Darksiders III

Vigil Games' founder David Adams moved with most of the studio's people to hastily established Crytek USA when THQ went bankrupt in 2012. Adam quit soon after however, and founded Gunfire Games with many of Crytek USA's leads as staff. THQ's Darksiders IP was bought by Nordic Games -- now THQ Nordic -- who hired Gunfire to develop Deathinitive Edition of the second game and then finally Darksiders III. Thus the franchise continues to live on with the people who created it. THQ Nordic also acquired Gunfire Games in last year's August, pretty much ensuring the fourth game will come from the same people as well.

Another concurrent storyline

The series's story doesn't progress much this time either. The third Horseman, Fury, is summoned by the Council to take out the Seven Deadly Sins who are roaming free on Earth. War, the first Horseman, is in chains at the start, meaning Darksiders 3 takes place after the prologue of the first game. And probably finishes before or sometime during War is on his task.

Fury has, maybe a bit unexpectedly, an actual character arc; War and Death didn't really have such. At the start Fury doesn't appear to be in good terms with her brothers. She thinks she should be their leader. Fury doesn't much care about the remains of humanity either. But, as she defeats the Sins, she also grows as a person -- or a Nephilim, rather. By the end of the game she's far less prideful and envious.

The Dark Souls of Darksiders

As is now tradition with the series, is the third Darksiders game again a bit different from the previous installment(s). Combat is more methodical and punishing as has become popular in certain type of action roleplaying games. Poor reaction times kill you quickly even against common enemies. Upon death you drop on the spot all the souls (the game's main resource) you're carrying and have to reacquire them by making a possibly quite long trek from the last spawn point, fighting through respawned enemies.

You don't seem to lose the souls you didn't recollect if you die again though, which I believe is atypical to this type of games. And new souls lost just add to the same pile. That kind of defeats the purpose of the mechanic, I think. It lessens the pressure that would come from being able to completely lose part of your progress. I'm not a great a fan of the soul-dropping mechanic in general; I feel it doesn't respect one's time because it takes away things that would help one progress.

Either Gunfire Games didn't do that great job in implementing the combat system or people just didn't like the change. Or both. In any case, I don't recall the immediate reception being all that positive. In the second post-release patch Gunfire added an option for Classic combat. I tried Default (on Normal difficulty) setting first just to see how it was and then ended up restarting on Classic pretty quickly as I didn't find the combat that enjoyable.

The Classic option doesn't change too much though. According to patch notes, on Classic you can dodge out of your attack animations and consuming items is instant. The latter didn't seem to include Nephilim's Respite, your main healing item that recharges when collecting green souls. Activating it definitely took time and couldn't be done in the middle of another action.

Not the smoothest hack-and-slash game

Darksiders 3 ended up being the first game in the series I played with mouse and keyboard. I found the camera to be unbearably clumsy for keeping track of the enemies when using a controller. Controlling the camera with mouse is far easier and less disorienting since you don't need to rely on locking to enemies. When a locked enemy charges past you, the camera flips around and all the other enemies that possibly were in front of you go off the screen.

Even with mouse and keyboard I had to use the locking feature against more difficult enemies, namely bosses. It seemed that either dodging didn't properly register against them while not locked or timing it while locked was just easier for me.

Fury's whip, the Barbs of Scorn, didn't feel as meaty as War's sword or as flashy as Death's scythes. I'm uncertain if it's because it's poor for staggering enemies or is it because combos don't do relatively as much damage. The only combo I found really good was Unholy Exorcism -- I think it was called -- which throws Fury's target back and then pulls them in again for additional hits. It probably doesn't work against big enemies either.

Fury has secondary weapons (of Scorn) too. The mallet is unusable due to being so terribly slow -- trying to use its basic attacks on the Default combat and higher difficulty setting probably just gets you killed. The broadsword I didn't find a use for. The fiery chains seemed okay but the spear was the one I had active most of the time after acquiring it. It executes a ranged attack when used during a perfect dodge, which I found useful at certain parts, and I liked its lightning effects too.

Too shallow mechanics

Like in Darksiders 2, there is physical and arcane damage. I think physical is not the one to focus on if you want to play the game optimally even if all the weapons deal physical with their basic attacks and most combos. I feel you end up trading blows too much. Spending your souls solely on upgrading arcane damage makes your Havoc Form and dodge riposte more effective. Particularly on the bigger enemies and bosses you kind of want to use the dodge attack. You wait for an attack, dodge perfectly (indicated by a slow down effect) and then attack with either of your weapons for arcane damage. Follow it up with few quick physical attacks and then wait to dodge again.

A perfect dodge really is the only dodge there is. Anything not perfect just results in you getting hit by something and the dodge riposte can't be used. I find it astonishing they added invincibility frames to perfect dodge only in a post-release patch though. How was anyone playing the game before that?

I will probably replay Darksiders 3 later on its hardest difficulty like I did with the previous games. On the PC Game Pass version there is no DLC included so I wasn't bothered to do a complete playthrough yet. I'll wait for a good discount on Steam and then buy the full package.

There is probably more nuance to Darksiders 3's combat than what I perceived on my Normal difficulty run. It's definitely not that deep though, maybe even simpler than in the first game. I mean, all the four armors available have the exact same stats. That is boring. Technically they differ slightly because their +15% arcane damage buff is for their respective secondary weapon but that merely adds an unnecessary limit on which secondary you should have active. The little platforming the game has also felt unreasonably clumsy: Fury's whip not attaching in a responsive manner and her jumps kind of having an awkward maximum height, falling a hair short for getting on top of something without having to grab onto a ledge. The lack of puzzles I didn't mind.

Environments-wise in line with the first game

There are again mostly overgrown Earth ruins and not the fantastical worlds like in the second game. The game world is one streamed map without visible loading screens outside fast travel between Serpent Holes. It's a very maze-like place too that can feel intimidating since there's no map, just a compass pointing to the next boss. With every Hollow (the elemental forms tied to the secondary weapons) you unlock new shortcuts and it's hard to remember where you've been to.

I still enjoyed scouring the world thoroughly to collect weapon rune upgrade parts and extra souls. Some places are very well hidden as well. I even got stuck at one point as the game had seemingly lead me to a dead end. Eventually, having explored all the other places I started following the compass and found the hole on the ground I had somehow missed many times. I think it was at that point when I also realized the compass doesn't point to the very location of the boss -- which would be quite useless in the maze -- rather than the path to follow to get there. It's like how in Dead Space Isaac can place a light trail on the floor but in compass form.

I wish there'd been parts to ride Fury's horse, if only for the reason that she's one of the freaking Horsemen. I also wish they had gotten Jesper Kyd to make music for this game too. He was a big part of creating Darksiders 2's great atmosphere whereas Darksiders 3's soundtrack wasn't very memorable. But at least the art style remains familiar. Apparently Joe Madureira, the creative director on Darksiders, helped with the character design.

Curiously enough a studio Joe Mad co-founded in 2015, Flagship Syndicate, released in December a prequel spin-off to the franchise, called Darksiders: Genesis which is a co-op topdown game featuring War and Strife. I guess I'll be checking that out at some point. I also wonder how long it will take until Flagship Syndicate is fully acquired by THQ Nordic -- they bought quite a few studios in 2019.