Red Hook Studios, the developer for Darkest Dungeon 2, has announced that the game will be fully released sometime in February 2023. This announcement came in the game’s latest early access update, where the studio revealed a roadmap leading up to the game’s full 1.0 release.

This follows the release of “The Shroud of the Deep”, the game’s most recent major early access update, which sought to bring about a slew of content, updated mechanics and quality-of-life improvements. 

Despite this major content update, the team at Red Hook are already hard at work addressing player feedback with regard to current game mechanics. One of the main changes promised in the roadmap is changes to character progression. Instead of earning XP, the devs aim to add something akin to upgrades in the Hamlet, a la interchangeable mastery points, to provide “a much stronger and compelling link between expeditions”.

In a similar manner, the dev team is looking to make changes to the Relationships system to make it more “active and compelling” when players form a party for an expedition. Not only will you have to worry about how their skills interact with one another, but also how their personalities may complement or hinder the entire group’s performance – and determine success or failure of an entire run as a result.

Other updates include changes to driving, which aims to add more layers of tension to the stagecoach sequences prior to an expedition, as well as a Trinket overhaul.

With the game being in early access since October 2021, the road to Darkest Dungeon 2’s full release grows ever shorter, though the updates leading up to it only add to our excitement. Players can expect to purchase the game on Steam or Epic Games Store at launch, with “console releases to follow”.