POST RELEASE UPDATE AND SHORT TERM ROAD MAP

[redhookjohn]

Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or secret gate
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Darkest Dungeon has been out of Early Access now for almost two weeks and we wanted to take a moment and share some of our excitement over the coverage we’ve received as well as give all our players an update on what to expect in the coming months.

To kick things off here is just a small sample of some of the coverage we’ve received:

“Darkest Dungeon is a triumph… A gold standard for early access games.” - Total Biscuit
“Darkest Dungeon is an incredible take on the classic dungeon crawl.” - Dan Tack, Game Informer
“Darkest Dungeon is a mean, capricious game. Success is a gambler’s thrill, addictive and illicit. It comes rarely.” - Jake Muncy, Wired
"...a grim and merciless tactical strategy game whose great tension comes from its many layers of complexity..." Dan Stapleton, Editors’ Choice - IGN

We are super thankful to all of our players who joined us on this journey through Early Access. You helped us make our game the best it can be!

Bug Fixes, Performance Improvements, and Translations

Since release, we’ve been working on improving the performance of the game for many of our players as well as collecting feedback on our Localization to take back to our partner to improve the overall quality of the translations. We are super grateful for your patience and willingness to help us track down these issues and resolve them as quickly as possible.

As you’ve no doubt seen, we’ve already deployed a number of hotfixes, and those will continue as necessary!

Short Term Roadmap

Aside from bug fixes, a bunch of other stuff is in the works for the near future:

• Kickstarter Backer Trinkets: these are done and being QA’d. We expect them to deploy within a few days!
  
• Gameplay tweaks: now that we’ve been able to watch and collect some data regarding the endgame, we have a few gameplay tweaks planned that should help reduce some of the grind that occurs in mid and late-game.
  
• Credits: in addition to crediting ourselves for all of our hard work (har har), we will soon be adding the Kickstarter Backer credits in game ($20 tiers and higher).
  
• Linux: This is in work and we’ll announce a date as soon as we know how long it will take.
  
• March 8th Update: Town Events, the Merchant, and the Musketeer (Adventurer Tier Kickstarter reward class). Circle your calendar--these new features are planned for that day!

Long Term Roadmap

Steam Workshop Support - We remain super excited about empowering modders. Sometime this Spring, we want to have Steam Workshop support in the game and create some better tools. We’ll keep you posted as we make progress towards that.

PS4 / Vita: We have great partners at Sony, and now that the Steam launch is out of the way, we can dedicate ourselves to figuring out a great controller scheme and continuing with the process of finishing up the PS4 and Vita versions. As you may already know, we showed the PS4 version in a hands-on demo at the PlayStation Experience (PSX) in San Francisco and December, and it was a hit!

While we don’t have a firm release date yet, know that it is in work and we’ll update you when we can!

Kickstarter Physical Rewards (Art books, prints, dioramas): The game art is done, so we can also begin production of these items!

Other Awesome Stuff: While we can’t confirm specifics, let’s just say we aren’t out of ideas, and have some other things planned as well!

REMINDER: Launch Discount Ends on Tuesday February 2nd! Tell your friends!

Finally, we wanted to remind everyone that on Tuesday, Darkest Dungeon’s price will be returning to its planned price of $24.99 now that we’re out of Early Access. During our release day, we had an issue with the Steam store that prevented us from increasing our full release price to $24.99 with the 2 week launch sale price of $19.99. As a quick solution we just set the full price to $19.99 to ensure people were buying the game at the discounted price. On Tuesday, the price will go up to $24.99 where it will remain until the next sale. So if you want to grab it at the Early Access Price/Discounted Price, do so before Tuesday!

Delve deep, bring a shovel, and remember to just let Wilbur be...

--The Darkest Dungeon Team
@DarkestDungeon
facebook.com/darkestdungeon

P.S. Join our mailing list!
http://eepurl.com/F-fo1

[foodlick]

And they finally acknowledged that the game is a grindfest.

[Ki11s0n3]

I'm just excited that I'll be able to play this on my Vita a some point.

[Madmax]

Originally posted by redhookjohn:

• March 8th Update: Town Events, the Merchant, and the Musketeer (Adventurer Tier Kickstarter reward class). Circle your calendar--these new features are planned for that day!

Woohoo!

Also, if you guys are still looking for good blurbs, check out Rock Paper Shotgun's review: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/01/25/darkest-dungeon-review/

[Muscarine]

Guess March 8 is GTFB to Hell !
Congratulations guys/gals !

[Panta]

hmm i think long dungeon runs are not that rewarding :(

[NMS]

That's really cool to hear John. In regards to balance, what short-term changes are you monitoring and discussing for heroes as is? I'm still very excited for when you mentioned the team was planning Leper rebalancing, so I can't wait to see that.

[pi73r]

hmm i think long dungeon runs are not that rewarding :(

40k+ Gold ain't rewarding? Long champion runs is pretty much the only reason the game isn't a total grindfest later on.

[Hilm]

Really happy to hear you guys are getting the recognition you deserve. Can't wait for march 8th :D

[SpeedSquirrel]

I'm not Adventurer Tier backer... Then, there is no way to get the Musketeer...?

[Madmax]

Originally posted by SpeedSquirrel:

I'm not Adventurer Tier backer... Then, there is no way to get the Musketeer...?

No way currently to access the Musketeer if you did not back at the appropriate KS level. Note however that the Musketeer is not a new class, but rather a different skin for the Arbalest.

[PancakeWizard]

minor feedback: the tag line "the door to hell is open, you have only but to take it" doesn't really flow right. If you're going to 'take it', it should be a path or a road, not a door.

[cbspike1]

Will artbooks be available also for nonbackers?

[AlexTheRussian]

Any news on fixing broken achievements? This is holding up finishing the game for me and there is still NG+ to tackle.

[eobet]

I haven't gotten to the grind, but is there any reason why heroes at rank 3-5 couldn't show up during the late game?

Also, I do hope that the console versions means that the PC version will gain gamepad and big screen support on Steam afterwards?

[Baywatch]

A small suggestion that pertains to something you touched on above:

Why not make the "Never Again" quirk also allow that character to participate in any run outside of the Darkest Dungeon and grant a huge resolve XP boost to everyone who goes along with? I haven't actually gotten to end game yet myself (and know next to nothing about it) so, I can't speak one way or another on it but, I would think that would be a good way of reducing the grind while allowing those high level characters to be more than just trophies.

I fully understand the point behind preventing high level characters from entering low level dungeons but, it's a bit of a pointless restriction while the player is tackling end game content.

Anyway, all that aside I'm looking forward to future updates.