Darkest Dungeon is one of those games that keeps drawing you back in. The unique art and sound design, the punishing difficulty, and the thrill of victory on the rare occasion you do succeed make it an easy one to return to again and again. Developer Red Hook Studios has announced that the “Radiant Update,” which will mainly focus on a mode that significantly cuts down on the grind needed to finish the game, has had its release date pushed up to early February.
With the upcoming update, players will have a choice of three different ways to play Darkest Dungeon: Radiant, Normal, and Stygian. Stygian mode used to be New Game+, but is now available from the start of a new game. You know, just in case Darkest Dungeon‘s normal difficulty isn’t painful enough. According to the post: “Radiant Mode is not being designed to be an ‘easy’ mode. The intent is to adjust things that typically affect the time it takes to build up your roster and assault the Darkest Dungeon. Our goal is to get the completion time down to around 40 hours.”
In addition to the starting mode options, the Radiant update will add a few other changes. Typical quality of life tweaks will make the game a bit friendlier to navigate, and a new monster is being added to each region’s “Champion” level dungeons. The post highlights the new monster of the ruins region: The Bone Bearer. A skeleton carrying an unholy banner will buff his allies and create all sorts of new problems for your strongest heroes.
Unfortunately, the push to get the Radiant Update out so soon will slightly delay the release of the first expansion, “The Crimson Court.” Red Hook expects the expansion to now release in April.
We quite liked Darkest Dungeon, even when it was only in Early Access. It has improved dramatically since then. Check out our review here.
Will you head back to the dungeon now that the experience will be a little shorter? Let us know in the comments below.
