Dungeons 2

1. Summary

Most reviewers recommend Dungeons 2, and a lot of them judge it as a Dungeon Keeper successor. You dig out a lair, slap your goblins and set traps, then take the fight to a Warcraft-style surface map while the narrator mocks you; players identify him as Kevan Brighting, the narrator of The Stanley Parable. He draws much of the praise, and some reviewers describe the whole thing as a relaxed, charming way to play the villain. Reviewers who compare it with the first Dungeons and pick a side mostly prefer this one.

The complaints are about depth and friction. Workers are slow, paydays and a shared population cap keep you waiting, and there is no speed control. The hand cursor and unit selection feel clumsy, the campaign is short and plays like a long tutorial, and the base game rarely challenges anyone. Crash and memory-leak complaints peaked in 2016 and faded after that. Players are split on the surface RTS layer, on the reference-heavy jokes, and on whether this counts as a worthy Dungeon Keeper heir. Reviewers who give buying advice mostly say to get it on sale.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Kevan Brighting's narrator carries the campaignHigh

The narrator comes up in 24% of reviews. Reviewers like his dry, fourth-wall-breaking delivery; one was won over the moment he called them "The Flatulent Evil". He also mocks the heroes and needles you when you take too long on an objective, and a couple of reviewers admit to slacking off on purpose to hear the next jab. One review reads, in full, "The narrator carries the game". A few negative reviews still name him as the game's best part, and a few credit the voice more than the lines he is given. A minority of the reviews that mention him also say he nags, repeats himself or rushes them; that complaint is covered with the jokes under the split opinions below.

Digging out a dungeon and watching it runMedium

About 15% of reviews talk about building the dungeon itself: carving tunnels, mining gold veins, sizing rooms, keeping the brewery stocked so the orcs stay happy, and watching idle minions wave at the hand or reinforce walls. A few single out being able to fill dug tiles back in as something Dungeon Keeper didn't have, since it lets you funnel heroes through trap corridors. For the reviewers who enjoy it, the appeal is the routine of tending the lair.

Colourful art and lots of small detailsMedium

When reviewers mention the look, they usually praise the cartoonish, Warcraft III-like art, the animations, and touches such as the surface turning dark and corrupted as you conquer it. A minority found the bright, cute style too childish for a game about evil, or said it lacks the grim atmosphere of Dungeon Keeper.

Factions and unit upgrades add varietyMedium

The Horde and the Demons play differently (beer versus admiration, training versus sacrifice), units upgrade into new forms with new roles (a naga archer becomes a healer, a goblin becomes an assassin or a flamethrower mech), and the undead arrive with the Game of Winter expansion. Reviewers who mention factions usually speak well of them, though several call the Demons awkward and weak early on, and a few note that both base factions are similar underneath.

A big step up from the first DungeonsMedium

About 6% of reviews compare it with the first Dungeons. Those who pick a side mostly say the switch to Dungeon Keeper-style play fixed what was wrong with that game. A small group liked the original's mechanic of luring and pleasing heroes before killing them for their gold and soul energy, and feel this sequel threw that away.

Where players are split

How close it comes to Dungeon KeeperHigh

Dungeon Keeper is named in 31% of reviews, more often than any other game. About 13% describe this one as like Dungeon Keeper, a successor to it or a trip back to Bullfrog's games, and some call it the closest thing to a third Dungeon Keeper they have found. The dissenters are often the same kind of fan. They count fewer creatures, fewer rooms, no prison or torture chamber, no possession and no rival keepers, and call it a simplified or kid-friendly copy. One reviewer, bored of a campaign that holds your hand, signed off with "I'm off to play Dungeon Keeper 2 instead." War for the Overworld comes up in about 3% of reviews as the alternative, and opinions on which game is the better successor go both ways.

