KPWHYS

I completed the first Darkest Dungeon 4 years after starting it  and just started playing the sequel Darkest Dungeon 2 a few days ago. The developers Red Hook are very brave and ambitious to reimagine key parts of the game in DD2, because it's very different. I haven't completely wrapped my head around all of it -- completing only the first act (level of difficulty), Denial, about 6 times while failing in Resentment mid-campaign -- but I have some thoughts, all essentially stemming from the design of DD1 evolving into DD2. DESIGN SHIFT OF BIG RUN TO MANY SMALL RUNS My runs in the first DD were 30-50 hours long. DD2 is aiming for the established rogue-lite formula of Slay the Spire, Hades 2 and Ball x Pit where each run is about 30-60 minutes long, and you do it over and over again while making progress in metagame systems for in-run advantages. This is the source of the biggest changes in the player experience. A SMALLER EXPERIENCE It's a big mental transformation as DD1 fe...