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Darkest Dungeon delayed a bit on PS4 and Vita

But still within torching distance.

Red Hook Games has announced a slight delay for Darkest Dungeon on PS4 and Vita. It was due spring/early summer but has been moved to late July/August.

"We want to make sure that all of the Town Event contents we are working on now are solid for inclusion into the console release," the team said, "as well as making sure it runs like butter and plays well with a controller. Adjusting controls, in particular, is not a quick process.

"We have a level of quality that we want to ensure in all of our releases and we would rather take some extra time to make it right, rather than rush it out the door."

Town Events are new and not yet in the PC or Mac version (imminent). They're events that trigger in your base, your Hamlet, and are sometimes related to quests you've completed, sometimes not.

The Town Event example given was All Saints Day, which has a high chance of occurring after completing the Ruins Gather Holy Relics quest. When it does, All Saints Day sends your Abbey into "a zealous celebration", and all treatments there are free for a week - which sounds very helpful indeed.

"We like this example as it helps answer a common community concern on the value of the various gather/destroy quests that we've had in the game for a long time," said Red Hook, "and have been criticised for their loss in value due to inventory restrictions."

Town Events are due late May.

Sickhead Games is the team helping Red Hook bring Darkest Dungeon to PS4 and Vita, and has a great track record in this area, having console-ified good games TowerFall, Skulls of the Shogun and Ironclad Tactics.

Darkest Dungeon is wonderfully wicked and darkly imaginative - a game about recruiting characters for turn-based dungeon delves. But it's vicious. Combat is merciless and when characters die, and they do, they're dead forever. They can die in battle and they can die of stress-triggered heart attacks, and they can contract all manner of diseases and foibles that push them to the edge. These things can of course be negated through various methods, but they're not free and they're not instant.

In short, Darkest Dungeon is tough - it's a challenge to simply field a team at some points. But it's wrapped up in such a slick and attractive, confident package it works.

Christian Donlan reviewed Darkest Dungeon earlier in the year and Recommended it. He said, "This is a game that's horrid in a way that means that you can't look away, a game of exhaustion and luridness and of terrible things happening in an awful, awful place. In other words, it's just lovely."

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