The surface RTS layerHigh

The overworld, where your minions leave the dungeon and you control them like a standard RTS, comes up in 22% of reviews. Its fans like taking the fight to the heroes and watching the land corrupt behind them. One reviewer said of commanding troops on the surface "that part was amazing", then complained that it was only a small part of each level and the rest was spent waiting on idle minions. Its critics find it a thin select-all-and-right-click mode with no formations or attack-move, abilities buried behind clumsy menus, and fights that turn into one blob of units hitting another. Another reviewer called it "unfortunately the least interesting aspect of the game". Some would happily drop it: "Can I just play the dungeon managing part only?" Switching between two control schemes and two minimaps also bothers some.

Pop-culture jokes and a narrator who nagsMedium

About 30% of reviews mention the humor, and most of them enjoy it: parodies of Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and Warcraft, punning unit names and a Red Wedding parody mission. The critics are a smaller group (about 2.5% of reviews call the jokes cringe, forced or stale) but they are pointed: "The humour falls flat quite often and the constant references are cringe, but the gameplay is solid and very enjoyable." A separate group complains that the narrator nags whenever you take your time, sometimes "before you can even click on it", which clashes with the slow pace. A few reviewers point out that a setting turns his chatter down.

An easy campaign: relaxing or toothlessMedium

Workers revive in the hospital, one blob of upgraded units wins most fights, and the campaign has no difficulty setting (skirmish does). Some reviewers call the game too easy or unchallenging, and they are mostly players who reported 10 to 50 hours. A group of about the same size describes the low pressure as the appeal: a casual, stress-free game where you can turtle, build and "relax after a bad day". Both groups describe the same design; they disagree on whether it is a flaw.

Game of Winter and the other DLCLow

Several reviewers who played the Game of Winter expansion call it the best campaign, with the undead faction and a real challenge: it "ups the difficulty to the very max and makes you work for your wins". Others call its spike arbitrary or unfair, especially with no way to lower the difficulty. The smaller DLC packs get a cooler reception; one reviewer said they "only appear to be skirmish maps without actual stories and narration".

What frustrates players

Slow pacing and a lot of waitingMedium

13% of reviews complain about pace, and the complaint appears in 23% of the negative reviews. Snots dig and haul gold slowly, workers and fighters share a small population cap, payday drains the treasury every few minutes and pulls minions off their work, and research waits on gold. Missions can take one to two hours. "It's like Dungeon Keeper but at a snail's pace," wrote one reviewer; another said "this would be a 7/10 game if the game speed was 2x to 2.5x." There is no speed slider, and several reviewers ask for one. Some who like the game still admit to tabbing out while gold trickles in.

Crashes, memory leaks and performanceMedium

Technical problems come up in 12% of reviews and 25% of the negative ones. Launch-period reviews mention stutter, low frame rates in big dungeons, and a "Lost connection to server" error that dropped single-player progress. In 2016 reviewers describe a memory leak (one dates the trouble to an October 2015 update) and crashes every 10 to 20 minutes, and crash complaints appear in 29% of that year's negative reviews. In September 2016 one reviewer wrote that "they've finally sorted the memory bleed so it doesn't crash every 5 minutes!" After 2019 crash reports become rare, although a handful of later reviews still mention crashes on long sessions and Linux or Mac problems.

Only worth it on saleMedium

9% of reviews tie their verdict to price. Several reviewers say the launch price they paid or saw, $40 / €45, was too much for the content; the usual advice is to buy it at a deep discount or in a bundle, and several suggest $5 to $20 as a fair price. Some recommend the edition with all the DLC included rather than buying the packs separately.

Clunky hand cursor and unit controlMedium

The controls are called clunky in 8% of reviews, and those reviews make up 17% of the negative ones. The oversized "Hand of Terror" makes it hard to tell where a click lands: one reviewer called it "the most inaccurate thing in the world". In the dungeon you can only pick units up one at a time, there is no drag-select, the camera does not rotate and zooms out only a little, and dropping minions onto the exit portal is fiddly. Several note that group hotkeys from the surface help once you find them.

