His inflection and enunciation recounting the calm beginnings of the friendship between the Academic and the Ancestor to the various shifting tides of battle is top tier as always. Wayne June returns and voices the character (which probably isn’t foreshadowing anything) and does an excellent job, to no one’s surprise.

This time, the narrator is the Academic, a friend of the previous game’s Ancestor, and speaks of the Iron Circle, a pattern present throughout human history. 'There is that lingering feeling that this entire journey is more meditative and repetitive than anything else.' The world is on the brink of a new apocalypse, and as cities burn, debauchery spreads, and new monsters awaken, you must bring hope to the world while facing your sins. From choosing dungeons en route to conquering the Darkest Dungeon, you’re now on the road, traversing regions to face the horrors that await in the Mountain. While Darkest Dungeon 2 could have been a prettier version of the original while adding more content, the developer took a different approach. There was a grind, of sorts, but out-leveling everything wasn’t always the game plan – you had to know the dungeons and their enemies while being prepared. It was fun, don’t get me wrong, but it’s emotionally painful fun. However, I preferred being an avid sufferer who leveled their characters, nurtured them through their emotional damage, sent them to die, and wondered where it all went wrong. It’s possible to be an avid fan of Red Hook Studios’ Darkest Dungeon, a brutal dungeon crawler where death is permanent and the stakes absolutely matter.

Darkest dungeon 2 man-at-arms chapter 2