Mini Review: Darkest Dungeon 2 (PS5) - Road Trippin' Roguelike Not for the Faint of Heart

Like its predecessor, Darkest Dungeon 2 is about making the best of a bad situation and enduring unspeakable horrors. Unlike the original Darkest Dungeon, it's a faster-paced roguelite meant to be played repeatedly instead of a traumatic, lengthy dungeon crawler. As massive fans of the original, getting over that fact was our first challenge.

The sequel takes place in a broken world inhabited by the lost and the damned; the meddling of a being known as the Scholar has caused the barriers between dimensions to come down. The Scholar recruits a crew of individuals, each with their sordid backstory, playstyle, and motivations, to carry the Light of Hope to the distant Mountain, where an eldritch being of unspeakable power has taken up residence, and the world can be put back to rights.

The party commandeers a stagecoach for this effort, and players will spend as much time steering it through haunted streets and twisted landscapes as engaging in brutally unforgiving turn-based combat. Managing the stagecoach is essential to success and serves as the player's power progression between runs. Upgrading it allows you to increase item capacity, improve passive healing, and numerous other benefits. The stagecoach is upgraded via Candles of Hope, awarded for reaching certain milestones on the road trip, rescuing unfortunate souls encountered along the way, or overcoming particularly deadly encounters.

Combat is savage, with a low-numbers system that'll have you wincing with every enemy blow. Darkest Dungeon 2 retains the position-based setup of the first game, which means players must constantly monitor where each of their party members is standing while attempting to disrupt the enemy's formation. Each character has its uses and synergy with the others, and finding and upgrading a group that works for your playstyle is the ultimate key to success.

These unlikely heroes are liable to suffer from a devastating psychotic break when the stress becomes too much, lashing out at their compatriots or becoming jealous when another is healed. Even more rarely, they can break good, heroically rising to even the most impossible occasions. Each character is given their backstory, explored through Shrines of Reflection encountered along the way, and seeking out all chapters will unlock new skills and abilities in some genuinely creative set-piece encounters.

Red Hook's signature style remains evident, although we feel some characters' designs lose a little charm in the upgrade to the sequel's slightly more realistic, 3D visuals. The sound design remains weighty and impactful, featuring the return of perhaps the greatest narrator to ever grace a video game; their disembodied, relentlessly bleak commentary depends on how well or poorly the party is doing, heightening every encounter.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is quite a departure from its predecessor, so much so that fans of that game might not gel with its more streamlined systems and mechanics. However, Red Hook has managed to retain that same dark spirit, and if you can get on board with it, it'll keep you coming back for more until the very last.