Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Six years and a change of IP owners later, and the apocalypse continues with this third instalment in the gothic action-adventure Darksiders series. Set concurrently with the previous games, here players take control of Fury, the imperious yet impetuous third Horseman of the Apocalypse, charged with recapturing the Seven Deadly Sins.
It's an exceedingly loose reflection on Revelations, borrowing iconography liberally from Milton's Paradise Lost and Alighieri's Divine Comedy, but ultimately in service of a game that plays like a 1980's heavy metal album cover given form. There's lots of hacking and slashing of demons and beasts of the abyss as Fury makes her way across the ravaged Earth, encountering sumptuously-designed angels, devils, and other supernatural forces as she finds herself drawn into a heavenly conspiracy.
The slow drip of powers and abilities gives it a sort of grim Legend of Zelda air.
The Darksiders universe remains one of the more interesting explorations of the apocalypse too, building its own intriguing, over-the-top lore and placing it in a beautiful and impressively colourful world. It's so refreshing to not be trapped in yet another grey and brown mire of misery – there's lush vegetation throughout, hints of life fighting back against the end of all things, and glimmers of hope in the aesthetic of the game, despite the desperate situation.
Mechanically, it doesn't make the best first impression though. Darksiders III is exceedingly linear to begin with, feeling like you're chain-whipping your way through a series of elaborate corridors. It's only once you've tackled the second of the Seven Deadly that the game begins to reveal its greater freedoms, allowing you to return to earlier areas and explore previously locked-off avenues with Fury's expanding repertoire of moves and elementally charged alternate forms.
Like previous Darksiders entries, this slow drip of powers and abilities gives it a sort of grim Legend of Zelda air. There's a lot more grinding going on here though, with some areas effectively impassable due to sudden spikes in enemy difficulty – including some invisible foes, detectable only by a vague shimmer in the air. Given Darksiders III’s levelling system involves harvesting the souls of downed opponents and feeding them to a merchant demon in exchange for ability points, that can result in lots of backtracking and re-battling through previously cleared areas to rack up enough souls for a power up.
Unfortunately, for a game as focused on combat as Darksiders III is, its melee and camera systems leave something to be desired. A targeting reticule lets you lock on to an enemy, and swiftly switch focus between targets, but the camera system isn't nearly so intelligent. There's no way to snap perspective back behind Fury, so when you're tackling a horde of circling enemies at once, you'll frequently end up not being able to see what or where you're attacking. And while there's a lot of potential for building combos and blending Fury's abilities with balletic dodges, the timing feels completely off – mistime one dodge, and you'll be piled on with little chance to correct or counter. In general, command input seems to lag, and it's immensely frustrating to finish bashing out a combo on your controller, only for Fury to be halfway through on screen.
Darksiders III is largely a fine return for the series though, and more patient players will enjoy exploring its richly detailed worlds. It would benefit from tighter, more responsive controls, and a more intelligent camera would help, but it's not the end of the world.