Darkest Dungeon 2's free Kingdoms mode gets release date alongside next paid DLC
And fan favourite character.
Darkest Dungeon 2 will receive a major free update in January, alongside its next paid DLC.
Both the new Kingdoms game mode and the Inhuman Bondage DLC will release on PC on 27th January 2025.
Kingdoms is intended to run parallel to the game's main narrative campaign, Confessions. It tasks players with journeying from Inn to Inn across a persistent map to complete quests before time runs out.
Simultaneously, players will need to defend against all-new enemy factions as they complete contracts, upgrade and protect Inns. The first of these three factions will be the "rotting and ravenous beastmen".
The Kingdoms mode was first revealed back in April this year, but now finally has a release date.
The Inhuman Bondage DLC, meanwhile, will introduce a new mini-region, The Catacombs, along with a new playable hero. In The Catacombs, players will face a "corrosive, oozing threat" beneath the Kingdom. It features new enemies and items, and will be playable in both the Confessions and Kingdoms modes.
The new fan favourite hero, The Abomination, was an original Kickstarter backer-assisted designed character, who comes with a fully-voiced origin story along with unique mechanics and items.
"At Red Hook we love going against the grain," said creative director Chris Bourassa. "When asking ourselves how best to expand Darkest Dungeon 2, we were nonplussed at the conventional wisdom of simply packing in more content. Instead, we pushed ourselves to reimagine the very structure of DDII, and from that thought experiment was born an entirely new game mode: Kingdoms."
Darkest Dungeon 2 is available on PC across Steam and the Epic Games Store, alongside PS4, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X/S. Console versions of the free update and DLC will follow PC.
The game was first released in May 2023, with Red Hook continuing to tweak and update the game since.
"A copious and often brilliant, if not quite unmissable reworking of a powerfully grim fantasy," reads our Darkest Dungeon 2 review.