This release, entitled ‘The Steadfast Steward’s Update’ will roll out a little differently this time around. Later this month, we’ll be enlisting YOU, the Darkest Dungeon community, to collaborate with the Red Hook team and help us create the next Darkest Dungeon II update.
We’ve summarized all the details of what you can expect for this release, and how you can participate below!
What is it:
The Steadfast Steward’s Update is an update focused on quality of life improvements! Our plan is to push weekly releases to our experimental branches, and collect community feedback to help inform our changes. We plan to tidy up a number of different areas in the game, mainly in the Confessions game mode.
Please note that we are not adding new content such as regions, or new enemies and heroes. We felt this was a great time to return to many areas of the game that haven’t had a refresh since they were first implemented.
What are the areas we plan to tackle:
- Hero reworks - Our goal is to complete the remaining hero reworks (Occultist, Runaway, Leper, Plague Doctor and Hellion)
- Academics View - We want to add more information to the Academics View including ally skill cooldowns and uses, speed and previously hidden information
- Tooltips - We are improving tooltip legibility across the game
- Token Glossary - We are expanding the token glossary to include more tokens found in the game, working to make it more context specific (i.e. showing only relevant tokens), and improving overall clarity
- Miscellaneous changes - We are going to test retreating and item selling in Confessions, and depending on time constraints, we’d also like to have a look at ordainment, memories, and various other systems throughout the game. We will prioritize these changes based on what you would like to see. Once our feedback channels are open, you can tell us what you’d like tackled first!
What makes this different from other updates:
Typically, our team reviews community feedback once an update is out, and will implement suggestions in future updates. With the Steadfast Steward’s Update, we’re inviting the community to send us feedback much earlier in the development process, similar to how we conduct our private tests!
You’ll be able to play new builds weekly, and send us your thoughts in the Darkest Dungeon Discord. We plan to make a section of our Discord entirely dedicated to this update, and our designers will be active in these channels, asking questions and following up on your comments. Our goal is to implement player feedback quickly, with changes happening every week.
Because of the nature of this update, our designers will be much more up front with the intentions behind their changes. We plan to post more detailed patch notes outlining our goals to help the community measure if our intent is matching our implementation.
This plan also means that our experimental branches are about to get a lot more experimental. Typically when we publish a build to these branches, it is essentially complete. We leave those builds up to soak for a few days and see if the community at large spots any issues we might have missed during our private beta period. The Steadfast Steward’s experimental builds will be in a much earlier state of development, and thus will not be nearly as complete. This will allow us to continue to iterate as we collect your feedback. Due to this, you will likely find more bugs and missing strings than you normally would on these branches. It also bears mentioning that non-English language translations for any newly added or changed lines will also be absent until we get closer to the end of this period.
How often will builds be posted:
Our goal is to publish weekly builds on our coming_in_hot and experimental branches on Steam and Epic.
How do I participate:
If you want to participate, you’ll simply need to play the game on the coming_in_hot branch once builds become available, and then send us your feedback.
The best way to do this is by joining the Darkest Dungeon Discord.
We will have a specific section dedicated to the Steadfast Steward’s update with different channels for hero reworks, tooltips, and more. Note: This section will be added to our Discord later this month, once our first build is live.
You can also email your thoughts to feedback@redhookgames.com if you’d prefer to send feedback that way.
Please note, participation is NOT necessary. If you don’t want to help test this update, you can continue playing on the regular retail branches as normal, and enjoy the completed update when it is eventually released.
When will it release to the default branches:
We do not have a set release date for the Steadfast Steward’s Update, but are currently aiming for a mid-July release to our retail branches.
We can’t wait to work with you and collaborate on this release! Our first build is currently planned for the end of May, and we’ll notify everyone as soon as it’s up and ready for testing.
