As with the story, I struggle to say it’s bad. You get the barest hint of how genius these traversal options are and an idea how fiendish the puzzles could be when all four work together. Darksiders III, it honestly feels like it finally starts to find its groove and then the credits roll. Most games these days drag on and on and on. Regardless, the result is one of the few times lately where I’ve felt an experience is too short. If nothing else, that absence indicates to me some sizable cuts were made, maybe from the latter half. There’s an entire piece of the story missing, a major choice about two-thirds through that never resolves. Then an hour later the game’s over.Ĭlocking in at 12 to 15 hours, I have to imagine Darksiders III was constrained by its budget. The problem? It takes until late in the game, once you’ve unlocked all the traversal powers, to start taking advantage of this design in smart ways-using your “Force” form to rotate a tower, then freezing it in place to line up a jump to the next platform, then triple-jumping up to the next, and so on. It feels like what the original Darksiders would’ve done, had it not been constrained by technology at the time. You’re constantly making your way through lengthy dungeon-crawl sections, popping out the other side, and somehow realizing you’re back where you were two hours ago-only now there’s a shortcut. You know that feeling when you open an unassuming door or trigger an elevator in Dark Souls and you’re like “Oh wow, I’m back here?” Darksiders III loves that feeling. Darksiders III combines the traversal powers of its predecessors with the intertwined level design of a Metroid or more recently a Dark Souls. The two inspirations meet in the environment. My favorite of the latter is Sloth, a massive bug who sits on a throne carried by smaller bugs. Combat in Darksiders III is faster-paced, but you’re fragile and have to rely on dodging a lot, especially against the Seven Deadly Sins with their creative boss designs. Dying makes you spawn back at the nearest safe-spot, there to try and return to the point of your death and regain your Souls.
You collect Souls from your enemies to level up. Maybe the team was afraid to say that because “It’s like Dark Souls” is so played out now, but it’s true. The more prominent inspiration is Dark Souls.
You do unlock new powers over the course of the game, allowing you to hover, triple-jump, attach to magnetic walls, walk through flames, freeze water, and so on. In the lead-up to Darksiders III, Gunfire continuously cited Metroid as an inspiration. Darksiders II went open-world, replacing Zelda with a Diablo-style loot grind.
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The original took cues from Zelda, leading War through a series of puzzle-filled dungeons with plenty of combat along the way. Darksiders tries to reinvent itself with every new game. The smart move is to play it safe-but no. Here’s this cult classic, this series that should’ve died and somehow miraculously was brought back. But with no real progression, hinging this story on her makes an already weak tale feel even less substantial.
Death was too edgy for my tastes, but at least he and War had some depth to their characters. It doesn’t help that Fury is the least likable of the Horsemen by far. It didn’t feel like as necessary a story, but the plan still made sense when we thought there’d be a new Darksiders every two years.
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But the plan proceeded, and the events of Darksiders II started prior to the original, with Death trying to find and free his brother. It was spectacularly ambitious, especially for a series that was being termed a “Cult Classic” even by fans of its first Zelda-esque entry. And the cliffhanger? That would be the jumping off point for an eventual fifth game in the series, one that would unite all the disparate story threads. The plan was to make four Darksiders games, each starring one of the Four Horsemen. He spent most of the game figuring out who betrayed him and why, and it ended on one of the all-time best cliffhangers as War looked up into the sky to see his fellow Horsemen plummeting towards Earth to assist him against a universe-ending threat. After playing his part in the calamity, stomping through Earth and wrecking everything, he found out he’d made a mistake-the Apocalypse wasn’t supposed to happen, and he’d been set up. For the uninitiated: The original Darksiders starred War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. See, Darksiders III makes the timeline even more convoluted than before.
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