the jewels behind to embark on a life of grave-robbing, enjoying the thrills of the profession over her former noble life.
* The Plague Doctor sought to resurrect a professor she disliked through a combination of her own toxicological knowledge and necromancy, largely to show him up. It went horrendously wrong; the method used to resurrect him left the professor in a state of constant, horrific pain, to the point where even moving left him shrieking in agony. The good Doctor, after desperately trying and failing to save him, mercy-killed him and subsequently left (or was expelled from) the university, though given she was in her final year she might have quietly finished up before leaving.
* The Jester started out as a wandering musician whose songs lacked the passion needed to really succeed. After engaging in a musical duel to the death with a sinister violinist, his songs dramatically improved and started him down the path to playing in a tyrant's royal court, as in his comic. After years of abuse from the court, the Jester decided to play the song he learned from the violinist out of frustration; surprise surprise, it was an eldritch song that drove the Jester temporarily nuts and let him massacre the whole court before he could sever himself from its power.
* The Occultist wanted to gain as much power as possible from the deep mysteries of the world. He found that such power comes at a price, like the lives of all his friends as his astral projection fought a Shambler to steal it's his power. He was forced to burn out compassion and morality from his mind to properly get into the mindset, and decided to destroy the evil for the good of all. And so that others are spared the depths of the eldritch nightmare he walked straight into out of arrogance.
* The Vestal was a highly sheltered orphan being raised as a nun who failed to tend to the temple's flame out of hormonal desire to look at a couple who were having sex in the courtyard. For this, she was locked away and horrifically tortured for weeks. She found enlightenment in the torture, broke free, realized that the Church of the Light are a bunch of corrupt bastards, got divine powers, killed the temple's elders and [[Grimdark|found that she was literally hours too late to save the other orphans, who were mortally wounded and locked in a room to die]].

===Regions===
While the Darkest Estate is long gone and almost certainly fucked beyond recognition, the world going batshit insane has spawned several all-new regions to go mad in. The last one needs at least one miniboss defeated and its head mounted on the cart before proceeding for the finale.

The '''Foetor''' is basically [[Nurgle|Grandpappy Nurgle's]] vacation home -- formerly a prosperous farmland full of peasants and peaceful farmers, it's now full of maw-studded walking corpses, diseased [[Great Unclean One]]-looking mofos that want to eat you, and trees turned into juicy red meat pillars with bones in the middle. Expect a lot of Blight to go around, and for fuck's sake, ''do not let them eat the corpses''. Miniboss is a "Harvest Child", a half-born fetus gushing forth from an amniotic fluid and flesh covered cornucopia with sickeningly delicious bits of meat that try charming your heroes into a feeding frenzy and losing time and health chowing down delicious pungent flesh.

The '''Sprawl''' is a medieval city, now smashed to shit and on fire thanks to rampaging mobs of Fanatics, who've decided the best way to deal with the world going mad is to burn LITERALLY EVERYTHING. Bandits also prey on the few people the crazed mobs haven't burnt alive or lynched. You know the drill: burn resistance is everywhere, so bring your blighters and have a means to stop burn DoTs. Miniboss is a burning librarian who burns books and gets stronger doing so. If all books are burned, you are all fucked.

The '''Shroud''' is the Cove MK2: Fishfucker Boogaloo. Formerly a hamlet whose people turned to worship of what are all but stated to be the Pelagics from DD1 to survive, it's now full of [[Deep One]] expies and drowned undead, ruled over by a fuckhuge sea monster known as the Leviathan.

The '''Sluice''' is a huge network of old tunnels and caves, once used by miners and weary travellers as a place to rest. Now the Swinefolk have overtaken this dark warren of roadways and passages, ambushing any travellers who dare to pass through. Your old pal Wilbur can be found down here, now much more swole than before and sporting a severe grudge against your old heroes. Oh, and they now have pigmen ninjas (no, seriously). As usual, get your bleed attacks on.

The '''Tangle''' is a haunted old wood full of ruined keeps and abandoned outposts, now home to an army of undead known as the Lost Battalion. Originally an army in service to the Light, the new Cult broke their will with ease after they descended from the Mountain, reducing them to an army of lethargic, but disciplined undead. Bleed is useless here, but Blight and Burn (the latter is ''especially'' useful for the Boss) can do some heavy damage.

