Darksiders III Review

Before I begin, I have to tell you all that I wrote this entire review calling this game Darkstalkers III, which is a very different game from this one. Anyway, on with the review!

Darksiders III, on its own, is a serviceable and entertaining enough game and is certainly, by no means, a bad game. But, compared to the game that came before it, and the potential it had, it's a bit of a disappointment.

Darksiders II was one of the last games released by the original THQ before it filed for bankruptcy in 2013. It was an absolutely brilliant game... for the first half of it, anyway. The game still received a positive critical reception, but it felt like the publisher's financial trouble prevented the developer, Vigil Studios, from reaching the game's full potential.

Flash forward to 2018. The game's IP was acquired by Nordic Games - who also went on to rename themselves THQ Nordic because why not? - and they put a sequel into production. The development team this time around was Gunfire Games, a studio made up of former Vigil employees who worked on the previous two games. Most importantly, THQ Nordic didn't rush production of the game, giving fans hope that we'd really get something special.

Well.... we didn't. Good? Sure. Fun? Absolutely. Special? Hardly.

The new game's story, like Darksiders II did, runs parallel to that of the first game. Fury, another one of the Four Horsemen (Four Horsepeople? I guess the Charred Council doesn't worry much about political correctness), has been sent to collect the Seven Deadly Sins in order to... well, I'm not entirely sure. But, it doesn't matter, because you're sure to get at least seven boss fights.

And the boss fights are really good, too. The first, with Envy, comes within minutes of starting the game. It's not particularly difficult, but it's a good chance to get used to some of the game mechanics while moving the story along, too.

Visually, I think the game looks nice, although I don't feel like it takes advantage of the current-gen tech. It looks slightly better than the remastered versions of the previous two games. Fury's character design is interesting - in fact, she's an interesting character in general. Her arch is a bit predictable, but at least she has one and that's something.

The combat once again takes advantage of the trigger lock-on mechanism, which really makes the whole game. I saw a video from Austin Eruption a while back that classified the Darksiders games as "3D Zelda Clones" (not in a negative way, mind you), and I can totally see where he's coming from. The puzzles in the game are also pretty tricky, but nothing unsolvable.

So, overall, Darksiders III is a fine enough game, although not one I'm sure I'd paid full price for.

Score: 7/10