Radiant Mode Dev Update

The light, the promise of safety!
– The Ancestor

Last month we announced our plans for Radiant Mode in our “Hamlet for the Holidays” update. Radiant Mode is a new game mode designed to help reduce the overall time needed to complete the game. Since today is Friday the 13th, we felt it would be a great day to release a bit more info on this upcoming addition to the game.

Radiant Mode

When creating a game, you will now have the option to select one of three modes: Radiant, Normal, and Stygian (Formerly NG+). 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, although playtests will confirm where we land. Having all three modes available gives more flexibility for Darkest Dungeon to adapt to your lifestyle, without changing the core experience.

Quality of Life

We are also using this opportunity to make a number of tweaks, tuning adjustments and improvements that affect all modes. We’ve been compiling community feedback for several months, and will be incorporating many of the great suggestions put forward by you, our players!

New Horrors Emerge in the Champion Dungeons!

One of the most exciting parts of the game is the jump from Apprentice to Veteran Dungeons. Right when you begin to feel your confidence surge as you master Apprentice Dungeons, you engage with new, challenging monsters in Veteran dungeons. In this spirit, we are adding a new monster to each region for Champion Dungeons.

These new monsters have some insidious, never-before-seen abilities that will add variety and new synergies to Champion Dungeons. In addition, we’ve also noticed some of Vvulf’s raiders have slipped out, mingling amongst the bandit ranks in the champion-level regions.

Today we wanted to share the first of four new champion monsters: The Bone Bearer.

Several seasoned adventurers have whispered, gripping tankards of ale to hide shaking hands, that new horrors await in the deepest regions of the Ruins.  The repulsive ranks of the malignant skeletons therein are said to rally around banner-bearers of extreme decrepitude.  Theirs is a blasphemous and ensorceled flag whose presence in battle lends great strength and other unspeakable assistance to their damnable kin.  These chittering fiends are even said to tap into the hoarish energies that animate the long-decayed corpses!  A new threat whose grinding teeth and shuffling steps echo endlessly in the shadowy arcades of the ruined battlements…

Radiant Release

Our goal for Radiant mode is to have it ready for PC/MAC/Linux release by early February, which is mere weeks away! PS4/VITA will also get this update, but it won’t be till after the PC release, so we can be sure the mode, and the additional content/changes are rock solid. (The patching process on console is longer and more difficult to make small tweaks and fixes.) We also hope to have a small public beta right before release, as we have done with all our major updates. As we lead up to the release we will share more information on feature changes and additions as well as more details on the new monsters.
We know many of you are anxious for additional information on our first major DLC “The Crimson Court”.  After the decision was made to double down and add content as part of the Radiant update, this unavoidably shifts Crimson Court date a bit, but we feel this is for the greater good of the game. A significant amount of work has already been completed for the Crimson Court, and we are estimating it will ready in April.  We will update you as we make progress, so keep your eyes peeled for more art and information!  We are dedicated to making this expansion an exceptionally robust, and terrifying bunch of features and content!

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