The Family Who Slays Together…
Darksiders is a combat focused game. It’s not as fast or stylish as something like Bayonetta or brutally gory as God of War, but it’s still satisfying in its own right. War and Death play fairly different from each other in both games. War is able to block, moves slower because of the massive amount of armor that he wears, and can swing his Chaoseater sword with ease. Death, on the other hand, is a lot more agile. He could pull off parkour, flip instead of block, and create a spectral form of his arms to tear larger enemies to pieces or open doors. Fury and Strife’s play styles were mentioned prior to Vigil’s shuttering; Fury would be a mage character, and Strife would be more long-ranged, using his pistols (both of which are currently on loan to his brothers, so he’ll probably want those back).
For a few missions, Darksiders II fooled around with giving you an AI partner that would throw Death over long chasms, lift doors, or fight alongside you in combat. In a new Darksiders game, four player co-op would be a given considering the different heroes. Going it alone, a player could simply switch between the characters with the press of a button, not unlike Fuse or Marvel Ultimate Alliance. You’d be able to perform different combos with each Horseman–Fury could create a stasis bubble to allow Death and War to hack the demons caught inside to bits, for instance–and each Horseman could have two or three skill trees for players to upgrade.
The other part of Darksiders is the puzzles. With four protagonists, they’d get real easy, real fast. It’s best to take the Portal 2 route and have puzzles that challenge each character in different ways. War would have to carry a block to stop a door with a fast timer from closing while Strife prepares to shoot a bomb to trigger the door. This in turn allows Fury and Death to go to the next area and use a Construct to create a bridge for the others to get to the other side of the dungeon and onto the next area. Perhaps the different horses of each Horseman could come into play during these puzzles.
