Darkest Dungeon II

[Axel_am]

No wonder everybody hates him.

 

[Larianshill]

Why is lepper a nigger?

Why are his evil advisors white?

 

[9ted6]

Why is lepper a nigger?

Why are his evil advisors white?

Because Redhook are red cucks.

 

[Reinhardt]

Why is lepper a nigger?

Why are his evil advisors white?

maybe they are ((()))

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Every day we stray further from God

 

[KVVRR]

Eh I kinda like it honestly. It makes his usual look even more brutal.

 

[CHEMS]

Why is lepper a nigger?

Bro its called leprosy

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Looks kinda Sicilian

 

[Parsimonious cook]

He was p. white in DD1 tbh fam.

 

[Sunri]

He was p. white in DD1 tbh fam.

View attachment 51282

in dd 1 you had multiple color schemes so you could make him darker and make your own head canon idk why they though adding character stories was a good idea both the minigames and stories are trash

 

[BlackAdderBG]

idk why they though adding character stories was a good idea both the minigames and stories are trash

Because their designers are hacks that lucked out with the original game, everything they made after that is absolute trash.

 

[Ghost Of Iron]

Introducing Kingdoms - a FREE stand alone campaign game mode coming to Darkest Dungeon II later this year.

This new game mode challenges you to protect and nurture your Kingdom by defending safe havens and purging dangerous environments of insidious threats. Upgrade Inns to bolster defenses, embark on unique quest lines, and fight back against 3 new monster factions - The Coven, Beastmen and Crimson Courtiers.

At least they've realized their error, one of the main problems with DD2 compared to DD1 is the fact you could not upgrade your roster and base over time. Instead of expanding on and improving that, which is what everyone was expecting, they removed it entirely. Now they're haphazardly putting some form of it back into the game, which is good, but I still think it may be too little, too late. DD2 needs massive improvements in order to be worth the time, it might get there eventually, but as of now it's still not really worth playing.

 

[Agame]

Introducing Kingdoms - a FREE stand alone campaign game mode coming to Darkest Dungeon II later this year.

This new game mode challenges you to protect and nurture your Kingdom by defending safe havens and purging dangerous environments of insidious threats. Upgrade Inns to bolster defenses, embark on unique quest lines, and fight back against 3 new monster factions - The Coven, Beastmen and Crimson Courtiers.

At least they've realized their error, one of the main problems with DD2 compared to DD1 is the fact you could not upgrade your roster and base over time. Instead of expanding on and improving that, which is what everyone was expecting, they removed it entirely. Now they're haphazardly putting some form of it back into the game, which is good, but I still think it may be too little, too late. DD2 needs massive improvements in order to be worth the time, it might get there eventually, but as of now it's still not really worth playing.

Yea good to see they are admitting they fucked the dog on this one, trying to shoehorn the original game mode back into this pile of trash is better than nothing I guess?

I am still shocked by how much I played DD1 compared to 2, pretty sure its the worst sequel to a game I have ever seen in my gaming history. I have genuinely tried to force myself to play it a few times, and I just can't do it, its as if they purposefully designed it to be abhorrent to people who enjoyed DD1.

 

[Ghost Of Iron]

Yes, I genuinely don't understand how they failed to simply iterate on what DD did and instead went with this bizarre roguelike DD mixture that fails on both fronts. DD2 is neither engaging as a roguelike, since the runs take too long and there's too little variety in how you can approach a given run, and it fails as a DD game since they stripped out all the roster management, base building, and team building you could do in the first one. It felt really good in the first DD to finally build up a true team of killers, and you simply cannot replicate that in DD2. And the bandaids they put in to try and fix the problem simply aren't enough, spending candles of hope to get some minor bonus on a character (that you lose anyway if they ever die or are present on a failed run) is not the same as building them from the ground up level by level, trinket piece by trinket piece.

It felt really good in DD1 to get a nice, powerful trinket, when I get something like that in DD2, I barely care, since it's going to be gone and thrown back into the RNG pool as soon I'm done with the current run. You get no satisfaction out of building up anything in DD2, and to add insult to injury, the Candles Of Hope system, rather than feeling rewarding or fun, just feels spiteful and annoying. Grinding out candles just to access additional options (which in many cases aren't even useful, Wanderer Leper for example is still superior to all his other paths) is just aggravating, and it even pushes you into running the same team compositions over and over until you fully unlock all their build options and class trinkets, only to force you to do it all over again with the next set of classes you want to use. And by the time you're done with all of this, you're sick of and hate the game. Truly brilliant design.

It's just such a shame the game ended up like this, because the combat does feel better than DD1, (well, aside from the terrible relationship system which is a massive downgrade from the virtue/affliction system in DD1), and the characters animate quite beautifully, but it just doesn't matter because the core of the game is simply not fun to play.

