Darksiders: Warmastered Edition

About a year ago THQ Nordic released an updated version of Darksiders II with an extra name, a Deathinitive Edition. As a game it was great, but as an update it seemed unnecessary. Now it's time to play an updated version of the original game, this time called Darksiders: Warmastered Edition. It has been six years since it was released, so revisiting doesn't feel as pointless as with Darksiders II, although some of the gameplay mechanics make it clear that this is an older game.

The story of Darksiders in vaguely inspired by the book of Revelations in the Bible, as the end of the world has come and it's time for the four horsemen of the apocalypse to answer the call. The second horseman, called War, arrives and wreaks havoc until he notices that none of his brothers have followed - he has been betrayed. The world has ended, and the Kingdom of Man has been destroyed, and War sets out to make things right.

Gameplay is a mixture of Sony's God of War and Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda. Third person battles are fought, abilities are upgraded, puzzles are solved, and navigation is done in somewhat linear environments. The emphasis is on "somewhat" here, because there is almost always only one way forward, although you can, and you should, go back to places you've already visited.

Darksiders wasn't the most cutting edge in terms of game design back in 2010, and it still isn't now. The single biggest issue is the camera, which is constantly in all the wrong places. Luckily you can manually control the camera, so be prepared to do it constantly. Level design is a weird hybrid of linear sections and an open world, too, not to mention the fact that pacing is off, because at times a dungeon is over in 15 minutes, and at other times you will spend over two hours solving its puzzles.

Character development is functional, and the names of weapons are inspired. At the same time the game should be more clear about the effects of some of the different upgrades, and recommend some before others. If you choose a hard difficulty and develop your character in the wrong way, you can literally find yourself in an impossible situation later on in the game. Because of this we would recommend that you play on an easier difficulty, and choose a harder setting later. There must have been some issues in the remastering process in terms of dialogue, too, because quite often the lip sync is off when characters are talking.

War's movement and posture have a heavy feel, making him look cooler but also making combat slower. Luckily you can block or evade an attack any time just like in God of War. Combat is varied by using different secondary weapons, and they are also used in puzzle solving. In time War gets to ride Ruin, his trusted fiery steed, too, and this happens in the later sections of the game, which makes it an even more powerful moment.

Visually, Darksiders was great in 2010, and the remastering has served it well. The comic book feel is detailed and it has a distinct personality, and despite its dark story, colours are used all the time to produce a very pleasant visual effect.

Unfortunately voice acting lacks the personality the visuals have. Troy Baker as War reminds me of Clint Eastwood in his golden years, and Mark Hamill as the watcher character sounds too much like the Joker in Batman. The acting itself is good, but the choice of voice is not. All the other actors seem to suffer from some sort of throat infection, too, because it's all the same low growling. There is not a single really bad performance, though. Music is a collection of aggressive apocalyptic tunes, but sometimes the best effect is total silence - this is something Darksiders clearly understands.

At a low price Darksiders: Warmastered Edition is worthy of purchase, even if you've already played it in the past. For newbies this is the perfect starting point to a series that hopefully sometime in the future gets a proper third installment. The original Darksiders was a solid eight, but some archaic gameplay decisions drop the score by a point. As a remaster Warmastered Edition is clearly better than what we got a year ago in Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition, however, which we appreciate.