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Darkest Dungeon 2 players should be no strangers to the game's high difficulty and unforgiving mechanics, especially if you played the first Darkest Dungeon title. In this unconventional sequel, you contend with various horrifying threats in a cursed and crestfallen land whilst making your way towards the looming mountain.
Thankfully, the game features a mechanic that will make the journey a bit less difficult. For those who want to fully delve into the nightmarish setting that is Darkest Dungeon, this same mechanic can be used to add even more despair to your playthroughs.
Purchasing The Flames
Unlike most games where a difficulty setting is accessed in the settings menu, Darkest Dungeon 2 has essentially placed its difficulty setting in the game itself. In the most general terms, equipping the Radiant Flame is equivalent to turning on the game's easy mode and equipping the Infernal Flame is like cranking up the difficulty to hard.
You can access the Radiant Flame at the Valley Inn by purchasing it from the Provisioner.
Meanwhile, the Infernal Flame can only be used once you've earned enough candles to unlock it at the Altar of Hope. You can find it in the Intrepid Coast section of the Altar of Hope.
It takes 20 candles to purchase the first Infernal Flame, so you might have to make a run or two before you have enough currency to acquire it.
Once unlocked, the Infernal Flame can also be found and purchased in the Provisioner's inventory at the Valley Inn.
Equipping The Flames
Even if you purchase them from the Provisioner, the Flames won't actually affect your gameplay until you properly equip them to your Stagecoach.
After you've purchased the desired Flame, open the Wainwright tab at the bottom left of your screen. Then, simply drag the Flame into the Stagecoach Flame Slot to the left of the Stagecoach's name.
Doing this will cause the game to prompt you with a notice that informs you the Flame cannot be unequipped for the remainder of your journey. Once you've confirmed this notice, the Flame will be equipped and its benefits, or detriments, will become active.
The Radiant Flame
The Radiant Flame provides a number of helpful boons to your party members. These include an increased chance for your heroes to go Resolute when they max out on stress, increased damage versus Cosmic enemies, increased stress and debuff resistance, increased party speed, and a reduced traveling flame drain.
However, all of these bonuses do come at a cost. While the Radiant Flame is equipped, you will come across fewer Candles of Hope. This means that the rewards from your journeys will be lessened and your progression through the Altar of Hope will be somewhat slowed.
As you fail each journey with the Radiant Flame equipped, the Flame becomes stronger. In other words, the benefits it provides get better and better the more expeditions you use the Flame on.
The Infernal Flame
Unlike the Radiant Flame, the Infernal Flame comes in a variety of forms with each one making the game more difficult in a different manner. Below is a list of the different types of Infernal Flames as well as their effects:
|
The Despairing Flare |
+10% Negative Relationship Chance -10% Positive Relationship Chance +10% Negative Quirk Chance at Inn Heroes suffer Weak and Vulnerable conditions on Meltdown Heroes gain Crit condition on Resolute +10% Candles of Hope |
|---|---|
|
The Corpse Light |
-20% Max Health -33% Traveling Heal Heroes suffer Weak condition on combat start Using Food Items in Inns provides Heroes with +1 Speed and +25% Disease resistance +15% Candles of Hope |
|
The Doom Candle |
+20% Traveling Flame Drain The Loathing Maximum is reduced by 1 Your Loathing becomes 1 after it resets +20% Candles of Hope |
|
The Hateful Pyre |
+10% Max Health +100% Enemy Advantage Chance No healing between fights in Lairs +25% Candles of Hope |
|
The Stygian Blaze |
-20% Max Health +10% Negative Relationship Chance -10% Positive Relationship Chance +10% Negative Quirk Chance at Inn Heroes suffer Weak and Vulnerable conditions on Meltdown Heroes gain Crit condition on Resolute +20% Traveling Flame Drain +100% Enemy Advantage Chance +25% Monster Death Blow resistance +33% Candles of Hope |
Each Infernal Flame must be unlocked from the Intrepid Coast at the Altar of Hope before you can buy it from the Provisioner at the Valley Inn.
In contrast to the Radiant Flame, equipping an Infernal Flame will increase the number of Candles of Hope you receive at the end of your expedition. The amount of Candles you gain is minimal in comparison to the added difficulty that these Infernal Flames add, but it's better than no reward at all.
You should not use the Infernal Flame in hopes of gathering Candles of Hope more quickly.
The extra Candles awarded do not make up for how much harder the game becomes, so you're much better off sticking to the regular game mode if you're looking to farm Candles.
Which Flame Is For You?
Overlooking all of the nitty-gritty details of using the Radiant or Infernal Flame, these mechanics really are best thought of as unique difficulty scaling options. If you have less time to play Darkest Dungeon 2 and wish to complete the game at a quicker pace, you'll probably want to use the Radiant Flame.
Meanwhile, if you can't get enough of Darkest Dungeon 2 and want to challenge yourself as much as humanly possible, you'll get quite a kick out of the various Infernal Flames available. Notably, the final Infernal Flame, the Stygian Blaze, is essentially all of the effects of the previous Infernal Flames combined. The added monster death blow resistance is a nice cherry on top.
There's also nothing wrong with ignoring the flames as a whole and playing the game on its regular difficulty. The Infernal Flames in particular can be quite costly when it comes to Candles, so there's no shame in avoiding this mechanic entirely. As the narrator so pointedly opines, "The greatest horror, it would seem, is nothing at all."