A short campaign that plays like a tutorialMedium

Some reviewers call the campaign short, often 10 to 20 hours, and a few say it feels like one long, scripted tutorial that unlocks features piece by piece and ends just as everything is available. One reviewer described "a long tutorial campaign" that they wished was extended. Every map also starts from an empty dungeon, so research and rooms have to be rebuilt each time, and skirmish maps largely reuse campaign maps.

Objectives that say what but not howLow

A few reviews describe getting stuck because the game never explained a mechanic: upgrading a unit in the arena takes a separate click, the tutorial keeps asking for a treasury until you place it exactly where it expects, research has no overview. One reviewer kept dropping units into the arena to train them while the narrator kept insisting they train units, until they found the separate upgrade button half an hour later.

Bards make traps pointlessLow

A small group complains that bards in almost every raid disable traps in an area, so heroes wait for them and walk through your trap corridors. "Bard render your traps completely pointless," wrote one reviewer. Others say cheap exploding chests or rolling boulders still kill everything, which leaves traps either useless or overpowered depending on the build.

Thin multiplayer and no co-op against the AILow

Reviewers who tried multiplayer report no lobby browser, long quick-match waits, no AI players and no co-op against the AI, which also makes the one multiplayer achievement hard to get. As one put it, "online pvp is dead tho".

Launcher prompt and narrator adsLow

A few reviews, mostly from 2015, object to the Kalypso account screen shown at every launch ("There is NO option to skip the registration window launcher!") and to narrator jokes that plug other Kalypso games. Some reviewers took the plugs as jokes; others found them out of place in a paid game.

3. The player conversation

The tone is mostly warm and nostalgic. Some reviewers say they grew up on Dungeon Keeper, and their reviews read as relief that someone made a game in that mould again. The negative side is quieter but consistent: the same handful of complaints (slow, clunky, short, easy) also turn up in positive reviews, often next to advice to buy it on sale.

Sentiment moved with the game's technical state. Launch week drew 82 reviews at 89% positive, but 2015 as a whole ended at 73% and 2016 at 72%, the year crash reports peaked. The free Humble Bundle giveaway in May 2017 brought the two busiest review weeks in the English set (123 and 100 reviews). From 2019 onward the yearly share of positive reviews stayed above 80%. Some later reviewers arrive from Dungeons 3 or 4; a few prefer this game's separate factions and simpler hand-only controls, and others miss the sequels' quality-of-life features.

Who raises what differs by experience. Reviewers with under two hours report technical problems somewhat more often than the rest. Players past 25 hours are the ones who talk most about the campaign being too easy, the content running out, and the Game of Winter expansion, which comes up in about 10% of reviews from players with 50+ hours.

4. What the developers could do

1. Add a game-speed control and cut idle time. Pacing is one of the more frequent complaints, and several reviewers ask for a 2x or fast-forward option to skip the waits on gold, digging and research.
2. Keep the game stable on long sessions. Crashes and memory leaks appear in 29% of the 2016 negative reviews, and reviewers describe crashes every 10 to 20 minutes and lost progress since the last save.
3. Make the hand cursor precise and allow group selection underground. Clunky picking-up, one-at-a-time unit handling and the fixed, close camera are a recurring complaint in negative reviews.
4. Offer campaign difficulty settings. Experienced players found the base campaign toothless, while the Game of Winter spike stopped others; reviewers on both sides ask for a selectable difficulty.
5. Explain mechanics in the game. A few reviewers got stuck on unexplained steps such as arena upgrades or treasury placement while the narrator told them to get on with it.
6. Let players turn the narrator's nagging down from the start. Some reviewers who like the narrator still dislike his repeated prompts when they build at their own pace; a visible option early on would keep the jokes without the pressure.
7. Give traps a fair counter to bards. A small group of reviewers say bards make most traps pointless, which undercuts the dungeon-design half of the game.
8. Add a multiplayer lobby, AI opponents and co-op against the AI. The few who tried multiplayer found it empty, and friends who wanted to play together had no co-op option.