Nightmare Fuel / Darkest Dungeon II

Despite the more hope-filled atmosphere compared to the first game, the Apocalypse is inbound, and the horrors are aplenty. Spoilers are unmarked!

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• The very first cutscene of the game will immediately tip off those who managed to beat the previous game: the universe is thrown out of balance and the Apocalypse is inbound, suggesting that the previous game's efforts to stop the Heart of Darkness were all for naught. The effects of the ending world also shown in detail, with people madly setting things ablaze, tearing off their own faces and slaughtering everything in sight. The situation is so dire that the physical manifestation of hope can fit in the palm of one hand. To top it all off: The source of this madness is situated on the mysterious twin peaks of ever present Mountain off in the distance, which is sure to make you question: just what the hell awaits you there?
• The Valley, the very first zone of the game, is much more tame than what follows, but still scary in its own right. A land of stagnation and decay, where nature is so tainted by the Apocalypse, leaves fall infinitely, never to grow back, while over the bridge, the trees are dead and dying. And this is the safest zone in the game, with the narrator explicitly stating that leaving here is abandoning the one somewhat sane location in the world.
  • The Prologue, which takes place solely in said location, introduces wandering Gaunts, showing one of the many victims the end of the world has claimed. Stumbling and decaying, with various deformities and grey skin, they chomp into the flesh of the heroes, stressing them out or pumping blight into their veins, assuming they don’t just hack them to pieces. Even scarier, it's ambiguous if they have indeed lost their humanity or are aware of their condition. What's worse, the attacks of Woodsman enemy impy that they indeed have some memories of their humanity, with him thinking he is chopping down trees, carving toys for children or protecting them. It makes it all more sad.
• The Sprawl was once a bustling city, with a focus seeming put to the preservation of knowledge. Now, with the coming Apocalypse, it has been filled with burning books and buildings, their denizens gone mad with their zealotry to the fire. Various corpses are strung along the streets as offerings to the end of the world, and more dead bodies litter the street, their fat and grease boiling away in the sewers. Just the thought of the whole town simultaneously and unanimously devoting themselves to such atrocities can send shivers down the spine.
  • The denizens themselves can be nightmarish due to the sheer amount of Body Horror: their limbs are often missing, replaced with crudely crafted serrated blades, stilts and flails, their flesh melting and becoming red like candle wax, rendering many seemingly blind, faces covered with black cloths, and in case of one enemy flat out making him The Blank. They’ve ignited their flesh so often they can heal and even strengthen themselves should they ignite, putting it into question whether they have indeed transcended their humanity to gain such abilities or simply worship the blaze that much they grow stronger by self immolation. Both possibilities are scary.
  • Their leader, the Librarian, is an antithesis to what he once was. A peaceful keeper of the Great Library in times before the end, he's now dedicated his life to destroying his formerly treasured knowledge. He inhabits the worst case of Body Horror out of them all. Scrolls cover his eyes, skin melting to the point of it hanging on the visible bones, his mouth contorted into a permanent grin. Madly riding around on his ladder, he’s singed his flesh so often, he is downright immune to the Burn status effect where other Fanatics have only a higher resistance to it. He can throw his burning books as projectiles or create smoke clouds to make heroes miss. What's worse, he personally burns the books even while fighting the heroes, which causes stress damage to the heroes as the sheer scale of the knowledge lost starts to get to them. And should all the book piles end up as ash? The Librarian ignites himself which causes him to use his most damaging move every turn, most likely reducing your heroes to naught but charred remains very quickly.
• The Tangle is a forest with perpetual rain, muddied roads and anomalous plant life. It was once supposed to be a grand choke point against the forces of Apocalypse, still filled with trenches, settlements, battle structures and traps…that never got used against the apocalypse. The grand Last Stand never happened: as soon as the legion stationed there saw what they were dealing with, all will to fight back was lost and the soldiers quickly surrendered to the spreading stain. This bares repeating: The entire trained garrison gave up fighting when they saw the sheer power of the void, that's how hopeless the situation is.
