Butcher Bay is a tough game on normal difficulty. It’s fairly punishing, sets up a few nasty ambushes, and getting careless can be trouble.
Dark Athena is plain hard. Butcher Bay is training for it, no doubt. While the first has you dealing with prison scrubs and some guards, the latter has you taking on a ship full of mercs, drones, and way way more difficult to hide and navigate in areas. The perpetually dark areas of the prison are no more, instead one must plan ahead, get a better view of an area, and move fast.
I’m not terribly far in, but as a direct sequel, I’d call it a huge success for how it expands on what players had to do before in a way that feels appropriate to the new environment.
