Darksiders is back. This time with a new studio comprised of many of the same people that worked on the previous two titles. There was a moment that many thought this game would never exist and, after all this time, there was quite a bit of expectation put on the game that would be hard for anyone to live up to. So the question remains – does the game exceed or at least meet the expectations? Let’s find out.
Story
Much like the events in Darksiders 2 – Fury’s adventure takes place more simultaneously to the events in the prior games rather than chronologically like a true sequel. War is imprisoned, Death is out trying to clear his name and, during all the chaos, Fury is tasked with locating and destroying each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Believing all of this to be the fault of War, Fury believes she is heading off to clean up his mess and bring balance from Heaven to Hell and everything in between. Like her brothers before her, Fury will find out that there are things far deeper going on than they had foreseen, and the Horsemen appear to have been set up.
Fury will hunt down the Deadly Sins and look for answers. With the guidance of her watcher, The Maker, and the Lord of the Hollows, she will hack and slash her way to through the world.
Gameplay
Darksiders has always been influenced by games like The Legend of Zelda, God of War, and Shadow of the Colossus. However, this time around combat has a much more Dark Souls feel to it than ever before. While the hack and slash nature is at the forefront of the combat, you will fail unless you learn to dodge enemy attacks and unleash a counter attack of your own. Timing is everything here and it will take some time to really get the hang of it. Fury’s signature weapon is her whip. While this weapon is helpful when it comes to swinging over gaps to reach ledges and platforms, the combat can become stale quickly while it is equipped. All of the combos involve hitting the same button a different number of times. There is no skill involved at all – the skill is in the counter attacks which tend to be harder than they should be to master.
Luckily you receive a multitude of weapons to choose from as the game progresses, but the title still stays true to its combat heavy button mashing. You just mash a different button to use a different weapon. Each weapon infuses different elements and powers to help you solve puzzles and clear out enemies in a hurry, so you’ll want to experiment with them all.
Darksiders 3 feels like a true sequel to the first two games – almost to a fault. It’s been over six years since a Darksiders game has been released and with all the advances video games have seen over that time span it’s hard to understand why the series didn’t evolve with them. It’s understandable that the team wanted the game to feel like a Darksiders, but there are ways to do that and still make it feel modern. You need only to look as far as God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2 to see this in action. These games completely evolved into modern masterpieces yet are still notably in the same franchise as their predecessors.
There are far less dungeons this time around (which is a good thing after playing the few that made it into the game). Sometimes the series has had unnecessarily hard and even nonsensical dungeons and 3 is no different in that department. There are a couple dungeons that will make you question if you just forgot how to play video games because they really don’t make a ton of sense. They are purely there to break up the repetitive combat and, for this, some will be grateful. However, they don’t seem entirely necessary in a beat ’em up game like this. They definitely played a bigger role in the previous entries, but it’s a good thing they weren’t as prevalent here.
The biggest issue in Darksiders 3 would absolutely be the camera. To say it is atrocious might be an understatement. Half the time you’re in combat you can’t see what you’re doing as the camera spins all around and zooms in on heaven (or hell) knows what, causing you to die on multiple occasions. Speaking of dying, you will do it…. a lot. The bosses can be brutal. Often when you think you’re about done defeating a big baddie – the game changes the rules and you find yourself continuing the fight. Often, dying during these battles means returning so far back that you must re defeat all the enemies that you already took out along the way. Of course, all the doors opened etc. are still open, but the enemies have somehow resurrected and block your path once again.
Anyone who hasn’t played a Darksiders game in the past will have a hard time progressing through areas because the game just assumes that you’ve played the others in the series. While you can piece together the story well enough, mostly due to how thin it is, certain things like hitting crystals to open doors aren’t really explained here. So, unless you’ve played a precious entry and know that hitting the glowing crystal above the door will open it, you could wander around aimlessly thinking the game is broken and there is no way to advance. This makes the game truly feel like it is for those who have played the first two and really no one else.
Recommendation
Darksiders 3 feels like the weakest entry in the series to date, which makes it hard to recommend to anyone other than those looking to continue and complete the story of the Four Horsemen. It’s a miracle that this game was even made and for that, fans of the original should definitely pick this up and hope it’s successful enough to see Strife’s story come to life next. Mind numbing yet difficult combat, harder than necessary bosses, and technical issues (including incredible lag times as the game auto saves) really make this hard to recommend for anyone else in such a jam-packed year of gaming. Fury really is a fascinating character and it’s a shame that she wasn’t given more to work with during her chapter of the series.
*Darksiders 3 was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*
Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.