  • The Lost Battalion, local villainous faction, are in fact those soldiers, reanimated by an unknown force as another kind of zombies, still keeping their cohesion and combat tactics behind the grave. Soldiers dragging their swords, arbalests keeping their aim, drummers shouting orders - not in the name of the Light, as they did in life, but against it.
  • The Dreaming General, while a Breather Boss, still manages to be terrifying. Locked in a perpetual sleep, tormented by dreams of his failures, this giant whispers his dreams to the heroes, putting them on the brink. And then there's also Tap Root, a gigantic plant impaling the General. It's constantly spreading its vines that strangle heroes should they be allowed to fully grow. Not only that, but they also seem to channel the thoughts of the General himself, with heroes muttering about failed confrontations they never fought in, stressing themselves and each other. It also seems to be somewhat sentient, since it retaliates if attacked, stirring the soil under the heroes to make them targets for the General's undead warriors. It certainly makes up with it's atmosphere for its difficulty, sure to leave new players at least slightly shaken.
• The Foetor is Evil Is Visceral: the Location. Once the lands of humble farmers and rich landlords, it was the place where strange meat began to grow when the apocalypse began. Meaty tendrils are everywhere, some reaching sky high, many houses are overtaken with literal Meat Moss and the fields are overflown with meat instead of usual crops. A dreadful and disgusting place, sure to leave an impression.
  • The denizens of Foetor are not too far from Fanatics in terms of deformities. They are bloated and mutated, with huge mouths replacing their faces, second mouths growing inside the first ones and skin covered in huge blisters and lumps of flesh. Even the livestock was not safe from this, local goats turning mad and trying to kill intruders as viciously as humanoid enemies. They can feed on corpses and even still living comrades to heal and gain access to powerful abilities, which involve shooting bile at hapless travellers. Their backstory is equally terrible: when the strange meat came, they started overindulging themselves on it, then turning to feast on rotting flesh of animals and each other, all because the meat made them always want more. And the scent from the meat is irresistible, meaning there was no escape.
  • The Harvest Child, local boss, further proves the horrors that hit the land. Born to a mother who's already gone mad with the hunger, it grew huge and monstrous, having fused with Cornucopia horn and gained monstrous jaws that can tear into flesh, eager to eat the unlucky fellows who wander into it's territory as much as everyone else, constantly wailing and spitting bile. The eponymous meat accompanies it in the fight and proves just how dire the situation is: should the heroes be hit with the scent, they will do everything possible to reach forward and take a bite out of it. Yes, even the seasoned fighters who have gone through some terrible stuff in their lives, can't resist the temptation of the damn meat. What's to say of the more common folk than? And if you destroy the meat to rid yourself of temptations, it goes berserk, going straight to mauling protagonists with it's jaws. A terrifying child.
• The Shroud used to be a simple coast of fishermen and sailors, until the end of the world began, that is. Out of desperation, the fisherfolk began to pray for help, and that's when Leviathan answered. Strange monoliths began to surface on the coast, with marine life gradually overtaking the coast as they did. Now, the Shroud is but a quiet settlement with rotting houses, barnacles everywhere and with the scent of rotting fish in the air.
  • The Fisherfolk themselves, continuing the tradition of Shout-Out to H. P. Lovecraft from the Pelagics of the first game. Half-Fish People, these sailors shamble about, with their pale skin, fish-like eyes, barnacles and sea flora on their bodies, one enemy having the parasite on their head invade it's eye. Even the corpses aren't safe, puppeteered by the same parasites into punching the passersby.
  • The Leviathan, the entity behind the Fisherfolk's current predicament, is a terrifying fish monstrosity, its head alone towering even the biggest of Shroud enemies. Its breath can produce fog, its gaze is inescapable and it can drag the front-row heroes underwater to drown, not too dissimilar to the Hag from the first game. It is not exactly known if he really is some sea God or is just pretending to be one, but he is a very powerful and terror-inducing creature regardless.
