When you announce a new game mode on April 1st that seems so unexpected and different from what fans are used to – it’s no surprise that many will think it’s an April Fool’s joke. But, lucky for us, that isn’t the case with the upcoming new addition to the frustratingly good survival game, Darkest Dungeon.
If you’ve never played Darkest Dungeon before, then good for you. You’ve yet to experience the ridiculous level of stress and anguish that this game brings out in people. But, you’ve also been missing out on an insanely addictive and interesting game that sees you trying to delve through monster-filled dungeons with your interchangeable heroes.
New PvP Mode
This new update will add a PvP mode to the game – even though that seems about the last thing you would expect. This mode will be called The Butcher’s Circus and launches tomorrow, May 29th.
It will add a new location to your Darkest Dungeon hamlet called, you guessed it, The Butcher’s Circle where you can jump into some PvP action. You’ll enter with a team of four heroes, separate from your usual roster to make sure you’re campaign isn’t affected. These characters will be treated differently from your main roster too. They will have fixed stats and their equipment can’t be upgraded. But, as a bonus, their skills have the capacity to inflict stress on your opponents. So, not only will they be able to inflict damage during combat, but they could also bring on psychological conditions – interesting, huh?
There will also be a collection of brand new gladiatorial trinkets that you can equip to upgrade your fighters, as well as heraldry upgrades and leaderboards to up your leadership ability. All of this sounds like your typical PvP apart from one thing – zero microtransactions. The Butcher’s Circus is a completely free upgrade and there will no sign of any pay to play elements. All upgrades and progression are made by playing the game. A novel approach in these times.
DLC, Mods, And More
If you own any of the DLC characters, you can use them in The Butcher’s Circus, but even if you don’t, there’s a chance you may come up against them. You can’t use any mods or modded characters in there though, to help stop any cheating or funny business going down. Because of this, players can opt-in or out of the Circus – for those of you who love your mods.
Right now, the update will only be available on Steam and we’re not sure if or when it will come to other platforms. “Steam is our largest user base and the simplest to deploy to, so we wanted to start there for this grand PvP experiment,” said Red Hook Studios.
To kick off the launch of their PvP, there will be a Darkest Dungeon free weekend where the full game will be available to play for free on Steam, and for those that fall in love with it, a 75% discount on the purchase price. This free event will run from 10 am PT/1 pm ET on May 28th to the same time on June 1st – so get in there quick and make the most of it.