Four is a Magic Number
The original Darksiders told the story of War, the horseman who would end up accidentally starting the apocalypse and wiping out all of humanity. Y’know, as one does. As is established in the opening cutscene, the forces of Heaven and Hell are destined to battle over the Earth and decide the fate of mankind once the seven seals are broken. But a power hungry angel named Abaddon worked with the Charred Council to frame War for what happened. War uncovered the conspiracy and killed Abaddon, while around the same time his brother Death sacrificed himself to restore humanity.
War’s tale ended with him clutching the seal of the Four Horsemen, stonily declaring that he wouldn’t fight the Charred Council alone as the camera panned to show three comets coming towards the destroyed planet. Darksiders II ended with the creator of the Nephilim (the race of which the Four are the last of) Lilith talking to a shadowed being referred to be her as “my Prince”, none too happy that Death restored humanity and the Nephilim are forever lost.
A hyptothetical Darksiders III would obviously continue from where both games left off. With the Four Horsemen reunited–War, Death, Fury, and Strife–it’s time to get some answers and figure out the ultimate endgame for this conspiracy. Maybe the goals of the Charred Council and Lilith’s master are different, maybe they’re the same. It’s up to the Four to find out and finally restore the balance that War was duped into wrecking in the first place.
The Family Who Slays Together…
Darksiders is a combat focused game. It’s not as fast or stylish as something like Bayonetta or brutally gory as God of War, but it’s still satisfying in its own right. War and Death play fairly different from each other in both games. War is able to block, moves slower because of the massive amount of armor that he wears, and can swing his Chaoseater sword with ease. Death, on the other hand, is a lot more agile. He could pull off parkour, flip instead of block, and create a spectral form of his arms to tear larger enemies to pieces or open doors. Fury and Strife’s play styles were mentioned prior to Vigil’s shuttering; Fury would be a mage character, and Strife would be more long-ranged, using his pistols (both of which are currently on loan to his brothers, so he’ll probably want those back).
For a few missions, Darksiders II fooled around with giving you an AI partner that would throw Death over long chasms, lift doors, or fight alongside you in combat. In a new Darksiders game, four player co-op would be a given considering the different heroes. Going it alone, a player could simply switch between the characters with the press of a button, not unlike Fuse or Marvel Ultimate Alliance. You’d be able to perform different combos with each Horseman–Fury could create a stasis bubble to allow Death and War to hack the demons caught inside to bits, for instance–and each Horseman could have two or three skill trees for players to upgrade.
The other part of Darksiders is the puzzles. With four protagonists, they’d get real easy, real fast. It’s best to take the Portal 2 route and have puzzles that challenge each character in different ways. War would have to carry a block to stop a door with a fast timer from closing while Strife prepares to shoot a bomb to trigger the door. This in turn allows Fury and Death to go to the next area and use a Construct to create a bridge for the others to get to the other side of the dungeon and onto the next area. Perhaps the different horses of each Horseman could come into play during these puzzles.
Your Mythology May Vary
Though Darksiders’ mythology is based on Christianity, there’s no reason it can’t take even more liberties with the canon. Fury and Strife are actually supposed to be Famine and Conquest in the Bible, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t angels who used to be dragons in that book either. Unless there are, in which case, that’s totally awesome.
As such, there’s no real rule saying that they can’t draw on characters from other religions, lore, or mythology. Go the Supernatural route and go all out with this thing. Have the Four Horsemen fight Cerberus from Greek mythology, Wendigos, or ride dragons from Chinese folklore. With the Four back together, demons alone won’t just be able to take them. It’ll take everything the Charred Council and the Prince have if they want all of them dead and unable to interfere with their plans.
Be Alive, Please Be Alive
A problem that both previous Darksiders games share is that the overworlds are so insultingly empty. There’s the occasional collectible or enemy encounter, but there’s otherwise nothing to do while you’re commuting from one location to another. In the age of open world games like GTA and Saints Row, giving you reasons to travel around while going from mission to mission is an expectation, and something that should definitely be in a new Darksiders game.
Darksiders doesn’t need to go to the full extent that those games do. For example, no one’s expecting War to jump into a car feet first and kick out the driver before speeding off, as awesome as that sounds. Having said that, it does need more to sell that these are worlds that were previously inhabited. Better placement of enemy encounters, more distractions on the way to the next mission, even something as simple as holding a location for a loot drop in the vein of what Destiny did would be welcome. Hell, you could have dungeons that could serve as hosting lobbies for the online co-op. If you’re going to make a game with a large world and a travel mechanic, you need to have something for players to come back to once they’ve finished the story or just want to screw around for an hour.
Tell us what you’d like to see in the next Darksiders in the comments below!
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