• The Sluice, essentially a bonus region, is a series of abandoned waterways. Not too scary on itself, save for a gloomy and depressing atmosphere, but it is populated by the Swine. These pig humanoids are implied to be the direct descendants or the next evolution step of those from the first game. That's right: despite all the efforts of the Hamlet to contain or slaughter the Swinefolk, they still not only bred extremely quickly and even evolved, but also managed to spread beyond the walls of Hamlet's Warrens.
  • Wilbur, of all Swinefolk, is back, and stronger than ever. He's now as big and strong as his king once was, smashing heroes with brutality seemingly in vengeance for his previous defeats. To think that he would develop into such a monstrosity from an almost harmless pig is a fearful development.
• The Mountain. Incredibly imposing and menacing twin Peaks where snowstorm never ends and where the great evil has claimed full dominion. Iron Crown symbols are abundant, the dark mist of what's essentially tangible darkness is spread throughout. And once you beat some cultists and reach the end of the path, you stand in front of the Great Ziggurat, an absolutely Creepy Cathedral with seemingly Alien Geometries. And you never know what horror lies inside until you enter and engage in a confrontation with it.
  • The Mountain changes between acts, something no other location does. In Act 1, even for all the creepiness, it's still a normal-looking mountain. By the end of Act 5, it is absolutely consumed by the same strange structures as the other cultist buildings, becoming one huge Creepy Cathedral which seemingly reaches the stars themselves.
• Brigands return as wandering Pillager enemies, and they are no less fearful than they were before. Using the chaos unfolding, they ambush the travelers and rob them of their riches, and with their terrifying weaponry and attack dogs can easily surprise the new players. Truly terrifying ones, however, are the bosses of the faction: the Implication and the Antiquarian. The former is because it is essentially the Pounder from the first game, packing as much power while being autonomous with no explanation, and the latter not only because she betrayed her previous comrades and joined the bandits, but also because now she's actually competent, with huge amount of buffing and team-wide poison attack. And no matter how much you strike her down, she always escapes, always ready to continue her menace.
• The Collector. The mysterious cloaked menace returns, and he means business. If you happen to possess one or more Trophies in your inventory, there will always be a chance he will appear in stead of the usual Road Battle encounter. There are no indications of when exactly he appears but when he does, he appears out of the portal, grinning, before showing the insides of his clock and engaging heroes in battle.
  • Thanks to the move to 3D and other graphics upgrades, the appearance of both Collector and his Heads is much more detailed, showing many fleshy bits and heads compiling the Collector as they silently scream. The fightable heads are no slouch either, having received much more impressive specter models, and groaning with each attack.
  • The Collector is a bit more expressive, grinning evilly throughout the fight, eager to add your trophies and your heroes' heads to his ever growing collection. Whenever he is not attacking, he spends some time looking at where the player would be, seemingly thinking about adding the player's head to his collection.
  • Defeat the Collector and he will simply retreat through the same portal, ready to menace your heroes next time. Sure, you're safe for the rest of the region, but there is no guarantee he won't appear in the next one.
  • Just like in the previous game, he can drop unique head Trinkets related to your Man-at-arms, Highwayman and Vestal. And this time, thanks to the game's Genre Shift to run-based rogue like, the theory about those beings the heads from other realities is more than plausible.
  • The scariest thing? There's still no information on this guy! Even the Academic, detailing the origins of various enemies found throughout the game, has nothing to say besides a commentary on his looks. One thing is for certain, however: previously, he was limited to wandering the lands of the Hamlet. Now, with so much pain, misery and heads to collect, he's free to roam the whole world. And just how many heads can he take?
• Long before the Collector made his return, there was a Shambler. The same infamous Hero Killer is back, inhabiting the great cosmos, summoned by an altar found in the Studies, and it too got a visual upgrade. Its power level is still impressive, with its low-torch effects, party surprise, tentacles hitting heroes into oblivion and intrusive attacks. It can provide much needed Mastery and unique Trinkets, but if you're not ready, prepare for a doomed run.
