PAX Prime 2015 – Darkest Dungeon, The Cove

I wish I wasn’t so predictable. Those with media badges get special early access to the expo floor on the first day of PAX. Wide open and filled with glittering lights, walking onto the floor during that first hour of exclusive access is like a brand new amusement park built just for you and your closest 200 friends. Each game studio reaches out to you, asking you to enjoy their latest projects. It’s humbling, and the possibilities truly seem endless.

So of course I head straight for the Darkest Dungeon booth, a game I both own and have played the shit out of. Yup. I like what I like.

The Cove

Red Hook’s demo at PAX features the new Cove dungeon, the fourth and penultimate content release before the game is out of early access. The Cove fully embraces their Lovecraftian inspiration: your heroes will sludge through squamous caverns while fighting positively Inssmouthian monsters.

The Cove simply seems better tuned than the other dungeons. The synergies between monsters in just a novice level mission were clear and potent, and new enemies types (like bloated zombies that explode after two turns, or guardian fishpeople that protect their allies with 80% damage reduction) give the area a mechanical signature. The content shows a higher level of polish in an already polished offering, they’re clearly refining their craft over time.

I was able to face the Siren, the Cove’s first boss. Her signature attack was a startling charm attack. Her hideous briny visage melts away for a second, revealing an illusory maiden that sings to your party. If it’s successful, one of your party members will join the enemy team for three turns using their entire arsenal of attacks. It was a wonderfully bullshit surprise! I did manage to strike the Siren down with a few clutch crits, but not before losing half of my party. Rest in peace, doomed demo Vestal and Arbalest.

Escalating Violence

Thanks to the fact that the expo floor only had a few hundred people in it, I was able to monopolize some of Chris Bourassa’s time, the Creative Director for the game. (Seriously, he’s drawn all of the art in the game and done most of the writing. Stunning.) He discussed how they finally have the breathing room (and I would say expertise) to really explore the types of challenges that the players will face now that they’re nearing their full release.

He lamented (echoing some complaints from the Darkest Dungeon community) that a lot of the challenge in the late game comes from increasing numbers: higher monster resistances to special moves, higher damage, etc. They’re currently adding better tactics, more challenging and varied situations and AI, to late game play, making monsters more cunning instead of simply being a bigger sack of hit points. This should be welcome news to any fan of the game.

Chris also revealed their cunning plan to use players as testers for monster abilities. Specifically, Chris pointed out, the Bounty Hunter’s Come Hither move is a test to see how the mechanic works, how fun it is, and how effective it is so they can give it to an enemy when they release the game. I thought this was a brilliant idea, and chills me to the bone that we’ll be seeing more monsters that have PC-like abilities.

Feedback and Passion

Before we parted, Chris and I discussed the recent high profile flair up of negative press they received after adding a particular mechanic to their game. In a recent patch from July 15th they added corpses that would stay on the ground after you kill a monster, keeping the enemy formation intact until someone wasted a turn attacking that corpse. In a game all about positioning (you want those rear-rank monsters up close so they can’t use their most potent abilities!) this rubbed a lot of players the wrong way.

The corpses add an additional layer of complexity to the game that rewards behavior they weren’t seen from players, Chris described. Chris said that the most effective pre-corpse strategy was the “buzz saw”, where two strong melee characters would simply wail on the first monster so all of the bad guys would scoot up a rank as the front line fell, “feeding” the monsters into the melee buzz saw. After the corpses, however, that was a less optimal play, making room for ranged characters to show their value, and movement abilities that could push or pull monsters became incredibly important.

The outcry from the community was loud. Chris postulated that this was a sign of the community’s strong investment in what is still an early access game. I agree with him: early access games are rarely as polished and functional as Darkest Dungeon. It’s easy to imagine how difficult it would be to adjust to and accept new mechanics that change the the core of a game you’ve already invested a hundred or more of hours in.

Chris took the extremely vocal negative feedback to heart. He made it clear that they read and addressed every piece of criticism, and the last few weeks have “been hard” on the team. Chris’s reaction, one of deep concern about the players he has a responsibility to in early access, surprised me. While he is doing exactly what they need to do to make the game they’ve envisioned, the team still clearly care deeply for their community and want to do right by them.

Of course, the end of the story is that the devs are making the badass game they want to even with the negative feedback. (And I tried to give them my own personal positive feedback. Corpses are an awesome addition btw.) But they care that people care enough to criticize.

If you have the Darkest Dungeon, look forward to the Cove content that’s coming your way in the beginning of September. It’s great content that truly shows off the complexity of challenges that they want in the final release. If you haven’t purchased Darkest Dungeon yet, shame. Shame. Go get it. It’s more than worth the $20 on Steam and the game is set for a full release in late 2015.