Darksiders 3 Review

Fiery Femme Fatale Fury

Walks right into Dark Souls

DISCLAIMERS

-I am not using my normal PC for this but that will not impact the final scores

-This review contains spoilers for Darksiders 1 & 2

-This review was converted from HTML and as such does not follow similar stylings of previous reviews!

Specs

OVERVIEW

Ok so lets recap the Warmastered Edition and Deathinative Edition.

War is in chains and being held accountable for starting the end of days. War swears he never started it but the “Charred Council”… They don’t believe him. War sets out to make things right and through no fault of his own actually starts the end of days.

Plot twist!

Whilst all this is happening Death is out to clear his brothers name meeting with Makers and old enemies. In the end He is faced with a choice: Sacrifice himself to resurrect his kind -the Nephilim- or resurrect Humanity. He chooses the latter in order to absolve the crime committed by War.

Where does this game take place in this weird timeline of parallel sequels? Well.. before Darksiders 1 and potentially during Darksiders 2. This game is a prequel to Darksiders 1 as during the opening cinematic War is still in chains, but as a follow-up or parallel sequel to Darksiders 2 as by the proclamation of the Charred Council… Death is missing. Both games act as a great expansion of the overall narrative and make you think about the overarching story and politics within the games with each subsequent playthrough.

STORY

To understand the story of this game you first must understand that this story is in fact two parallel stories: The story of the Aftermath of the initial 99 years before War is set free (Plus politics) & the story of Fury.

Fury is tasked by the Charred Council to seek out the 7 Deadly Sins and put them back in their prison. This is where we first learn that Fury cares not for what War may or may not have done and has her own agenda. We learn she is selfish, wanting, angry, blind to the bigger picture and will stop at nothing to achieve her goal once it is set. This game has more of a premise than an actual story but all background details are told mainly through cutscenes with bosses.

Within the context of the story Fury goes through a change in character as her task set by the council allows for her to grow and become more level headed.
In the end, you will learn even more about this universe than you knew going in. A few old friends even show up from previous games, some in more.. cinematic roles.

PERFORMANCE

I had to crank this game in an assortment of Low, Medium, High just to achieve a semi-stable 60fps. This is not the games fault. The game still ran like a dream with the exception of some minor dips into the 30s in the underwater biome. A damn pretty 30fps.

The environments were amazing and fit so well, nothing seemed out of place at all; from the lair of Gluttony to the chambers of Pride, from the subway walls and tenement halls between. I happily say that (given my weaker rig) this game still ran solid for me with no issues. Maybe if I had played it on launch I would have had more issues.

At some point I will give you the story as to why this is a totally different rig to what I used previously and currently. Unfortunately that is an ongoing thing and I do not wish to add fuel to the flames.

GAMEPLAY

THQNordic.. Gunfire games. Real talk – If any of yous do a CI games with me I would be happy to open a dialogue with yous on this.

ALMOST everything in the gameplay is solid. The “Hollows” and their weapon of choice, the Wrath attack generated by each hollow. Even the Rage attack (that I used about 5 times) was satisfying. The puzzles had me stumped for so long and the boss fights were incredibly fun and a little confusing at some points but… the base combat though.

THQ.. Gunfire.. Not everyone is a fan of Dark Souls. We thank you for the inclusion of “Classic” when it comes to combat, even though it was patched in we are still happy you did this. The issue here is that to keep your game from feeling like Dark Souls 2… You made it feel like another Dark Souls 2.

The big issue with this game – in my opinion – is that not everyone likes that Dark Souls level of intensity in a game. That is this games biggest issue is that it just feels like Dark Souls lite. For everyone else, I only have but one word… DODGE!

OVERALL

In conclusion this game fits right in with Darksiders 1 and 2.

Over the course of my 18 hours, I watched Fury undergo significant changes to her character and my eyes were opened wider to the overall story packed within 3 games now.

To me, the combat let this game down. Multi-stage and even Multi-Boss boss fights (Hello Ornstein and Smough). The performance of this game is incredible working so smooth and at a great 60fps.

I managed to test this game on Shadow (The VM PCs) and the difference between Epic and my settings… Both still enjoyable and both still highly playable. Keeping my issue in mind I still HIGHLY recommend this game and if you are looking for an excellent sequel… You found one.