• Speaking of Studies, they are Nightmare Fuel: The Node. Abandoned laboratories of Academic and Scholar, they house many strange and terrifying experiments. Among the more timid ones, like an old clock, book stack or even Ancestor's Portrait, there is also a caged bird that does not look like one in the slightest, an aforementioned Shambler Altar and a strange shut doorway, which may not seem like much, but houses terrible implications for later story.
• The Cultists. Good Lord are they not the same from the first game. Meager Mooks no more, they have received many blessings from their eldritch God: tentacles instead of legs, deformed heads shaped like bagpipes, wings, extra arms, and multiple swellings, all donned in black garments and silver plating. The kicker? They have gained so much eldritch power, they are effectively no longer counted as humans and gain the Cosmic enemy type.
  • Exemplars stand out the most, being de-facto boss enemies. They look like a highly deformed centaur, with the lower body being a masked quadrupedal creature situated on a mix of actual limbs and tentacles, while the upper half is a headless humanoid figure fused to the rest of the body, with a visible spine protruding out and the Arc Symbol above their head. If you're not prepared, they will dominate the battlefield with constant combo attacks. Thankfully, they only spawn in region 3 only starting with Act 3, but every battle is a decisive test of skill whether you're gonna prevail or fall.
• Once you finally reach the Mountain and defeat the Cultists guarding it, you get face to face with the first Confession boss: Shackles of Denial. While not as scary or grotesque as the bosses that follow, being a simple set of sentient locks, it is seemingly commanded by the chained Great Denier, a giant floating semi-sentient brain. According to the Academic, it's a manifestation of the world's collective psyche, chained by its own accord. Just think about it: the end of the world is such a huge scale it creates manifestations of misery and pain as powerful monstrosities that further spread the corruption. And this brain with chains is the weakest out of these abominations.
• The lore revelations dropped in the very first act tell us about the meeting of Scholar, the player character, and Academic, our great friend and guide. We learn about them meeting at the university, getting to know each other's interest in history and soon beginning their own research. The ending of the Act, however, has them discover a major bombshell that puts into perspective not only everything we know of the second game so far, but even the first game: throughout human history, a certain symbol is mentioned at alarming rate: a semi-circle with five Points of power, known as the Iron Crown. That's right, the Arc Symbol of the series is one for this universe's humanity, but that's not just it: the Iron Crown is not just the symbol, but also a malignant and all-powerful manifestation of human despair, misery and pretty much every other negative characteristic. You heard that right: the Arc Symbol itself is the worst monstrosity this world has ever had or will have.
  • Consider the following: in previous game, we learn that there exists a Heart Of Darkness, maker of humanity, seemingly most powerful creature seen as God. However, it has physical form that can be, even if temporarily, beaten back into slumber, and it may or may not be a first-grade liar. And then remember the headgear it has and how Iron Crown is described. And then it should hit you: the Iron Crown has no physical form, but is actually as old as the universe is, immensely powerful, can manifest anywhere and create monsters worse than the heart could ever make. The Heart may be the creator of humanity, but it is subservient to this omnipotent malignant avatar.
  • Another point: the Heart's influence seemed to only affect the Hamlet and dungeon beneath it and was stopped from destroying the world. The Iron Crown's influence was more than enough to actually trigger the destruction of the entire Earth. You cannot stop it from beginning, since it's already in full scale - you only hope to deal with the consequences.
• Act 2 boss, Seething Sigh, is an ugly and gigantic set of lungs. Its small remnant of rotting skin is string along it, with many tears exposing tumors and barnacles. The lungs themselves are covered in strange dark crust, and its innards are clearly visible, all looking unhealthy. It hovers in place not unlike a dragon and backs this familiarity with the ability to spew out flames and utilizing other literal Breath Weapons, wildly roaring all from the rage. And there's also its charging Alpha Strike: it proceeds to actually breath in, with the lungs realistically expanding, before the Sigh lets out the loudest roar yet and strikes the whole team with powerful breath.