The '''Mountain''' is your ultimate goal. From here, the madness that stains the world spreads out, poisoning the bodies and minds of humankind. The reborn Cult from the first game guards the approach to the Mountain, and you'll have to go through them if you want to reach it. Within the stone itself, your failures wait to be faced.

No longer bound to one estate, the party is simultaneously more disposable than an [[Imperial Guard|Imperial Guardsman]] in Armageddon and more precious than a [[Custodes]] to the Emprah. Anyone who dies stays dead, and unlike before, there's no convenient carriage bringing a new supply of cannon fodder to feed to the hordes; one random new hero per Inn is your only way of replenishing losses. Your first run ''will'' end badly, and your second is unlikely to be any better. Yet every time you die, your futile crusade generates experience points which advance your profile for a better restart. Sort of like ye olde flash games of the 2000s-2010s. 

There are no reinforcements but fast-paced 4 vs 4 duels: after all, you fight off looters and keep driving to the mountain. Certain tough enemies are also hero-like with Death's door enabled, and the time limit in some looter quests will make many players mad. There are also optional side-encounters known as Lairs, in which you face several back-to-back fights before taking down a miniboss (unique to the area) in exchange for some fairly good trinkets and other rewards. 

The Torch has changed -- no longer a physical source of light, but a manifestation of the last remaining hope in the world, it is the only thing that will light your way down the dark roads leading to the Mountain. Do NOT let it reach zero, lest you wish to be forced into an encounter with an incredibly dangerous mini-boss that will almost certainly hand you a [[TPK]]. The game also introduces the "Loathing" mechanic to compliment this -- a representation of the Cult's power over the world, it'll drain the torch faster and make encounters a hell of a lot more difficult if it gets too high, so make certain to detour and smash Cult strongholds if it starts getting above a certain level.

Also, the Antiquarian, being the opportunistic bitch she is (we knew she sacrificed that poor girl rather than freeing!), is now among bandit encounters as a mini-boss with all her abilities carried over from the first game. Therefore, say hello to the new class - The '''Runaway'''! Coming from an orphanage with a sadistic caretaker that would brand her with a hot iron for the slightest offense, she developed pyromania and uses abilities that are all themed around fire - poking enemies with a red-hot iron, blinding them with a smokescreen, applying burn DOTs, you name it - she can burn it. [[Grimdark|Unfortunately, that same obsession with fire led to her accidentally burning to death a kindly old couple who took her in after her escape from the orphanage, leaving her alone and on the run again]].

===The Skub Part===
Since it was released on early access on the [[Fail|Epic Game Store, there will be no mods until the Steam release a year from now.]]

Reception has been [[Skub|mixed]] to say the least. Some praise the transition of the art style from 2D to 3D as beautiful and a natural evolution of the art style, adding greater weight to animations and emotion to characters. Others found the new 3D models and animations uncanny and unnatural, the realistic proportions of playable characters and corrupted horrors taking away from the unique 2D style of the first game. The relationship system is also another big point of contention, with some enjoying it for replacing the affliction system or granting more narrative options between [[Your Dudes]], while [[Nurgle|others]] dislike it just for being [[Tzeench|changed]]. It has also been subject to some criticism on its implementation, like how the frequent occurrence of relationship events during battle slows it down and distracts players from the battle. Relationship events are also random and often unprovoked, at times making your characters mood swing harder than [[Perturabo]]. For example, your Plague Doctor [[Butthurt|may lose affection towards your Grave Robber for stealing a kill]], [[Wat|then immediately regain that affection the following turn when the Grave Robber scores a critical]]. Some criticize the relationship system as being too unbalanced instead, where proper management of stress and relationships can easily [[Cheese|snowball into a cheap victory]], while letting everyone hate each other quickly [[TPK|snowballs into an unsalvageable defeat]]. The new narrator, also voiced by Wayne June, is not exempt from [[Skub|contention]] either. On top of all that, there is the fact that the game itself is radically different then its predecessor, causing some to wish for a more direct sequel.

Of course, at this point in time it's still in development and drastic changes may still happen, and not everybody will be satisfied with the final product regardless. All we can do is wait for the final product and make our [[Skub|judgements]] then.

The returning Stuart Chatwood's soundtrack is still indisputably one of the best of all time, no contest.

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