Darksiders: Wrath of War

THQ announced Darksiders at E3 last July, and showed an early build of the game at the event at that time. At this week's press event we got to see a more refined build of the game (sadly we were not allowed to go hands-on) which got us even more excited about the prospects for this fantasy action-adventure title from developer Vigil Studios (the same folks behind the Warhammer 40K MMO).


Basically the game takes place on an modern day Earth that has been ravaged by a battle between angels and demons. We got to see three levels of the game in our demo; the first takes place on a war ravaged human city where demons are after pretty much anything, including your character War, one of the fabled Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. You’ll have a mixture of both magical and human weaponry at your disposal; everything from a huge fantasy sword to the game's version of a mini-gun. Like the God of War series you’ll battle all sorts of creatures from pesky demons to massive enemies like monsters with big heads and even bigger tusks for hands to sandworms that will rise up and eat you from below.




Darksiders's art style comes from famed X-Men artist Joe Madureira (currently handling the artwork for Marvel's Ultimates 3 mini-series) and it shows in the character designs and levels for pretty much every aspect of the game's visuals look. While the style is somewhat cartoony, Darksiders definitely has a mix of American comic books mixed with a bit of Japanese manga and anime styles. One interesting aspect of the game is that it takes place in a kind of open world. As you progress through the game you can go back to any point in the city to check out other areas. There are also separate dungeon levels underneath the city that you have to explore as well.


Darksiders is still a ways away from release; THQ stated that it's slated for a first quarter 2009 ship date. Even though we didn't get to play the game ourselves, the live demo was extremely impressive with the game exhibiting a rather unique visual style combined with lots of action. There will also be puzzles and adventure elements in this single player only game but those features were not shown to us this week. We are glad that Vigil still has some time to make sure the game is as good as it already looks.