Much like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, there are four Darksiders game for gamers to sink their teeth into. War, Death, Fury and Strife each now have their own adventure that range from incredible, to poor recreations of other games.
It’s no point hiding the fact that the series is known for embracing such games as Zelda and Dark Souls, using what made them so great and molding them into new experiences of their own.
With Darksiders Genesis swinging its way onto consoles like Death’s trusty scythes, it’s time now to look back at the past 10 years to find which horseman comes out on top with the most definitive journey.
4. Darksiders III
Perhaps the most mixed upon critics and gamers alike is Darksiders III – a Dark Souls inspired game which lost some of the magic that made the first two entries such cult hits.
You play as Fury and are tasked with tracking down the seven deadly sins that now reside in the remnants of a post-apocalyptic Earth. It’s a premise that should be exciting, exhilarating and constantly pushing the player forward on a wild hunt to to find each of the deadly sins.
What is left, however, is a pale imitation of the Dark Souls series. The idea is there, with each of the deadly sins serving as climactic boss battles, serving as gauntlets for you to push past. But instead it lacked the spark which ignited millions of players to fall in love with the genre in the first place.
The environments were bland and uninspired; the lack of puzzles and exploration was lost from the previous entries; and the combat lacked the finesse of not only the games it was imitating, but past Darksiders iterations as well.
Darksiders III was also riddled with a variety of technical issues such as graphical texture pop-in, freezes and crashes. While most of these have been patched, it still lacks the same vibrant world that the previous entries managed. It was also later patched to bring back the combat style from the previous games, losing the Souls inspired one on display here. If that’s not a sign this was a step in the wrong direction, I don’t know what is.
Darksiders III wasn’t a bad game per se, far from it in fact. It simply lacked the charm the series was known for in favor of experimenting with a new gameplay system. This would be fine for a spin-off entry, but for a mainline entry with a solid fan base, it was always going to be a recipe for disaster.
