WMG / Darkest Dungeon II

This is not a story about a futile quest to save what is left from a cosmic foe. This is a story about surviving beyond the end of the world.

How do you triumph when the entire world wants you dead? You can't. Maybe you shouldn't. But you can always run. And in a world built to grow a space-faring beast, what better way to survive than to latch on like a parasite?

• Jossed utterly. This is about fighting the influence of the Iron Crown to save the planet and it's far from futile.

And it takes place in space.

After all, what is darker than the darkest pit of the earth? The void of space and time, by far. The stars are merely flickers, and they will go out.

• Joshed, at least in its entirety, as the first chapter takes place on earth

Returning Enemy Types

Undead: In the background of the Necromancer boss in the first game, the Ancestor said he gained his knowledge of said arts from various masters and experts before murdering them in their sleep and using their corpses as test subjects. While the Ancestor took to necromancy like a fish to water, it implies there are other necromancers out there of varying skill beyond the estate, and any one of them might have decided to take advantage of the end of the world to raise their own undead army for some reason or another.

• Confirmed: The Tangle is home to the Lost Battalion, an army of undead soldiers and knights made from the corpses left behind by some terrible war. However, they appear to be animated by the corrupted forest itself, rather than any sorcerer's intervention. There are also Gaunts who show up every where, whom are either former humans so full of despair their bodies died and only their negative emotions remain to animate it, or they were already corpses brought back to life by the insanity plaguing the world. The Ghoul makes a return uncategorized....

Pelagics: The fish-men have always worshiped the Heart, or whatever species/race it belongs to, in some form or another. The coming apocalypse is their sign to come upon dry land and conquer it from humanity, and they are having a ball. Some point in the journey you'll have to deal with the invading Pelagics by taking down a regiment of them that took over a seaside village they took over as a beachhead for the invasion.

• Half-Confirmed: While only one pure Pelagic appears, the Leviathan, they seem to have made deals with the fisherfolk of the Shroud to transform them into Pelagic hybrids, and the Fisherfolk share their religion.

Bloodsuckers: The mere existence of the Countess shows that vampires actually do exist in this world. While all the vampires fought in the first game were all despicable aristocrats turned into vampires who then birth clones of themselves as offspring, the second will be our first glance at what natural vampires in this world are actually like. As well as find if the Countess was merely a Large Runt......

Brigands: Sometimes, good old fashioned human cruelty, malice, and depravity can easily trump whatever horrors supernatural monsters can cook up. Like the ones from the first game, these guys will pop up everywhere, even among all the other monsters, taking advantage of the end of the world. Since the sequel will be a globe trotting adventure, there will most likely be multiple "tribes" of brigands, if you will, each based on a different Animal Motif in contrast with the Wolf motif the Vvulf and the higher tier brigands had going.

• Confirmed: Brigands are happily playing opportunists, to the point where even the narrator insults them as the worst kind of parasites.

Cultists: Obvious. May even encompass members of the Church who fell into despair as the encroaching horrors became too much and their God is revealed to be the figment of their imagination they had conjured up.

• According to this article, the primary enemy factions are humans who, in their despair, gave into their baser instincts and became embodiments of their darker selves. And cultists serving as a Stalked by the Bell mechanic; confirmed on cultists, unknown for everyone else, given how mutated brigands seem like an entirely valid spin on things, and the others are all implied to be mutant humans themselves.
  • Cultists are actually Confirmed twice over; there's the cult from Darkest Dungeon who ambush you when you are out of light (they'll even summon the Shambler as a possible assassin), and Fanatics, mutated, fire-obsessed Knight Templars who are burning everything in the Sprawl.

The Heroes will no longer be mere mortals.

But now exist as avatars of "The Light" as a reward for facing and defeating the Heart in the Darkest Dungeon, allowing them freedom from the stable-time loop of the Hamlet in order to pursue the greater evils roaming in the world beyond as the Light's "Chosen Ones", granting them the power to fight back, just as the Ancestor became the avatar of the Heart in the first game.

• Jossed. The heroes are the same mortals as ever, facing an impenetrable darkness and forced to confront their own weakness. What is left of the Light seems to be a single flame they must protect.
• No matter how many times they die, they always come back through The Crossroads.

The reason that the Crusader and Vestal aren't in the teaser image.

They were the targets of "Come Unto Your Maker: at the end of the first game.

