We Attended a Private Press Event for Darkest Dungeon 2: What's New in the Major Free Update Kingdoms and the Inhuman Bondage DLC
To Darkest Dungeon 2, on January 27th, a major free update called Kingdoms and a paid DLC titled Inhuman Bondage were released. The first introduces a new game mode with elements of classic strategy, while the latter adds a new region and another hero. We were among those who got to explore the new features before release and had a chance to chat with the developers at a closed press event.
According to them, they tried to cater to players as much as possible, while also aiming to challenge them. Did they succeed? What are Kingdoms and Inhuman Bondage all about, what’s new, and what’s a well-forgotten old feature? All the details are in our article.
What is Kingdoms?
Kingdoms adds a new game mode to Darkest Dungeon 2. While the original adventure is structured as a pure roguelike — you head toward the boss, win or lose, and start over — Kingdoms is a large campaign built on different principles. It functions almost like a strategy game.
The core of Kingdoms is visible on the map screen. There are taverns in varying states of disrepair connected by regions. You’ll travel from tavern to tavern, completing various tasks, uncovering the boss’s location, and defeating them. All of this must be done within a limited time. This brings the mode’s main "twist" — the tension created by the relentlessly ticking clock.
Are you familiar with Darkest Dungeon?
Red Hook Studios describes the creation of Kingdoms as akin to remixing an album. They took the main elements of Darkest Dungeon 2, borrowed some features from the first game, added experiments, and mixed it all together. The result is something new and uniquely theirs.
It speaks to our values. We don't like to retread the same ground. If you look at our release history, despite it being entirely Darkest Dungeon, each game, each DLC, and each expansion has its own identity. We wanted to challenge ourselves as creators instead of doing the same thing.
One major change partially inherited from the first Darkest Dungeon is the expanded roster. In the new mode, the full roster of heroes is available throughout the adventure, and you can shuffle them according to your needs. This can be both an advantage and a challenge.
We added a big relationship matrix that tracks the ups and downs of the social dynamics between all of the active heroes at once. If you thought getting four people to get along was a challenge, try twelve!
Good relationships between heroes provide bonuses, while bad ones cause problems. To get bonuses, it’s best to stick with a well-knit group, but the mode will throw challenges at you where rotation is unavoidable. And it might only take a couple of outings for unfamiliar heroes to start hating each other. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking.
The concept of time in Kingdoms comes back again and again. Each journey that you take in Kingdoms, each region, is one day, and relationships last for several days. So if heroes aren't getting along, it's a good idea to break the party up.
Each day also starts uniquely, with an event being drawn. Some are good, some are bad, and some are just… different. They vary in rarity. You might get unexpectedly lucky, or face misfortune that makes you want to pull your hair out.
Speaking of time, compared to the main campaign, regions — short series of battles between taverns — are shorter in Kingdoms and somewhat resemble missions from the first Darkest Dungeon.
All of this is aimed at creating an expierience different from both Darkest Dungeons 1 and Darkest Dungeons 2. Kingdoms mechanics give you a feeling of grander strategy, longer campaign, but it brings forth the rooster management.
Another set of innovations in Kingdoms involves taverns. They now serve as mini-fortresses that you’ll need to defend. Enemies will raid taverns, and to survive, a system of upgrades has been added. A new resource, tavern materials, can be invested in building upgrades to gain useful bonuses. One such bonus is the ability to gather militia.
Now if some of your heroes have fallen you can rely on local peasant militia for backup. They play like any other hero, albeit with a more limited kit.
Militia can be a lifeline during tavern sieges and regular adventures. If your team loses a member, you can use a signal flare to summon the peasant militia. This means the death of a couple of heroes, which previously felt like a death sentence, is no longer as catastrophic in Kingdoms.
At launch, Kingdoms includes three maps, but developers promise to add more. Red Hook Studios hopes this large free update will delight players but acknowledges that the changes might not appeal to everyone.
Kingdoms offer a whole lot of things to do. We expect that there will be people who love both modes or the ones who prefer one over the other.
What about Inhuman Bondage?
Developers admit that the work on Kingdoms was long and meticulous. They initially planned to release the update by the end of 2024 but delayed it to coincide with the launch of the paid DLC, Inhuman Bondage.
The main "feature" of the DLC is a new-old hero. The Abomination triumphantly returns to Darkest Dungeon. This hero has two forms — human and monster. The DLC includes this character because implementing such a hero is technically challenging.
His gimmik is that he can transform unto a beast. It presented an interesting design challenge for us. In beast form his whole skillset is different. He has got advantages to both of his forms.
You can try this hero in the new game only after purchasing the DLC. Inhuman Bondage also introduces a new region filled with slimy monstrosities. These mobs were among the most hated in the first game, and the developers are thrilled about it.
Some of the angriest posts on Darkest Dungeon were about fighting slimes that replicate, so we obviously had to bring them back. Everybody hates fighting slimes. They can replicate and form into one big slime. They can turn corpses into more slime.
Due to these features, battles with slime cubes could loop into endlessly self-replicating cycles. Saying these monsters in Darkest Dungeon 2 are just as unbearable as in the original would be an understatement. But the sweat, blood, and tears shed in these battles are sweetened by generous rewards that match the difficulty of the fight.
And that’s about it. The rest is minor — new items and special content tied to the Abomination. He’s been given a backstory, lore, and lines, like other heroes. So, while Inhuman Bondage doesn’t boast the deep content and massive innovations of Kingdoms, buying it is more of a way to support the developers.
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Having explored Kingdoms and Inhuman Bondage, it’s fair to say that if you compare the two, the paid DLC should probably have been the former. Kingdoms has a lot of content. But Red Hook Studios chose differently, giving all players a chance to experience the game in a new way while offering those willing to spend money an additional character. Whether to buy it or not is up to you, but we definitely think the new mode in Darkest Dungeon 2 is worth trying. Kingdoms resembles many things but is unlike anything else. A truly fantastic gift to fans from a team that deeply cherishes its creation.
Did Kingdoms make you want to try it out?
