Darkest Dungeon 2 will launch in early access next year

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Darkest Dungeon 2 will enter early access sometime in 2021, exclusively on the Epic Games Store.

After confirming the sequel's development last year, Red Hook Studios released the above teaser trailer earlier today. It shows some returning characters in action, and its heavily inked art style looks sharp even in 3D, but it's light on details. We don't know when in 2021 Darkest Dungeon 2 will begin its early access ride, nor we do know how long it will last. The official Epic Games Store page doesn't have any answers, either – just a short blurb.

"The eagerly awaited follow-up to Red Hook's smash hit gothic horror RPG," it reads. "DDII will test your mettle and drive you to the brink of madness. Armor yourself with purpose and provision your party for the journey ahead. It will be arduous."

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Red Hook provided a bit more detail in a blog post. "Our familiar companions band together for another journey into oblivion – this time in stylized 3D," the studio says. "In fact, this teaser was captured straight out of Unity, and uses the in-game character models and rendering techniques from the game itself. With a refined combat system and a whole new metagame, Darkest Dungeon II is packed with fresh monsters, bosses, and challenges."

Darkest Dungeon is one of few games that can make the phrase "it will be arduous" sound so enticing. The original game is known for its punishing difficulty and an emphasis on cyclical perma-death, and we can trust that the sequel will follow suit. I'm quite intrigued by that "refined combat system" as well since the original saw some significant changes to its combat system during its own stay in early access.

While Darkest Dungeon 2 will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store at the start of its early access period, we can safely assume it will come to other platforms later on, or at least when it's officially released, much like Hades did. The original game was available on PC through Steam, GOG, and Humble, and it was also released on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo, and iPad.

In other cool indie game news: Among Us was played by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a recent record-setting collab stream.