Darkest Dungeon Radiant Update in Public Beta

A new update, introducing the so-called Radiant Mode to Darkest Dungeon, has gone into Public Beta. This new mode doesn't make the game easier but strives to make the campaign shorter, while still providing enough challenge.

Along with the Radiant Mode, this new update includes a good number of miscellaneous tweaks, with the full changelog a bit too lengthy to include in full. Here are the biggest takeaways from it:

RADIANT MODE:
  • Never Again changed: heroes are now allowed to return to the Darkest Dungeon. However, they will undergo significant stress upon doing so, and are more likely to become afflicted instead of virtuous when in the Darkest Dungeon.
  • More Power Leveling flexibility: Heroes of up to Level 4 may enter Novice dungeons. Any hero may enter a Veteran or Champion dungeon.
  • Stage Coach can now be upgraded to allow the appearance of new recruits starting at up to Level 4. Increased chance of upgraded recruits appearing. Reduced cost of Upgraded Recruits upgrades.
  • Accelerated hero XP progression
  • Hero upgrade and treatment cost scaling by level reduced
  • Random Hunger Checks do not occur in Radiant Mode<
    • Food Provision cost increased and stack sized decreased to compensate
  • Returned provisions now give slightly more money back
  • Tweaks to Stage Coach:
    • Added another upgrade tier to Experienced Recruits (Lvl 4 Characters will now appear)
    • Changed Experienced Recruit requirements. (Lvl1 now requires Lvl 1 Blacksmith and Guild)
    • New Stage Coach population option to use a Deck based system. (This can be used on all modes). New Stagecoach generation method that gives a more even long-term distribution and also favors healers more, since they are the backbone of most parties. This can be toggled off in the Options menu if you wish to still ride the bittersweet wave of total RNG.
  • Higher Light conditions confer slightly more to party DEF bonuses.
  • Accelerated Region Progression
  • Town Events trigger more frequently to compensate for shorter playtime
STYGIAN MODE:
  • Renamed NG+ to Stygian
  • Stygian can now be selected when starting a new campaign, instead of requiring completion of Darkest mode first.
  • More stress, higher darkness penalties, more light loss per step, higher trap diff, enemy HP bump from 15% (prev) to 20%, slightly higher monster crits…overall slightly more deadly
  • Time limit reduced to 86 weeks and hero death limit dropped to 12
  • You can now continue playing after the time limit on your Stygian mode game after successfully completing the game
ALL MODES:
  • Added 4 new monsters (Bone Bearer, Hateful Virago, Swine Skiver, and Squiffy Ghast) that appear in Champion level Dungeons – welcome aboard, Dana!
  • Caw! Caw! Added New Trinket Recovery Quest
    • When a party wipe occurs, trinkets are no longer lost! There is a way to recover them. Exactly what that way is, we leave for you to discover…
    • Trinkets are no longer recoverable from fallen characters after retreating.
  • Fix for users reporting increased cpu usage

Out of the four new monsters in this new update, the Bone Bearer was mentioned in an earlier post from January, while the Swine Skewer, the Hateful Virago, and the Squiffy Ghast had their highlights just prior to the Beta rollout.