 

[Agame]

Yes, I genuinely don't understand how they failed to simply iterate on what DD did and instead went with this bizarre roguelike DD mixture that fails on both fronts.

Its funny as this is a common occurrence, where someone makes something amazing and then the next thing they do makes you question if they actually had any idea what they were doing the first time around or it was a freak accident that they created something of quality.

I agree with your summary of the problems, and for me DD2 almost goes so far that I would think they purposefully changed everything to spite people, or they were so afraid of getting called out for making the same game twice? Its not as if DD1 was anything revolutionary in the first place, its a pretty generic game if you remove the art/aesthetics/sound design etc.

And you are correct that character progression is fundamentally flawed and thats probably the main reason I have no motivation to play it, dunno if the new game mode will fix that.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[the mole]

tfw I'm based as fuck and only bought dd on sale for 3 dollars

gonna take more of a sale to get me to buy dd2

hehehehe

also I can't find the dd 1 thread

 

[Justinian]

I like roguelites so this should appeal to me, but I'm not spending 30 bucks when I could just replay Rogue Lords instead. Will reconsider when it's 75% off or more.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Fedora Master]

Hasn't the game suffered enough of your baleful attention.

 

[PlayerEmers]

dead by daylight studio bought red hook



dd2 was already decline, DBD devs buying them is just death
reminder that they already have shut down a studio before

 

[jackofshadows]

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/what-is-driving-behaviour-s-purchase-of-red-hook-studios-

Behaviour Interactive CEO says Red Hook Studios acquisition helps both companies "reduce risk"​

Both Red Hook Studios leadership and Behaviour Interactive CEO Rémi Racine see this acquisition as a move that creates stability in troubled times.

Bryant Francis, Senior Editor
September 24, 2024
6 Min Read

IMAGE VIA BEHAVIOUR INTERACTIVE.

At a Glance​

• Behaviour Interactive purchased Red Hook Studios days after shutting down Midwinter Entertainment and cancelling "Project T."
• Red Hook Studios will now make Darkest Dungeon under the Behaviour Interactive banner.
• The transaction happened in parallel to Behaviour's closures and layoffs, as part of a "strategy shift" for the publisher.

After a year of laying off developers, Behaviour Interactive is bringing some new ones into the fold. The Dead by Daylight developer/publisher announced today that it is acquiring Red Hook Studios, the company behind Darkest Dungeon and Darkest Dungeon II.
It's incredibly rare for a game studio to announce an acquisition like this so soon after a year of layoffs and studio closures. So rare, in fact, that the only comparable example feels like Activision Blizzard's establishment of the Polish game studio Elsewhere in May 2024 while parent company Microsoft axed jobs across the company.
The news may be bittersweet for plenty of the game development community. On the one hand, the Red Hook acquisition looks to be a coup for both companies. On the other hand, so many other developers lost work—and an entire studio was closed down—on the road here.
In an interview with Game Developer, Red Hook Studios co-founders Tyler Sigman and Chris Bourassa, joined by Behaviour Interactive CEO Rémi Racine, explained why both parties pursued this transaction. For Red Hook, it was a chance for stability that would fuel bigger and loftier dreams, and according to Racine, it's a move that helps Behaviour "reduce risk" as it finalizes its ongoing strategy shift.
Related:Behaviour Interactive acquires Darkest Dungeon dev Red Hook Studios

Reconciling Behaviour's studio closures and layoffs with a new acquisition​

For Behaviour, it seems this was the culmination of a shift in its strategy, taking it away from publishing games like Islands of Insight and into a future where it solely focuses on the horror genre.
That strategy shift came with internal restructuring, driving the layoffs that took place earlier in the year. Behaviour Interactive chief product and technical officer Stephen Mulrooney told Game Developer that during that process, the company determined that it had "too many" employees to support that shift and that some of the affected workers didn't have the skills needed to support the new direction.
As for the fate of Midwinter Entertainment, Racine repeated the explanation given by Behaviour last week, which was that "Project T," the game Midwinter was working on, didn't have a chance of succeeding in today's market. He said that canceling the game meant there was no other work for the studio as a whole to take on. Workers at Midwinter were offered relocation opportunities for matching roles at Behaviour's Canadian offices.

