Despite some major changes to the core mechanics compared to the first game, Darkest Dungeon II has proven to be a success following its 1.0 launch and long-awaited debut on Steam.
Updated sales figures come from Red Hook Studios co-founder and game design director Tyler Sigman, who shared the data for Simon Carless’ GameDiscoverCo newsletter.
- Darkest Dungeon II launched on Steam on May 8 and sold over 300,000 units on the platform in its first month.
- For comparison, roughly the same number of copies were sold during the 18-month Early Access period on the Epic Games Store.
- So this brings Darkest Dungeon II’s lifetime sales to over 600,000 units.
- The US (30%) and China (18%) account for nearly half of total sales on Steam. Other countries in the top 10 include Germany, France, South Korea, Canada, the UK, Russia, Australia, and Taiwan.
- Users spend 23.5 hours in Darkest Dungeon II on average, and the median playtime is 14.5 hours. 60% of users have played it for more than 10 hours. This is above the similar stats for the first game.
- According to the data shared by Sigman, the game launched on Steam at 600,000 wishlists and 35,000 followers.
- Darkest Dungeon II currently has a “Mostly Positive” rating on Steam, with 75% of all reviews being positive. This might seem like not a great result, given that the first game sits at 91% positive reviews, but Red Hook Studios were ready that not everyone will accept the sequel.
- “With DD2, we think a significant part of the review scores represent the cost of having made something different,” Sigman said. “There is an expectation gap where some people can’t view the game on its own, but rather just as ‘what parts of DD1 it isn’t.'”
- Red Hook wasn’t creatively interested in making a sequel that would be just bigger and better compared to the original. So the studio decided to “do and say something somewhat different — but related — to the first game.”
- That’s why Darkest Dungeon II uses the signature turn-based combat, but feels more like a “straight road trip roguelite.” According to Sigman, it might take some time before more players will really love the sequel.