• Alternatively, the madness of the world has caused Religion is Magic to stop working, meaning their potential replacements have become completely useless.
• At least for the Vestal, one of the potential Inns that can be visited by the heroes is called "The Vestal's Secret." With the emblem of the inn being that of a familiar-looking nun, and the description mentioning books with "questionable" but enticing contents, it's safe to say the Vestal has retired from adventuring, and is otherwise alive and well.
  • Jossed. The Vestal has been added as a playable character.
    • Doubly jossed with The Binding Blade DLC, with the Cruasader being revealed to be alive.

New Bosses to face in the dungeon:

• A Wendigo Expy: After all, if the teaser has show anything, we will be setting foot in more cold locations this time, and it would be unusual to not fight one of the most famous cold-themed Public Domain Character in the game.

The chapter bosses will be based on the Five Stages of Grief.

• The first chapter is Denial, and its chapter boss is a giant brain called the Great Denier, after all, said by the Academic to have chained itself with locks that prevent you from accessing your skills; we win when we destroy its chains. Given how there's five levels, each one will be themed after Kübler-Ross reactions, with Acceptance being twisted into absolute submission to the end of the world; each one will be defeated in an ironic way (we forced the Denier to interact with the world by cutting its chains; Anger will be defeated by battling it into exhaustion, Bargaining by forcing it out of a comfortable strategy, and Depression by healing it).
  • Jossed. The third, fourth, and fifth bosses are Obsession, Ambition, and Cowardice rather than Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Furthermore, the Final Boss (Acceptance/Cowardice) involves directly defying the end of the world by destroying the boss at the cost of the Player Character's own life.

The other chapters will have other enemy factions than those we've seen so far

• As mentioned above, there's room for the fishmen and vampires to return. There's also room for vagabonds corrupted by the Color out of Space, or for that matter actual aliens, such as the Mi-Go or Starspawn could comprise factions the closer you get to the end-goal.

The Flagellant will be the next Rogue Protagonist you meet

• The implication is that the Holy Flame itself has almost completely died out, with you holding one of the only holy embers left, and without it, all those who were fiercely religious no longer have a guiding spirit to keep them sane while they perform violent and borderline-psychopathic acts of dedication. As such, the Flagellant has gone from a heroic masochist to an angry madman who was completely broken by his sudden loss of the ability to feel pleasure from constantly whipping himself. He'll still whip himself, and you, blaming the heroes and their previous adventure for causing this loss of worldwide faith.
  • Jossed. He seems to have picked up Necromancy and is now undead, but he's still a playable hero.

Potential other Rogue Protagonists to be encountered

• The Abomination: Most likely succumbed to his inner beast and reduced to a mindless savage killing anyone in his path.
• The Bounty Hunter: Much like the Antiquarian, he would most likely ditch everyone else due to his I Work Alone mentality, and goes after your party for the promise of payment.
• The Crusader and Vestal: A Dual Boss finally revealing what happened with "Come Unto Your Maker". It's not pretty.
  • All but the Abomination are jossed. The Bounty Hunter is still a Consummate Professional mercenary (if a Guest-Star Party Member) the Vestal is back as the somewhat damaged White Magician Girl she always was, the Flagellant came back as a heroic undead being (much to Death's fury), and the Crusader returns as the Knight in Shining Armor he always was.

The Academic is much less innocent than he lets on.

All we've seen of him so far suggests that he's blameless in the apocalypse... but he is the narrator, and this is the Denial arc. As the story advances, we're going to see new facets of his relationship to the Ancestor explored in more detail, and none of it will be flattering.

• However, the Academic will still turn out to be a far more pleasant person than the Ancestor ever was. While the Academic may have done some pretty awful things that border on outright atrocity, he has always done so out of a genuine pursuit of knowledge and/or wanting to prevent whatever the Hell is going on in the game in the first place, with his regret over his actions being more sincere. The Ancestor, meanwhile, was always a pretty despicable and terrible, the only goodness being being only slightly more moral than his fellow nobility, all of which succumbed into vampirism, and his own pursuits of dark and forbidden knowledge making him argubly even WORSE than the vampires.

• Semi-Confirmed: The later arcs of the story indicate that the Academic was fairly deep into occult research in his own right, but he wasn't the one who caused the apocalypse and he actively sought to restrain the one who did, prior to them going completely off the deep end of murder and Human Sacrifice.

The Crusader will reappear as a spirit.

being revealed as one of the canonical victims of "Come Unto Your Maker" but did not let his soul be corrupted , and will be an unlockable hero later in the game, either as an angelic embodiment of the Holy Flame, or a demonic shade having taken the dark powers of the heart into himself to become another case of a heroic horror like the Abomination before him.

