Darkest Dungeon II: The Shroud of the Deep Early Access Update Revealed

Red Hook Studios has put together a new early access update for Darkest Dungeon II. It’s currently available on the experimental branch, but should soon be graduating to the live one. This update introduces a new area inhabited by amphibious horrors, a new act with its own final boss, updated systems, bug fixes, and more.

Here’s an excerpt from the fairly extensive patch notes:

“Propriety floats listless on the tide, brined in noxious degradation.”
We are excited to release the next update to Darkest Dungeon II!
“The Shroud of the Deep” will be available on the Experimental Branch Wednesday May 18th. It will be moved to the Live Branch after we have verified there are no critical issues. Patch notes below:
The Shroud
Your coach will find no easy purchase on the rotted, salt-soaked planks and jetties that connect the waterlogged homes of the Fisherfolk. Driven to a debased worship of the sea, the denizens of the coastal regions have taken to the water…and been changed by it.
The Shroud is a new full-sized region packed with a complete faction of amphibious horrors and a terrible threat from the lowest depths of the sea floor.
7 new monsters, from the gestating Cabin Boy to the imposing Docker
A New Lair Boss lurks just beneath the tideline
2 New Lair Boss trophies
6 New region-specific trinkets
All new combat score by the inimitable Stuart Chatwood
New narration – the Academic (Wayne June) reflects on the decline of the coastal population
New Confession: Resentment
Redemption demands an acknowledgement of failures past. Sign your confession anew, and face the personification of your second sin.
This milestone introduces the next Confession/Act 2, with new story content and a new final boss.
Narrative presentation has also had an overhaul:
Main story narration has been moved from the Valley to the Void
Each Confession now has an intro, repeatable lines, and an outro that tells the game story at run start and upon successful final boss kill
Art panels have been added to support the main narrative
Reformatted the Denial narration to match the new presentation
Added the Resentment narration and artwork
Ordained Monsters
Monsters now have a chance to spawn as “Ordained”, which means that they are blessed with extra power by the end boss for that Confession/Act. The blessing increases the monster’s damage, health, speed, and some other stats. These powers vary based upon which Confession you signed at the outset of your journey.
The chance of a monster being Ordained increases as you approach the Mountain.
When in the first full region past the valley, 10% of monsters will spawn as Ordained
When in the second full region past the valley, 40% of monsters will spawn as Ordained
When in the third full region past the valley, 80% of monsters will spawn as Ordained
Lair bosses and corpses will never be Ordained
Related: we’ve lowered base monster HP and damage by 20%. Thus, monsters should be a little easier than before when you are in the first region. By the third full region, they should be mostly harder than before.
The goal of this feature is to establish power scaling and threat escalation as you approach the Mountain, while also slightly lowering region 1 difficulty so it’s easier to get your expedition started.
Food Redesign
The function of food has been redesigned. Before, food was used primarily to heal HP at the Inn. Now, HP is always fully healed when arriving at the Inn. Food is instead used to buff Max HP and also buff other stats. Those buffs will last for the entire next region.
Each hero can only eat one meal (consume one food item) in each Inn. So choose your best food item to feed them. The exception being the Roast Pig. You can always add a Roast Pig feast on top of everything else.
Hero base HP has been lowered by 10% across the board, to adjust for food being used to buff HP. (The worst food item buffs 10%.)