How is Death shaping up in this epic sequel?
The original Darksiders was one of my highlights of 2010. It had a great balance between combat and puzzles, not only that it was an engrossing experience that blended types of gameplay from the likes of Metroid, God of War and most importantly, Zelda. Playing as War was great as he was such a badass and then the game finished on a cliff-hanger with War prepared to take on the council with the help of his brothers, the other 3 horsemen.
So a sequel was always on the cards, but I was surprised to see that War wouldn’t be the person you play as. Instead, you play as Death during the same timeline as the original as he tries to prove his brother’s innocence and to restore humanity to Earth since War’s premature apocalypse wiped them all out. I was shown a demo in which Death had to reach a character called Lord of Bones who is the only one who can do this, but its not as easy as that…
Death makes his way to Lord of Bones’ airship, which has 2 serpents pulling it along. I was impressed with how detailed they were and the scale of them compared to past creatures in the original. Eventually after getting onto the ship, Death is challenged to taking on the Champion and claiming his head to be granted audience to Lord of Bones. We then saw a bit of combat and Death does seem to handle differently to his brother, he’s more aggressive and speedy but doesn’t block as a result. He’s also more agile when climbing up walls as well as having similar tools to traverse across the world including his horse Despair, which will be used a lot more than Ruin was in the first game as the sequel is apparently 4 times the size of the original Darksiders.
The interface looks similar to the original and there is a skill tree, but you won’t be able to upgrade everything, so you’ll have to choose what skills you want to improve. We didn’t get a look at what abilities these would be, it was only hinted at.
Overall, Darksiders II is looking superb. It looks true to the original, while improves upon the foundations of War’s adventure with a more agile character with Death, although I hope that War makes an appearance somewhere during the journey. I can’t wait to see more of the game and share the details with you…until then enjoy the latest screenshots in our gallery below!
