I like to imagine they pummeled their legs with their fists like a toddler throwing a tantrum, forgetting they were holding knives, pistols, polearms, etc. The personal relationships dovetail with individual stress, and it can be far too easy to find a cascade of upset and anger which only subsides when someone gets so upset they suffer a huge amount of physical damage and reset their stress. Friends, please, this is the apocalypse, not Counter-Strike. Oh, why do you heal them and not me? Oh, what are you up to? Oh, why did you screw that up? Oh, I hate you! Even killing an enemy, which should be good news for everyone, leads to squabbling over kill-stealing. It feels like not a turn goes by without one party member getting narky with someone else, a dramatic pop-up interrupting the battle to debuff your party with shouting. The sequel also introduces relationships between characters, tracking approval and disapproval along the way and appropriately dispensing buffs and debuffs. As in the first game, our characters' mental states detoriorate in response to the things they see and the kickings they take, developing negative quirks and conditions. Thanks, Red Hook! They still seem mighty chatty, mind.ĭarkest Dungeon 2 sends unlikely squads of heroes out in a stagecoach to battle through legs of a journey towards oblivion, and it takes a toll on a person.

Update: A patch has arrived with changes including reducing bickering. I'm this close to turning the stagecoach back around and embracing the impending apocalypse. Managing the stress of your heroes is more important than ever, because if anyone is even mildly irked they will interrupt every fight to shout about how their squadmate is a kill-stealing dick. The horrific dungeon-crawling sequel entered early access yesterday, and my initial impression is that I'm surrounded by squabbling children. In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings, but in Darkest Dungeon 2 goodness me you'll hear about everyone's failings constantly.

Darkest dungeon highwayman virtue