Darksiders: Gaming Innovation Gone Awry
The odds are pretty darn good that if you’re a fan of the Zelda-inspired action adventure series Darksiders, you actually only love the first one and you think the other three installments are “interesting” at best.
Unlike other game franchises, Darksiders didn’t learn from its successes or its mistakes. Each new chapter completely reinvents the design wheel outside the general idea of “third person action game thing,” changing up key mechanics, playable characters, UI systems, and more. It’s not entirely unheard of for games to add new components over time or across sequels, but they usually don’t ignore the things that made them popular in the first place — and they also typically offer a brand new chunk of story to go along with a new release. Darksiders messed that up too, spinning its wheels narratively and treading over the same ground time and again to baffling and disappointing results.
The first game came out way back in 2010, running on an engine it shared with the first Warhammer: Space Marine game (!) and built around the now-ancient Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware. It was a beautiful blend of classic play mechanics inspired by Ocarina of Time with a fun and surprisingly timeless comic book art style — and a story that was a little darker and…
