A key change is that Death doesn’t do blocking. It’s this which is at the core of Vigil’s revamping of the combat system to make it faster, more fluid and a hell of a lot more fun. His brother Death, the second Horsemen, however, is a different creature all together, favoring feral-like agility and speed over brute force.

Of course as the player you could change that to a small degree, but ultimately there was nothing subtle about him: he waded into combat, blocking incoming strikes and swinging his huge sword hard. In turn that raises the big question of whether Vigil will be able to pack enough stuff into these huge lands for players to do, or will it simply be a visual treat that’s largely hollow? Regardless, what’s certain is that Vigil have crafted a huge gameworld for Death to inhabit that looks outstanding.Ĭombat of course plays an integral role in the world of Darksiders, because every problem in the universe can be solved by punching things in the face, as I’m sure you are already perfectly aware. And since you’re playing as Death, it was always going to be pretty likely that you’d be doing a lot of scrapping. When it came to a fight, War, the lead character of the first game and one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, was all about brute power, naturally favoring the direct approach to pretty much any combat situation. And if that wasn’t enough then they’re also filled with puzzles to make you stop and think for a while before you get back to the clambering and the fighting.Īll said and done Darksider II’s world is a huge place to explore. These dungeons are massive navigational challenges, forcing you to use Death’s parkour skills to the fullest. Death can leap, climb, wall run, swing and more to get around the huge dungeons that you’ll encounter. Based on the videos we’ve seen of the game so far it’s clear that Darksiders II isn’t pushing the technical boundaries of what graphics can do, but in terms of pure art-style this is a truly amazing game to look at, featuring an epic scale we rarely get to see in adventures such as this.Īnd when it comes to epic scale Death is well-suited to the task of navigating it, able to clamber around environments in ways that’d make a certain Persian prince stop in his tracks and burst into tears. Freed of these shackles the art team have literally gone utterly bonkers, crafting some outstanding locations to explore.

As you can well imagine this fantastical setting has allowed the art team at Vigil a lot more creative freedom than they had with the original Darksiders which was constrained by being set almost entirely on Earth. Unlike his brother War, Death’s journey will take him through the Abyss, a place which the developers have described as somewhere worlds come to die. Within these hub worlds you’ll be able to pick up some side-quests, trade with the aforementioned merchants, learn new moves and generally just get your breath. And if a horse isn’t quick enough then the game will also employ a quick-travel system so you can get around with ease, especially encouraging you to travel back to merchants to sell of gear before heading back out into the world. Given this fact Death will have access to his loyal right from the start, a fact likely to annoy War since he had to wait almost half the game to finally get a pretty horsey to ride around the place.

According to Vigil the first of four hub areas in the game is almost the size of the entire gameworld of Darksiders on its own, which is impressive to say the least. Vigil have embraced the traditional sequel concept of bigger is most definitely better, both in terms of sheer content and in terms of scale. Now, quite clearly these are my own personal reasons as to why I’m excited for the game and as such they may not match your own, so don’t feel bad if something you’re looking forward to hasn’t made this short list. To help alleviate my excitement somewhat and stop me from literally bouncing up and down in anticipation I decided to sit down and write out my top five reasons as to why I firmly believe that Darksiders II will fulfill all the potential the first game had and kick ass as only Death can.

It’s just one week until Darksiders II arrives in the UK.

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