The Brain of Darkness is the Abomination

the most obvious connection is its chains being the Abominations trinkets, but the chains themselves reference the abomination use of chains as his armor, and weapon in human form, and the line "chained by its own command!" implies it imprisoned itself, possibly the Abominations last ditch effort to protect the others before he fully lost control, its possible the other major bosses will also be corrupted forms of missing heroes.

Some old monsters will return as heroes

we have some of the old heroes becoming foes so why not the reverse? either as a genuine case of heroic examples of there species or simply evil vs evil, the vampires would be an obvious choice, with interesting gameplay options like lifesteal in addition to possibly being one of the heroes from the first game still afflicted with the crimson curse, another option is the fishman as they are implied to be native to earth, and thus may choose to stand with the humans to defend it, assuming the big bad is not there god

At least one old class will return but with a new character

whether do to falling in battle, being the canon victim of "come on to you maker" or simply retiring not all of the characters will return, but someone else will take up there sword and fill the role, such as a new face caring for the houdmasters dogs after his passing, it could even be a combination of classes, such as the Vestal showing up now brandishing the crusaders sword.

• Jossed so far. When re-added, the Vestal still uses her holy book and spells.

The Runaway's biological parent is a character from the first game

perhaps she is the child the Crusader left behind, or the Heir had an Heir of their own.

New heroes include Sunken City characters

Let's face it, they're practically canon at this point.

The Scholar is a Transhuman Abomination

It's heavily implied the Academic is aware of the time loops, and we frequently return to the very field of shadows we seem to return to and recruit Heroes from between runs - like that is the Scholar's domain as well as the Cultists'. It will eventually be revealed the Scholar abandoned mortality, and the side effects of that created the Confession bosses from their negative traits. The very same darkness being expunged from the Scholar caused them to realize they doomed the world and shrink into despair until the Academic found and gave them that Dare to Be Badass speech. The ending will involve them making peace with what they did and becoming humanity's guardian.

• Mostly Confirmed. The Scholar's physical body was mutated to become The Body of Work worshipped by the Cultists, though their soul seemingly escaped to side with the Academic; it's also implied that the Confession bosses are indeed representations of their negative traits. However, the ending implies that the Scholar makes a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the Transhuman Abomination their physical body has become, rather than becoming humanity's guardian.

Each of the main location enemy factions is drawing power from a Chaos God.

Except not the most blatant sides of them, to fit with the Cultists being Undivided in its most primal aspect of destruction, and thus debase their allies from their most classic forms to get them to work somewhat coherently. To wit:

• Lost Battalion: Nurgle, due to their association with nature and despair. Moreover, besides plague, Nurgle is highly associated with The Undead, and the Lost Battalion, as the revenants maintaining a somnambulant garrison against an enemy they know they cannot beat, personify the "so lost in misery they forgot they're dead" aspect of his undead.
• Fanatics: Tzeentch; while they seek to destroy knowledge, they are the most actively magical faction, with many of their units using fire-based spells, there being active Shamans who attack you with telekinetic stones, and the Librarian being a mage himself. Tzeentch is also associated with fire, and his love of changing bodies can also be self-mutilation - plus, as the Lord of Paradox, the idea of his knowledge-focused cultists deciding to burn written records is probably laugh-out-loud hilarious to the Architect of Fate.
• Plague Eaters: Slaanesh, which is actually rather simple - they embody all excess, not just Lust, and so if the people of the Foetor were so hungry and food-obsessed that they would grow more mouths just to indulge their gluttony - who is the Dark Prince to judge? In fact, the Harvest Child actually using a very distinctly Slaaneshi ability to tempt your heroes into eating tainted but delicious-seeming food.
• Fisherfolk: Khorne. This is actually the closest to his normal state of being, as the Fisherfolk don't have any mages, relying on skill and mutation-induced strength, with the occasional quickened growth into new warriors for Cabin Boys. Hell, even their Hazard is actually a direct fight with a Sea Monster punching you with Combat Tentacles, in effect a quick fight you can only flee.
  • With the full release, this is plausible. The Iron Crown and the Spreading Stain pretty much are Chaos Undivided, an eldritch representation of all-too-human failings and darkness. As a result, this is just as much a story about an incipient Sorcerer Lord of Undivided realizing almost too late what they are becoming and their remaining virtue taking form to rally the forces of Order to stop their rampaging dark half. Sigmar is very liable to turn the Scholar's soul in the post-game into a Stormcast Eternal, both to eternally atone for nearly destroying their entire world and a reward for having stopped the destruction on their own.

The four other sacrifices that the Scholar used in their ritual for the Iron Crown were four of the previous classes from the first game.