The third entry in the series is fresh and entertaining

Nov 27, 2018 14:16 GMT  ·  By

Darksiders III is no longer a Darksiders game, and I’m willing to bet a lot of people will enjoy the shift in gameplay, making it a unique and possibly sequel-generating new entry.

I don’t know how many of you remember what the circumstances in the gaming world were when the first Darksiders game was released. It was a time when studios were trying out a particular recipe that proved to be incredibly successful.

If we cast our memory to a time before the 2010s, we can pinpoint a very important moment in gaming history. And that was the release of God of War for the PlayStation 2. It was such a big revolution that lots of studios tried to replicate the recipe.

The first major title that had similarities with God of War was Dante’s Inferno from Electronic Arts and Visceral Games, and soon after we got Darksiders from Vigil Games. It was difficult to avoid comparisons with the God of War series since it was a third-person hack and slash game, but they managed to pull it off.

The reason why Darksiders established itself as a unique game was the story. The developers built a believable world supported by lore and strong characters. There was never a single point when we questioned the narrative. It was that way because it made sense.

A few years later, Darksiders II arrived, but this time with a different gameplay mechanic. It’s was still a hack and slash, for the most part, but it used RPG elements like an inventory with various gear and weapons. It was just what the franchise needed.

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Unfortunately, Vigil Games disappeared along with the parent company, THQ, and the fate of the franchise seemed sealed. Somewhere along the line, Nordic Games GmbH (now THQ Nordic) bought the rights and continued to work on a new game.

Darksiders III is developed by a studio named Gunfire Games, who coincidently gathered a lot of talented people from Vigil Games. That means that although a different studio worked on it, it’s developed by pretty much the same team.

There’s more to hack and slash, it seems

Defining the hack and slash genre wasn’t difficult 10 or 15 years ago. The name said it all. Players would just push forward, killing everything in their path. There were no winning strategies, and no real thought put into it; only the occasional good reflexes were needed.

Darksiders III takes the hack and slash genre and elevates it in a way that’s not unique. Despite being a new game, there are some voices that say it feels a little bit like Dark Souls, or that it has that kind of vibe.

The truth is that it’s hard not to be compared with Dark Souls, but I think that main reason why people would find similarities is the difficulty, which is all over the place. Sometimes, players can hold their own in a fight with multiple opponents, only to be annihilated by a champion that’s not even a boss fight.

The problem is that is you get to control Fury, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who’s also a fabled Nephilim. In all the lore and during the presentation, the horsemen are represented as incredibly powerful, but they don’t feel that way during gameplay.

Furthermore, the placement of the storyline is somewhat bizarre, because it happens in parallel to the first two in the series. Only someone who played the previous games would truly understand what’s happening.

To make things even more difficult for players, the developers ditched the health orbs that would usually be generated by fallen enemies. Now, the main character has to rely on really rare shards, and on an amulet that sometimes gathers the life force of some enemies. It’s a system that ensures you will always be on your guard.

Difficult and frustrating in a good way

When did you rage quit the last time? With Darksiders III, you’ll have that feeling constantly. Not only that you’re going to die a lot, but most of the time it’s going to happen at the hand of a lowly creature that you could obliterate in any other circumstance.

This kind of gameplay would be at least annoying, in most other circumstance, but it turns out that it can be a nice wakeup call from time to time. We have enough games in which we feel invincible, and we use the level up mechanic just for fun.

It turns out that Darksiders is a game that punishes more than it rewards, but it somehow balances out when you draw the line. I might have hit Ctrl+F4 more times than I care to admit, but I keep returning only to get punished again. Admittedly, I also progress through the story at the same time, so there’s that.

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The fights themselves are challenging, but the level design is much more insidious than it lets on. I’ve played hundreds and hundreds of games over the years, so I know how developers and level designers make their plans. Don’t think I haven’t noticed all the secondary paths I couldn’t access because I lacked a particular power.

The game is built with an easy way of returning to previous levels, and once you’ve accumulated certain powers, you will be using it. Gathering those souls, weapon upgrades, and shards will become a must in the later stages of the game

What stayed the same?

I mentioned how the game is different from what came before, but there is also a lot that it has in common with the previous titles. First of all, it’s more or less a continuation of the story, or better yet it’s a completion. It brings a fresh perspective, and that good.

The same character design and atmospheric gestalt are present in Darksiders III as well, and I have a feeling that this title is going to be used as a platform for more games in the same franchise.

I can only hope that the developers will try to bring a new story to the table and continue the series in a meaningful way. Enough with parallel stories, we want something new, and Darksiders now has enough lore to make that happen.

You can also check out our Darksiders III review for PlayStation 4.

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