It’s also a thrill in co-op when you get your own bonuses and help your friends hunt for theirs. Although I was tempted to run as Strife the entire game, the steady stream of separate loot kept me invested in both. Each of them has their own pool of health pickups and upgrades, as well as unique skins, abilities and passives. One big thing that really matters to me and possibly no one else: great lengths are gone through to differentiate War and Strife from a collection standpoint too. It’s a good balance. Shoutout to the subtle use of double-jumping to nestle some great secrets. It also has that endearing, silly “exploding loot” quality to it that fits this world so well. There’s combos, but not so many that it gets absurd.
Airship Syndicate went all out with providing full freedom of movement so each character is fun to use at any point, all the way down to the Devil May Cry-like floating after leaping into the air and firing off dual pistols. There’s an action game framework behind this loot-frenzy, and you really can’t tell at first. When playing solo if you don’t like either character for any reason, you can swap them in and out (and you’ll need to on occasion for puzzles). Anyone who’s played the first Darksiders should be familiar with War’s kit, as he excels close-up with deliberate, slow combos and can get into the fray with his ghost hook grapple. Initially, Strife is the ranged expert and War is the melee fiend, with an emphasis on pistols and swords respectively. So you’re kind of thrown into the thick of it and you have two options: War or Strife. The voices are still there, the atmosphere is still present, it’s legit. Airship Syndicate, who previously handled another THQ Nordic Joe Mad project Battle Chasers: Nightwar, did great work in providing their own little spin on this established formula.
Thankfully the team didn’t try anything fancy and instead gave the game its own little flair with comic book style cinematics, which actually are a perfect fit for series character artist Joe Mad. Although fans will probably dig some of the lore references, there really isn’t a Darksiders 101 class required or anything: you can just jump in.Įschewing the puzzle platforming presentation, Genesis is an old school top-down dungeon crawler akin to Diablo. Genesis serves as a prequel, and deals with the Four Horsemen (n this case, two of them) dealing with a side story involving Lucifer and his henchmen. Here’s a recap because I know you probably can’t tell all these games apart at this point. Now he gets his due in Darksiders: Genesis, a dungeon-crawling spinoff take on the franchise.ĭarksiders Genesis (PC,, PS4, Switch, Xbox One) Darksiders I, II and III have all brought something to the table, but their brother Strife is left out in the cold.
On the other, they also star in pretty fun action-adventure romps. On one hand, you know most of the cast of those games wear Jack Skellington sweatshirts as loungewear.