It’s a dark and stormy night. A rickety stagecoach makes its way through muddy roads, surrounded by a profoundly unsettling forest. In this carriage are four travellers with one goal: reaching the mountain where a world-ending threat looms. Red Hook Studios returns with the sequel to their cult hit in Darkest Dungeon II, which arrived on PC in 2023 and now on PlayStation 5 in 2024. I braved the woods on PlayStation 5, and while my journey was difficult, it was mostly enjoyable, albeit morbid.

From the moment my adventure began, it was clear Darkest Dungeon II is undeniably inspired by dark horror. With a vivid, stylised comic book aesthetic and rather gaunt-looking characters, it was clear it wouldn’t be a joyful trek but one wrought with tough decisions and plenty of psychological and physical battles.

The narrator’s ever-presence works perfectly, adding that extra oomph to the almost storybook-like quality of the game’s presentation; it’s excellent during combat when he narrates as I swiftly strike down a skeletal beastie. Coupled with the droning, ominous music, atmospheric creaks of the carriage groans of the forest, and pouring rain, there’s enough spook to keep me on edge. The visual and auditory storytelling sets the scene for what’s to come.

Each run involves driving in the stagecoach through various regions from the eerie forests or veering through a town taken over by chaos. Choosing which path to go down; our travellers may come across a merchant, a healer, or maybe a nice roadside bounty.

The other side is that one might encounter obstacles that damage the stagecoach, struggling peasants and difficult ethical choices, or enter combat with the local undead and other vile creatures. At the end of a stage, our weary travellers can rest and recuperate at an Inn, equipping various trinkets and upgrading character abilities to make the journey smoother. Surprisingly, there are no dungeons, which caught me off guard, but the advancement via stagecoach did feel very on-brand for the overall vibe of the game.

Combat is turn-based, with each party member and enemy taking turns to swipe at each other. It has super-satisfying attack animations with heavy clinks and clunks on contact. Allies and enemies can be blessed with buffs or afflicted with debuffs that can turn the tides of battle. Downing the various monstrosities can be a struggle, as some put up a mean fight. Choosing the right abilities and maximising efficiency is paramount to success.

There’s a fair amount of strategy in party composition, when beginning my playthrough, the party was balanced with different classes and specialisations. I started with my Man-at-Arms, Grave Robber, Highwayman, and Plague Doctor. My strategy was to position the Man-at-Arms up front as the bulwark, hoping he would block damage to others, which worked quite well. My Grave Robber acted as a rogue, getting in swipes while being bolstered by the team’s tank. My Plague Doctor was great for dealing with status effects in the form of gas bombs and the occasional buffs to the team and rarely got damaged. The Highwayman stood the farthest away, taking potshots from a distance. Having this perfect balance struck between classes can make or break a party.

Characters forge synergies with each other, which can impact buffs and debuffs in battle, and I found that as the fights wore on, so did their relationships, leading to different outcomes based on their standings with each other.

Adventurers can die in a run, and losing the tank or a party member who can apply various effects can be enough to put the remaining team in peril, so keeping them all relatively sane within themselves and with others is vital. When a party member dies, they are replaced with a random unlocked character. Thirteen classes are available for use, and the Bounty Hunter can be hired at Inns using Candles of Hope, obtained throughout runs.

Not choosing which character replaces the deceased presents difficulties, as it may ultimately throw the dynamics off enough to end a run. While the base gameplay loop can feel repetitive, there’s enough depth in the resource management elements and strategy to keep combat encounters interesting, especially when delving deep into a run when the time and character investment are high; my stress ran pretty high, too.

Psychological horror is a significant player in Darkest Dungeon II, with a large focus being on how the struggle impacts the minds of our heroes. While managing a character’s health and ailments is crucial for success, so is maintaining their stress levels. There’s an incentive to ensure each party member’s survival to learn more about their backstories, as each run reveals more crucial information moving forward and unique encounters that reveal even more about them, along with new abilities.

I became invested in my original party and found a great deal of struggle in trying to keep them all kicking with the amount of variables at play. As the narrator remarks at the beginning, death is inevitable, and it indeed was a common occurrence during my travel time. The farther my adventurers travelled, the more stress took its toll on them and me.

For me, Darkest Dungeon II thrives off how Red Hook Studio has built up its heroes’ humanity. The importance of character relationships shifted the whole tone of gameplay. Rather than being just about the overall goal of defeating any oncoming threats, the fear of losing members of my party felt like a hefty price to pay for poor party management. Stressors placed on the party can impact gameplay overall.

Decisions, such as stopping to aid the helpless on the side of the road, can affect how characters perceive each other, leading to bond-formed buffs or tension-induced debuffs in future combat encounters. The unique emphasis on party relationships requires strategy in itself. My efforts to forge positive bonds between companions made me all the more invested in them, and I was devastated when I lost one.

There are some notable changes from its predecessor, which, depending on the player, can be seen as a blessing or a curse. While Darkest Dungeon is played as a campaign with permadeath, Darkest Dungeon II embraces the roguelike formula, with shorter runs and permanent upgrades accessible regardless of death. While it isn’t quite as punishing, there’s still enough strategy needed to persevere through this morbid tale.

For newcomers to the series, such as myself, I appreciated being able to learn while building up my party with the upgrades granted throughout rather than starting from the bottom and working my way back up. The ongoing trauma faced by the characters impacting their overall willpower to keep going made the sometimes repetitive, grindy gameplay feel much more exciting and raised the stakes.

As with most turn-based combat titles, controls are straightforward; during combat, each character takes their turn, choosing from their selected abilities with a simple push of a button and hovering over the desired target. Moving around environments in the stagecoach is also straightforward, using the left stick to guide it forward.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do drifts, much to my dismay. I did struggle with the user interface at times. During the opening of the game, there was a plethora of tutorial windows, which veered into information overload. Learning by doing is mostly the way forward, but it’s easier said than done in a mechanics-heavy title like this, especially with the time investment needed to succeed.

Overall, I enjoyed Darkest Dungeon II most of the time. Still, like with any roguelike, focusing on chance-based encounters and lucking out on having the right items at the right time tended to undo some of my strategic advantages. It all comes down to adapting to the challenge and making the most of any given circumstance, which could feel rewarding when it all lines up and incredibly frustrating when it doesn’t.

Darkest Dungeon II is a gloomy tale of survival amidst loss. While its subject matter is grim, the overall game is an exciting take on the roguelike genre. It focuses heavily on turn-based combat and storytelling that forges a deeper bond with the characters and their struggles through their often-punishing world.

Written by: Yasmin Noble