Darkest Dungeon to make Curios less threatening following Crimson Court DLC
Red Hook Studios: "YESSSSSSSSSS… SSSSSSSSSSS!!!!"
Darkest Dungeon is one of the hardest, most infuriating and yet most fantastic games I've ever played. For me, its deference to challenge and perseverance in order to achieve success is unmatched—even compared to other notoriously difficult games like, say, Dark Souls—which makes the former bearable against the latter. The game's Curios, however, at times verge upon unfair, which in turn threatens to compromising the game's otherwise deft risk/reward balance.
Curios, for those unaware, are special items which when touched facilitate good or bad events at random. Once your party happens upon a room that houses a Curio, you have the option to either interact with it directly or with the use of a provision item. Opting for the latter often triggers a positive effect, however the option to go in blind is always there.
To avoid losing party members, a number of wikis exist to remind players which Curios are tied to which effects. During a Reddit AMA, though, this extra info is something Red Hook Studios hopes to introduce in-game.
"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!" the developer said when asked if doing so was something it had planned down the line. "Sorry, I'm very passionate about this issue. From a design perspective, I hate that sometimes you effectively require the Wiki to interact with Curios.
"We have a plan for solving this and it got cut for the Crimson Court update because other things were truly more important (such as the Crimson Court content itself). I think it will happen at some point. [As an] aside: our contact at Curse said 'Don't change it! That curio wiki page gets tons of views!'"
When pressed on where Darkest Dungeon will go following its recently launched Crimson Court expansion, Red Hook suggested the team has plenty of steam left in it yet.
"We were really interested to see how well DLC would be received, and use that as an indicator of how much continued appetite there is for the game and the world. Early indications are really promising and there's definitely a lot more we'd like to do."
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Fancy altering your own darkest dungeons beyond the game's vanilla state? Check out Mat's list of the best Darkest Dungeon mods.