  • Act 2 story tells about the Academic and Scholar furthering their research, but soon facing a problem of people finding their research fraudulent without actual proof of the Iron Crown's danger. And while the Academic points this out and tells his assistant to keep quiet about it, the Scholar is seething silently in rage that his own colleague refuses to go on with the research that he himself began, suggesting that this is his Start of Darkness.
  • Up until this point, you might be forgiven for thinking that the game tells a story separate from the first one. But then in the end of Act 2 comes the biggest Wham Shot yet: a very familiar letter inviting men of science to a small Hamlet for studies. That's right: the freaking Ancestor invites the two of them to do questionable things. Just the thought of the protagonists meeting this guy, knowing what he did and what he's capable of, is terrifying, and later chapters of the story more than back up this.
• Act 3 boss, Focused Fault, keeps upping the ante. A huge set of bloodshot, never blinking eyes spawned in clusters, obsessively staring at the heroes to focus their attacks on a poor chap that gets marked. They are not too strong, but if you don't take them down quickly, they can regenerate themselves, growing extra eyes with a fleshy crunch.
  • And then there's the Focused Fault itself. The biggest colony of eyes there is, with a huge main eye seemingly in its mouth and tons more surrounding it. Not only can it use the Seen tokens from the first phase to hit you with Limericence, but can apply them irself. It would be wise to take advantage of Draw Aggro mechanics to use its obsession against it - but if you somehow don't have hem, you're forced to watch as your party is vaporized by horrific eyes, gazing forevermore.
• Act 3 is where things really begin to heat up. When our duo meets the Ancestor at last, it's revealed he is doing research of his own on the Iron Crown. Previously, we only knew he had the information on Heart Of Darkness, but not this Iron Crown. This game, however, confirms that not only did he know about it, but committed various atrocities to learn even more, adding even more terrible misdeeds to his already huge collection and making him the second most influential Greater-Scope Villain besides the Iron Crown itself.
  • The ending is no better, since our duo finds themselves awakened at the meeting with no memory of what happened, the other visitors slaughtered with no one remaining, the Ancestor nowhere seen, and a particularly terrifying aftermath of the experiment: five corpses strung along the points of a giant Iron Crown replica, not unlike what the Fanatics will eventually be making as offerings. The duo promptly decide to leave, but the Scholar leaves with a new vision of the world, eager to try and recreate the experiment. And so an obsession is born.
• Act 4 boss is Ravenous Reach, an absolutely horrifying entity comprised of many hands, all grasping for power. It has three phases, with the first one resembling a horrifying biblically-accurate angel and getting worse as the fight progresses. The Reach opens up more and more, revealing more of they many hands that comprise it, and even its tongue is a freakishly long arm it can counter-attack with. And if you don't overwhelm it quickly, it will sure overwhelm you!
  • Its death animation is somewhat horrifying too, with it dropping to the ground and futilely trying to stop itself from being sucked into the void, not unlike someone trying to escape being Dragged Off to Hell.
• Act 4 is a huge Wham Episode because it reveals a lot about the nature of both the Scholar and the Academic: As ambition began to take hold, the Scholar practically forced his friend to partake in more horrifying experiments with the power of the Crown, one time leaving them both bleeding from ears and with various injuries in other cases. And just when the Academic decides to leave, the Scholar leads him to the basement with the recreation of the Ancestor's experiment, but only four victims. The Scholar then stabs the Academic with ritual knife, using him as the final sacrifice. This is a huge gut punch for the player, as reveals that we are responsible for everything that transpired.
• The beginning of Act 5 lets you know the last part of Scholar's backstory….and oh sweet Light does it deliver:
  “A precise arrangement, the sacrifice of conscience, the abandonment of self, the Iron Crown had found its king. Upon your furrowed brow, the mathematics of our existence, the geometry of the cosmos - an ephemeral equation wholly expressed in negative space. To invoke its power was to refactor the most fundamental underpinnings of our fragile dimension, to imprint one's mind upon reality itself...What world could be born of a mind so sharpened by appetence? The wind blew sour, the oceans roiled. The earth shuddered at the coming change. Mankind became a mockery - his newly horrid outlines a twisted tribute to the shape of your flaws. Newborn horrors, spawn of the crown, imprinted with your insatiable, reaching hunger..”
