After a year of lurking in the shadows in Early Access as an Epic exclusive, Darkest Dungeon 2 is almost ready to reveal itself to terrorize unsuspecting PC gamers; the full 1.0 version will be released on May 8, but in the meantime, Steam (in new tab open in new tab) and Epic (open in new tab).

The demo will be playable during Steam Next Fest, which means from today through February 13, so hurry up and jump in if you want to check it out. The demo allows you to take your four starting heroes to one region, and you can choose between Sprawl (a terrifying city full of things that want to kill you) or Foetor (a terrifying farm full of things that want to kill you). The finished product has five regions and 12 heroes, which sounds like a good chunk, but you will not get the full leveling and upgrade experience, and your progress will not carry over from the demo to the full game that will be released.

Like the original game, Darkest Dungeon is a gritty fantasy RPG that manages a party of hardened adventurers trying to survive while confronting Lovecraftian horrors. 2D art has been replaced with 3D visuals, and continuous dungeon crawls Instead, it is a roguelike centered around a perilous journey across the landscape.

To date, the game has been completely exclusive to Epic, and as a result seems to have lost much of the community and buzz that its predecessor enjoyed during its long and active Early Access period. 1.0 will be available on Steam with its release, and it will be interesting to see if it gets a big response there. It will be interesting to see if it gets a big response on Steam. Either way, it's a great game with the grim atmosphere and tactical depth of its predecessor.

So go check out the demo now (opens in new tab). Or be sad that you forgot to play it.