Original publisher THQ and developer Vigil Games are no more, but the Darksiders franchise — and the four horsemen of the apocalypse — will still ride on. Darksiders 3 is indeed in development, and protagonist Fury mixes up the series’ signature combat and traversal with a whip straight out of Castlevania.
Darksiders 3 was officially confirmed by studio Gunfire Games as part of IGN’s “IGN First” series. Early in the morning of May 2, an Amazon listing was spotted which not only detailed the game’s characters and new features, but also included several beautiful screenshots that appear to be a significant improvement from the last-generation games, as well as their current-generation remasters. Still using the signature comic book-inspired art style that made the original games instantly recognizable, everything is given an appropriate amount of contemporary sheen, and the game’s dilapidated environments look as good as anything we’ve seen from the series before.
The original Darksiders focused on War, while its sequel starred the very entertaining Death. In Darksiders 3, we’ll play as Fury, a more agile mage-like character who uses a glowing red whip. She’ll have access to several different forms that grant her special weapons and abilities as she works to defeat the Seven Deadly Sins, and the listing also emphasizes “Metroidvania” elements, saying that Fury “moves back and forth between environments to uncover secrets while advancing the story.”
Darksiders 3 studio Gunfire Games is the same studio that previous handled Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition and Darksiders: Warmastered Edition. The studio is made up of ex-Vigil Games employees, who came together shortly after Vigil was disbanded. The team also released the Oculus Rift adventure RPG Chronos last year.
Darksiders 3 is planned to launch to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC at some point in 2018. It will take place “around the same time” as 2012’s Darksiders II, which also happened to take place during the events of the original Darksiders.
Updated on 5-2-2017 by Gabe Gurwin: Added information relating to confirmation by Gunfire.
