About Darkest Dungeon The Color of Madness Darkest Dungeon Guide

Darkest Dungeon's DLC called The Color of Madness introduces a lot of new enemies, items and curio. All of this impacts the gameplay by adding new mechanics and modifying the already existing ones. Just like in The Crimson Court, the previous DLC for Darkest Dungeon, the game doesn't inform the players about every new feature. In this chapter you can learn all the differences between the original version of the game and this DLC as well as how to activate it.

What is new in The Color of Madness DLC?

The second official DLC for Darkest Dungeon, released after The Crimson Court, features the following:

1. A completely new region - Farmstead - with different gameplay rules. The player's only goal during their visit in Farmstead is to kill as many enemies as they can in order to get better rewards. This region's unique feature is that heroes can't die - instead, they "get lost" in time and space. Then, they return after a few weeks as if nothing has ever happened.
2. A few new enemies, both regular foes and bosses. Each of the new enemies has a set of unique abilities - facing some of them is a completely new experience.
3. A new wondering boss, Thing from the Stars that can be encountered during the missions. Defeat it to get new trinkets and unique quirks (just like after defeating Shrieker from the original game).
4. Access to mercenaries. Mercenaries are heroes with the maximum, sixth, level who can be hired in the Stage Coach. Their special feature is that they can only be assigned to missions that take place in the Farmstead and that they take 10% of collected Shards for their service.

The Color of Madness DLC introduces a new game mode.

1. A new resource, Shards, that can only be acquired in the Farmstead. Spend them on Crystalline trinkets, reconstruction of new buildings exclusive to this DLC or on Shard Dust, a powerful buffing item that can be used during combat.
2. New Crystalline tier trinkets. They are very expensive (you need a lot of Crystal Shards). However, they offer extremely powerful bonuses to your heroes, usually without any negative effects (especially additional Stress). They also introduce a new mechanic where you can activate a certain effect by performing specific actions - such as poisoning all enemies or reducing a hero's Stress after killing an enemy.
3. Four new District buildings - The Mill, Geological Studyhall, Tainted Well and Miasmal Orchard. Each of them gives you useful bonuses and the last two buildings offer buffs for consumables: Holy Water, Laudanum, Medical Herbs and Antivenom.
4. The Endless Harvest, a new game mode. This is simply a survival mode - your party faces an endless wave of enemies. A new group replaces a defeat one. Sometimes, you will also face a boss. Between the fights you can use a unique Curio that offers useful items, a place to rest or food. The battle goes on until you retreat from the mission or your party gets eliminated.