Seeing little embers drift across the screen, with a slowly building, slightly gothic orchestral track and the bold, angular logo for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse lingering in the background, is one of the most unexpectedly welcoming things I’ve seen in a while. And just above the words ‘Press Any Key’, right in the front and center of the screen: Darksiders III.
The long-awaited sequel went dark after the reveal trailer was posted in May 2017, but just a couple of weeks ago, I was able to play almost two hours of the latest build at the Gunfire Games studio in Austin, Texas. It has evolved significantly since the first time I played it, but it’s still, at its core, a post-apocalyptic, hack’n’slash, puzzle-filled adventure set in a world full of angels, demons, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Honestly, I think I’m mostly comforted by the fact that Gunfire – a team comprised largely of the original Vigil Games group that made the first two games – seems to have done a remarkable job of modernising the series without departing from the core pillars of the franchise at all. One of the designers told me, “It’s a video game. I know that sounds odd, but that’s one of my favourite things about it. We went through this process of, what are some of the tropes that you get rid of, what are some of the tropes that you keep? We sanded it down, and here we are.” That completely made sense to me.
Source: IGN.com Darksiders 3 Hands-On: What We Learned After Playing 2 Hours