• The Body Of Work is a mix between Awesome and Nightmare Fuel and excels at both.
  • The nature of this monstrosity. For one last time, it is Scholar's failures made manifest, but unlike before, the Scholar straight up combines various features of the previous bosses into an utterly horrific and grotesque titan that spreads the influence of Iron Crown.
    “Gaze now, upon your great achievement. The sum total of your failings: Your Body Of Work!”
  • The first phase, known as The Gut Of The Coward, is a set of sentient guts that resemble a Hydra of all things, vomiting gastric acid at those who'd dare challenge the body. Said set of guts are exposed and presented in great detail, with four loose ends each ending in a horrific skeletal face, with the implication that these may be the souls of the victims consumed by the Scholar’s final ritual…which opens up a whole new can of Fridge Horror. Imagine being kidnapped by a strange man, killed without anyone knowing where you are, only to wake up later and find that you’ve been transformed into the mutated gut of the towering titan, unable to do anything but spit horrible acid at your potential saviors against your own will.
  • The second phase is no slouch either. It is a fight against the remnants of Focused Fault embedded in the chest, now complete with a grotesque mouth replacing its eyelids, piercing the very veils of reality itself with its gaze. The eye itself isn't even the main threat, but it marks targets for insanely strong punches that shake reality itself.
  • And finally, there’s The Scholar's body, now reborn as The Hateful God that the Cultists worship, sits on a stone throne consumed by warped flesh. It retains the black cloak it wore during its ritualistic learnings…but its left hand is now unrecognizable and fused with the throne in a fleshy mess, while its right hand is a melted, withered, half-attached human limb wielded to the throne by a strand of flesh that becomes visible when it attacks. All the while, a gigantic glowing manifestation of Iron Crown hovers behind it, made not out of stone, but seemingly of dark matter.
    • The Proclaimers that accompany him can easily be mistaken for simple Cherubs... until they whip out a huge sword that can remove every buff you stacked and provide Worship to the God, something no other Act boss has. And if the Hateful God gets enough worship? He unleashes the true power of the spreading stain and hits your party with a move that deals big damage, horror, and destroys all positive tokens. If you aren't ready for the fight, you'll learn to fear the Proclaimers.
    • The Hateful God himself also proves to be a terrifying Reality Warper. It can easily influences heroes' emotions, can unleash the energy of Spreading Stain itself, can rewrite your positive tokens into negative ones, and summons an endless army of loyal Proclaimers, all with the simple raise of a hand. It's no wonder it's worshiped this much when it has that level of control over reality.
    • And then there's also its Trump card: Face Your Failures. Being an avatar of pure hatred and loathing, the freak of reality can tap into each individual hero’s suffering and can summon specters from their past for one last attempt at breaking them. Sure, this backfires if the hero manages to overcome their fears and failures, but given that the specter its self gains a scaling damage buff every time it attacks…the possibility of the hero being consumed by their failures still exists.
    • And the cherry atop all this? When pressing the TAB key, all other enemies/bosses give various details, such as their moves, stats, and resistances, with the first two stages of the boss being no exception. The Hateful God however? You are instead met with a chilling message, that seems to be burnt with the stain onto the very screen itself, as the camera angle shifts to have it stare dead at you!
      Pity those who glimpse into the mind of GOD.

• The ending. The Body Of Work is defeated, and the Scholar seemingly sacrifices himself to banish both it and the Iron Crown, slowly reversing the effects of the apocalypse as the heroes hope to begin a normal life. But then as the camera zooms out of the Mountain, many gigantic tentacles appear in the sky, looking over the Earth, as the bright sun that peeks through the mountains is snuffed out like a spent torch. It’s a chilling reminder that, Sure, the current apocalypse is undone, but worse horrors still remain.