Designers:  Alex Olteanu (God of War: The Card Game, HATE, The World of SMOG: Rise of Moloch), Marco Portugal (Foodie, Looterz, Project: ELITE)

Artist: Édouard Guiton (Council of 4, Massive Darkness, Zombicide, Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak, Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue)

Publisher:  CMON Limited (Arcadia Quest, Arcadia Quest: Inferno, Blue Moon City, Council of 4, Cthulhu: Death May Die, Dragon Castle, Ethnos, Gizmos, The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire, The Grizzled, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Massive Darkness, Modern Art, Newton, Railroad Ink: Blazing Red Edition, Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition, Rising Sun, Root, Tang Garden, Unfair, Zombicide, Zombicide: Green Horde)

Genre/Mechanisms: action points, adventure, cooperative game, dice rolling, exploration, fighting, miniatures, modular board, scenario/mission/campaign game, variable player powers

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape is already fully-funded. Pledges currently more than 9x the initial funding goal with less than 2 days to go on the campaign!

Player Count: 1-6

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About: “Fight the source of evil in this sequel to Massive Darkness, with new art, minis, and revamped gameplay.”

How It Works: “Massive Darkness: Hellscape is a sequence to Massive Darkness, a cooperative hack and slash dungeon-crawling game for 1–6 players in which players take on the roles of Lightbringers, the chosen Heroes specially trained to fight the growing Darkness. As a team, players choose one of the 10 available quests to play and must adventure through it until either the objective is complete or the Darkness has grown too strong. Each player chooses a Hero that has unique components and asymmetric gameplay. This time the intrepid Lightbringers will have to make their way into Hell itself in order to find the source of this return of the Darkness, now more intense than ever. Choose a quest, explore dungeons, fight monsters, gather your weapons, gear up, and end Darkness once and for all.”

“Massive Darkness: Hellscape is played over a series of game rounds, each composed by the following four phases: Hero, Enemy, Level Up, and Darkness.” In the Hero Phase, “the Heroes take actions to fight monsters, move through the dungeon, gain items, and complete quest objectives. The players collectively decide the order in which the Heroes activate. When a Hero activates, they perform 3 actions of their choice, then flip their activation token to show they have already activated for that round. The Hero Phase ends once all Heroes have been activated. When activated, a Hero may perform 3 actions in any combination. The available actions are Movement, Combat, Trade and Equip, and Special Action.”

“After all Heroes have taken one turn by executing 3 actions, the Hero Phase ends. All players flip back their activation tokens, it’s time for Monsters to get their revenge! Each mob and roaming monster in the Dungeon activates separately” during the Enemy Phase.

“During the Level Up Phase, Heroes may spend their accumulated experience (XP) to increase their level. The amount of XP required to level up increases as the player’s level increases. When your Hero levels up, perform the following steps, in order: 1) Decrease your total accumulated XP by the amount required to increase your level; 2) Move the Level peg on your Hero dashboard to the next higher level; 3) Increase your maximum mana or health as indicated on your Hero dashboard and gain the equivalent amount of Mana or Health tokens from the supply; 4) Add the quantity and type of Treasure tokens to the Treasure bag as specified on the Level token; and 5) Gain a new skill.”

During the Darkness Phase, “the menace inside the dungeon increases each round. If the Heroes don’t achieve the objectives of their quest, they will eventually be overwhelmed by the forces of evil.”

“In order to win the game players must achieve the objective described in the quest. When the winning condition is met, the game ends immediately with all players being victorious. The players lose the game if any quest-specific losing condition is met, or if they need to spend a Lifebringer token and there are no Lifebringer tokens left.”

Comparisons: Zombicide. Massive Darkness is essentially Zombicide reworked into a dungeon-crawler, produced and published by the same company, and illustrated by one of the same artists. Some other relevant dungeon-crawlers include: Arcadia Quest, Batman: Gotham City Chronicles, Claustrophobia, Conan, Deep Madness, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, DOOM: The Board Game, Gloomhaven, Mansions of Madness, Mice & Mystics, Middara, Sword & Sorcery, and Star Wars: Imperial Assault. Of this group, Arcadia Quest, Claustrophobia, Mansions of Madness, and Mice & Mystics play at a similar complexity level to the original Massive Darkness.

What Should I Pledge?:
$100 Hellscape Pledge: includes Massive Darkness 2, the Upgrade Pack, and all applicable rewards (stretch goals).
$145 Heavenfall Pledge: includes everything in the Hellscape Pledge, plus the Heavenfall: Campaign Mode Expansion.

Add-Ons:
$50 Demon Dragon Enemy Box
$25 Gates of Hell Enemy Box
$30 Four Horsemen Enemy Box
$25 War of Souls Enemy Box
$25 Massive Darkness Original Tiles Set (15 tiles)
$10 Zombicide Fantasy Crossover Pack
$20 3D Pack: Hellscape
$15 3D Pack 2: Doors & Bridges
$10 3D Pack 3: Chests & Pillars
$16 Hellscape Frost Dice
$22 Heaven & Hell Frost Dice
$75 Gamegenic All-In Sleeve Pack (includes 1,700+ sleeves)
$25 Gamegenic: Core Set Sleeve Box (includes 390+ sleeves)
$45 Gamegenic Quest Organizer
$25 Gamegenic: Token Chest

KS Exclusives
The Demon Dragon, Four Horsemen, and War of Souls Enemy Boxes; the Zombicide Fantasy Crossover Pack; all (3) 3D Packs; both sets of Frost Dice; and the Gamegenic All-In Sleeve Pack and Quest Organizer.

All-In Total: Assuming you don’t own the original Massive Darkness or want the Original Tiles Set, then in the continental U.S. you’re looking at $145 for the Heavenfall Pledge, $130 for all (4) Enemy Boxes, $10 for the Zombicide Fantasy Crossover Pack, $45 for all (3) 3D Packs, $22 for the Heaven & Hell Frost Dice, $100 for the Gamegenic All-In Sleeve Pack and Token Chest (the Quest Organizer seems fairly superfluous), and $20+ in shipping for a total of $472+.

If you want to get the most gameplay for the cheapest price, just grab the Heavenfall Pledge at $145, the (4) Enemy Boxes for $130, and with $20+ shipping your total will be $295+.

Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape completes its Kickstarter on Tuesday, August 25th and tentatively ships in September 2021.