Darkest Dungeon II Announced

The team over at Red Hook Studios has announced Darkest Dungeon II, a sequel to their Lovecraftian side-scrolling RPG from back in 2016. According to PC Gamer's exclusive interview with the developers, the new game will feature a recognizable combat system but its meta progression will be completely overhauled. The game's memorable narrator voiced by Wayne June will also be making a comeback. At this moment we don't have a release date for Darkest Dungeon II, but we know that the game will be going through an Early Access period.

Here's the official teaser trailer:

And an excerpt from PC Gamer's interview:

PC Gamer: What's interesting to you about making a direct sequel to Darkest Dungeon?

Tyler Sigman and Chris Bourassa, Red Hook Studios: We love our dysfunctional cast of characters, our atmosphere, and our world. Horror is a fantastic space to explore interesting and unconventional ideas, and we have a lot more story we want to tell. Mechanically, we also think we have some valuable nuggets (e.g. combat) and there is more there that we’d like to explore and build on. Above all, we are committed to crafting Darkest Dungeon 2 to be its own experience; it will have its own creative and thematic identity.

What gameplay and other changes are you able to talk to us about at this time?

We’re playing this pretty close to the chest! Our combat system is making a return, but we’re giving it a significant tune-up—mechanically, and in terms of presentation. Most significantly, however, we are working with a completely different metagame structure. Darkest Dungeon 2 is a game about enduring a gruelling journey, not cleaning up your backyard.