Darkest Dungeon® News

“This squalid Kingdom, these corrupted lands, they are yours now, and you are bound to them.”

Kingdoms, a new FREE game mode for Darkest Dungeon II, along with Inhuman Bondage, a brand new DLC, are both available now on PC and Mac!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1940340/Darkest_Dungeon_II/

The Kingdoms game mode was added to Darkest Dungeon II today as a free update! Featuring a completely reimagined game structure, Kingdoms is a parallel game experience to the original Confessions game mode. Players will be tasked with defending the realm from incursions by all-new enemy-factions. Journey across the land in your stagecoach, upgrade your Inns, complete quests and defeat the final boss.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Kingdoms will feature themed adventure modules, each containing a different threat. Up first is Hunger of the Beast Clan, where players will be tasked with fending off the pitiless onslaught of the rotting and ravenous beastmen!

Get the full patch notes for this release here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1940340/view/503940938959160307?l=english

To celebrate the release of Kingdoms, we’ve discounted Darkest Dungeon II to 50% off until February 3, 2025.



One last howl. One final scream.

Today also marks the release of Inhuman Bondage, a new Darkest Dungeon II DLC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3205310/Darkest_Dungeon_II_Inhuman_Bondage/

This DLC introduces a new mini-region, The Catacombs, and a new playable hero to Darkest Dungeon II, the fan favourite and original Kickstarter backer-assisted designed character: The Abomination.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Catacombs invite players to plunge their stagecoach beneath the Kingdom to face a corrosive, oozing threat. This is a high risk, high reward region featuring a faction of new enemies and new items, and brings variety and challenge to both 'Confessions' and ‘Kingdoms’.

Unleash the beast within! The Abomination makes his return to the Darkest Dungeon series. This reclusive alchemist comes with a unique battle mechanic, allowing him to transform into a fearsome monstrosity - at the risk of spiraling stress!

[h3]Welcome to Darkest Dungeon II: Kingdoms![/h3]
This release is the result of a year-long grand experiment.

In December 2023, we were brainstorming about what interesting things we could add to Darkest Dungeon II. While new heroes and regions are always well received, we were feeling that familiar itch we got when planning out Darkest Dungeon I expansions. Namely, what if we did something…different? Something unexpected or…uncommon. Something that would challenge us as developers, and surprise our players.

This creative impulse is the same one that led us to make the enormous Crimson Court, the endless Color of Madness mode, and the out-of-nowhere multiplayer arena of The Butcher’s Circus. It’s just part of our creative DNA to want to try experimental things - no two Red Hook releases have ever been the same, and we’re quite proud of that! In this crowded game market, wonderment is the only commodity that trades, and that’s not just true for players, but for developers as well. When we are inspired by what we’re building, we believe you’ll be inspired playing it. As our discussions took shape, we hit on 3 powerful ideas.

#1: A Remix Album
We challenged ourselves to think about what we could do if we took all of the ingredients we had on hand with DDII and then added in some elements of DDI like persistent rosters and a larger self-contained campaign. In essence, we could remix our own game. “Who does that?” we mused.

What came out of this mental exercise was the core idea for Kingdoms: a board-game inspired strategy metagame that delivered a more persistent sense of space and time than the somewhat allegorical Confessions mode. Picking up the pieces of a ruined kingdom, defending it from attack - these were interesting concepts. Similar to a board game, we wanted to structure it with tons of replayability: multiple quests (the first of which launches Jan 27th), multiple maps, multiple customizable difficulty settings.

#2: It’s Free
We’ve been fortunate that our hard work has found an audience. How best, then, to deploy this risky creative endeavor? A paid DLC would delight most boardrooms, but we felt that ultimately our fortunes rise and fall based on engagement. Players playing. Having fun and getting wrecked. The ultimate aim of game development. So, we asked, what if we just…gave it away? Yes, we’ll be drawing down on our war chest significantly, but perhaps we’ll attract new players, wishlists will convert, and word of mouth will buoy our sales. This approach felt more honest, more authentic, and more in line with what we hope Kingdoms elicits in our fans.

#3: And a DLC too, right?
So if Kingdoms is free, how do we cover some of our costs? Another DLC, released alongside, that integrates into both modes and provides more variety and challenge, is of course the answer. But damn if that’s not hard to develop in tandem! Our team proved up to the task, however, and we’re thrilled with the results.

“Inhuman Bondage” introduces an all new underground region (The Catacombs) and the return of one of DD1’s favorite heroes: The Abomination. One of the neatest parts of the DLC is that it adds content to both Confessions and Kingdoms game mode. Whichever one(s) you like, we have you covered. The existing Binding Blade DLC works similarly–the character content in there will work in Kingdoms, too.

We’ve spent over a decade working on Darkest Dungeon. We’ve delighted in our explorations and iterations, and we’re nowhere near done. On January 27th we invite you to experience the results of our latest experiment. If you already own DDII, you’ll get Kingdoms for free. If you are new to Darkest Dungeon II, you will find a complete game bundle is on sale at a hefty discount. Inhuman Bondage is also available on its own, modestly priced. Your purchases directly enable us to keep making these games..

There has never been a better time to board the stagecoach.

–Chris Bourassa & Tyler Sigman, Red Hook Studios

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while! We wanted to let everyone know that we have just pushed a new build for Darkest Dungeon to the coming_in_hot branch. The purpose of this build is to get us a step closer to releasing a unified binary to all our storefronts. Some of you may know that our GOG and Epic builds are not the same as what is available on Steam and this build is part of our effort to rectify that situation. This build does NOT contain any other fixes.

We’ll keep this build up on the coming_in_hot branch for at least a few weeks to ensure stability. We have been testing many of the popular mods to ensure compatibility, but we want to give a period of time to soak test this new build and catch any issue we may have introduced. We would appreciate it if you could help test it out during that time to make sure everything works as intended.

Known Issue: If you are using Ubuntu and got your Steam client installed through "App Install" (also called SNAP), the game won't start.

To fix this, there are two possible solutions, but for both you will need to use terminal:

Solution 1:
uninstall Steam from snap:

• sudo snap remove steam
  

and then reinstall it with additional parameter:

• sudo snap install steam --classic
  

Solution 2:
Don't use the SNAP version of Steam (which is not made by Valve, but by Canonical) and instead download official version from https://store.steampowered.com/about/


Thank you for your help!

"Behold the infinite malignity of the stars!"

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“Making peace with adversity is the very essence of existence.”

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This exclusive Darkest Dungeon merch is only available for a limited time!



The Leper was voted #1! Earlier this year, we asked the Darkest Dungeon community which hero they would like to see made into a Makeship plushie next, and the Leper won out over the Grave Robber and Jester. We were so happy to design this community favourite with the Makeship team.

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Curious to know if this plush will ship to you? Makeship has all their shipping destinations here: https://www.makeship.com/shipping-destinations