Darkest Dungeon 2 - Interview @PC Gamer

The devs of Darkest Dungeon 2 were interviewed by PC Gamer.

Discussed in this interview:

• What going 3D means for Darkest Dungeon
• The creative direction of monsters and heroes
• Why Darkest Dungeon 2 might be less depressing than you'd think
• Don't expect identical ominous voice lines for narrator Wayne June
• How Red Hook is managing Early Access, and the expectations of a sequel

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

PC Gamer: Last year you told me that Darkest Dungeon 2 would be a game about "enduring a grueling journey, not cleaning up your backyard." More than a year later, what more can you tell us about that concept?

Chris Bourassa, creative director: We wanted to make sure this game provided a different experience to Darkest Dungeon. An analogous one, a familiar one, but still not an identical one. And so we sort of set out with this broad kind of vision statement for what that would look like, and I think we're really in the thick of discovering what that means.

Tyler Sigman, design director: I think we wanted to make a real demarkation that it wouldn't feel just like a big DLC. It would feel like a sequel.

[...]

What about monsters—do you plan to bring some of those enemies back?

CB: It's easier to describe what we don't want to do quite frankly. We don't want to wholesale bring back every single favorite monster, and every single favorite hero. That would be a disservice to the audience quite frankly, and it would not be nearly as exciting for us as creators. So we want to pack the game with new awful monsters, hopefully some new classics emerge from that mix, certainly currently we've got a few favorites.

However, we also don't want to leave absolutely everything behind, and so I think we have some really exciting kind of clever ways. Everything ranging from little nods to the first game to reinterpretations, and a new representation of an old classic. So we're trying to run the gamut of ways we can call back to the first game, but just like how we approach our character designs at Red Hook, we want to do it in a way that's clever and just not trite and expected.

I don't want to be evasive because I'm actually really excited about some of the choices we've made around that, but I think people are going to be really, hopefully, impressed and kind of have a grin on their face when they see some of the things we've done in this area.

TS: To me, the monsters are a more straightforward process and organic, because they're driven by environment. If you look at the first one it's like, "If we want to do an underwater area, The Cove, what kind of monsters would live in The Cove?" And I'm like, "Well, The Ruins was the first thing that makes sense to be right below the estate, so: skeletons." And so by nature of transplanting the setting, it makes some of those decisions for you because you're like, "Well, would the Cove guys be wandering around this place? Yes or no?" It's pretty easy to figure that out.

I think it's safe to say that there will be a lot more new faces on the monster side than the character side just by nature of how we're building everything.

Thanks Couchpotato!