Image via Behaviour Interactive.
Some might wonder if Racine and Behaviour management knew the Red Hook acquisition was impending, why not hold on to this team to support Red Hook in the future. "The transaction is today, Midwinter is yesterday," Racine replied, explaining that the timing of both decisions didn't offer a window for the Midwinter team to start supporting developers at Red Hook. He said Behaviour would have had to keep the studio running for a year or more without a dedicated project before any opportunity to bring the two teams together could have emerged.
Behaviour's planned publishing shift sent the company looking for what Racine called "great horror IPs," which is what brought it and the Red Hook Studios team together around March 2024. "We want to make horror gaming bigger," Mulrooney said. He expressed excitement about Red Hook Studios' experience with Early Access development, which may indicate Behaviour is planning to explore similar territory with its future games.
It's not just Behaviour that wants to go bigger and bolder with the blood-soaked genre—Bourassa and Sigman told Game Developer that they wanted Behaviour's backing to make Darkest Dungeon an even bigger franchise.

Red Hook Studios says acquisition provides "stability" for studio planning​

"Hearing about people losing jobs is never pleasant," Bourassa said when we asked how he and Sigman felt watching the layoffs and closures take place as the deal proceeded. But it was the stability that so many of their peers lacked that made them pursue it anyway.
"We felt like this was a chance to build a strong runway for a future title, and provide stability," Bourassa explained to Game Developer. He and Sigman seemed eager to stress that this was not a purchase of "last resort" for the company, with the latter co-founder telling us that the company wasn't "actively shopping around" when Behaviour approached them earlier in the year.
The two said it was a huge relief to tell their employees about the deal, as it was a rare moment where they couldn't be transparent with the Red Hook team about the company's future thanks to regulatory restrictions that come with acquisitions. They expressed frustration at how the game industry contraction of the last two years has ravaged studios they grew alongside in the 2010s—Bourassa namedropped Armello developer League of Geeks as being one of the peer studios that has faced the greatest impacts.
Red Hook has stayed profitable during this time period ("We feel fortunate to have threaded that needle," said Bourassa). But Sigman explained being an independent studio left him and his co-founder weighing multiple options for what to do now that Darkest Dungeon II was out the door.

Image via Red Hook Studios.
Taking the deal would help narrow those options—and hopefully propel the studio to chase its most ambitious ideas. "What this does is set a clear path for the next X years," he said. The pair weren't eager to give up what those ambitions entailed, but when Bourassa raised the idea of making Darkest Dungeon a "franchise as big as Dragon Age," it helped put things in perspective.

What is the future for Behaviour and Red Hook Studios?​

While Red Hook Studios supports Darkest Dungeon II and starts preparing for its grand vision (with little-to-no interference from Behaviour, apparently. Sigman said the publisher "doesn't want to change how we make games"), what can developers expect from Behaviour?
The answer is, of course, horror games...and apparently publishing even more horror games from external developers. In fact, Mulrooney pitched Game Developer readers working on horror games to reach out to the publisher to discuss future relationships.
Despite the canceling of Project T (itself a horror-themed game, leaving us wondering what exactly made it such an ill fit for the publisher's new plans), Behaviour still has other Dead by Daylight spinoff projects in the works, and the company still sees it as a foundation for its horror ambitions—with Darkest Dungeon now shoring up that base. "Having a second original successful title is appealing," said Racine.
The CEO closed our conversation with what may have been a message for business partners or employees as much as it was for our readers. He said that reducing risk was an important goal for both Behaviour and Red Hook Studios, and that "buying [Red Hook Studios] is reducing risk for Behaviour."
His explanation certainly adds context to what has been going on at Behaviour for the last year. It paints a picture of a studio that had embarked on one plan prior to the ongoing contraction, and only saw losses if it stuck with that strategy going forward.
That's a contrast to many other layoffs we saw this year, where companies watched their coffers empty out due to declining sales or projects canceled by partners. Behaviour and Red Hook both seem to have stayed in command of their fates through this process, being proactive instead of reactive in a time of turmoil.
For many, the tragedy then is that Behaviour chose to lay off so many on its path to planting a bigger flag in the horror genre.

 

[jackofshadows]

Taking the deal would help narrow those options—and hopefully propel the studio to chase its most ambitious ideas. "What this does is set a clear path for the next X years," he said. The pair weren't eager to give up what those ambitions entailed, but when Bourassa raised the idea of making Darkest Dungeon a "franchise as big as Dragon Age," it helped put things in perspective.

 

[whydoibother]

Damn, I guess they will go down as a 1 hit wonder. DD was great, DD2 was meh, and then they get acquired by a murdering publisher.

 

[PlayerEmers]

Damn, I guess they will go down as a 1 hit wonder. DD was great, DD2 was meh, and then they get acquired by a murdering publisher.

dare I say DD1 was a fluke

they can do interesting stuff but they need a leash to not go full retardo mode on their games
they had a community during early access to hold that leash (which worked better for DD1 than DD2) but now... the fucking DBD studio holds their leash

they will go full retard (unless DBD kills their studio first)