Hey all,

With Darksiders 3 due out very soon (I believe it is out in the UK tomorrow, 27th November) I came to look on the forums here to see what people were thinking about the game. However I found there was no talk of the game on the front page on the forum.

So what do you think Giant Bomb members, do you think this game will continue the series well now the series is with a different publisher due to the THQ issues of the past? Is anybody here interested in the game?

Personally I am hoping the team do a Quick Look so I get chance to see how the game is. If it looks great maybe I will pick it up sometime, if its good but not amazing, then maybe a sale, otherwise I may let it skip me by.

Honestly, I loved 1, thought 2 was good but applied the RPG elements awkwardly, and now this one doesn't seem to be setting the world on fire, I think im gonna skip until a 20 dollar sale in a year or two. Hitman 2, RDR2 (with online this week), BLOPS4, Smash Ultimate, Lets Go Pikachu, Just Cause 4, and weirdly enough Starlink, all keep me from thinking i can drop 60 on this.

I'll play it when it gets cheaper. It looks like an okay action game but a lot of the things that made the other games stand out seem to be sparse here.

I hope we get a sequel that eventually makes good on the ending to the first game but I think it's becoming clear that the devs arent that interested in making that game.

(I realise Vigil and Gunfire games are two different companies but some of the same people are still involved)

I think I'll wait for some impressions first since this whole thing feels a bit rough to me but I'm hopeful.

I'm pleasantly surprised it even got made, I'm definitely gonna support it. Darksiders 1&2 are both fantastic games for their own reasons. People seemed to argue over which one was better, but honestly they are both equal, they just did things differently. DS1 had better world design and felt more tightly paced. DS2 had vastly superior combat, a much better soundtrack, and Michael Wincott is amazing as Death. I love the idea of separate but equal games in a franchise, that take place during the same time period in the story. Hopefully Darksiders III continues this trend.

Maybe one day the developers will get to realize their dream of a 4 player co op Darksiders 5.

Going to await the first volley of reviews. Based on what I've read so far it's suppose to be like the first game with a tiny amount of souls esque elements thrown in.

So far I read the GameSpot review which was less than flattering and watched Jim Sterlings even less enthusiastic Jimpression video.

It's apparently quite a step back for the franchise.

Checked out a few reviews and they're somewhat split. Some people saying it's trash, others saying it's fine but nothing amazing. Everyone agrees that it's much more Souls than any previous title though. I'm tempted to write off a bit of the negativity to the good old "this isn't what I wanted/expected". Personally I'm interested, but I wanna play through 2 first so not gonna pick it up quite yet.

Considering Jim Sterling mentions they kill off her horse at the start of the game because it's too narrow and confined for the horse to be useful... I will hold off getting a copy until I see some reviews.

The early word is that the game seems very regressive compared to the original titles. I loved the first two games but I don't know if I can handle a whole game full of weak combat. If they were going to mimic another game as they typically do, they could have at least gone with the fluid gameplay of Bayonetta instead of a Dark Souls-lite.

I am still very interested in the unfolding story of Darksiders. This is something no one has come out and talked about yet so maybe there's some hope it's not simply a mediocre sequel.

No, but I may pick up the first one for cheap sometime thanks to all this hidden hype about the franchise I'm discovering!

I can't really afford it right now, but this is probably the game I want to play most at the moment. That said, it's been awhile since I've seen a game so divisive in the reviews. They're all over the place, many of them saying contradictory things. One reviewer hates this particular aspect, while another praises it. There were some more objective things that didn't line up, too, such as with how the healing system works.

I am just glad that it seems to be more like DS1 rather than 2. It's a shame that the game just seems be being sent out to die with no fanfare. The first two were hardly blockbusters but they had a bigger push than this.

@wandrecanada: If there's one thing that was nearly unanimous among the reviews that I've read, even the middling ones, was that the combat is pretty good and satisfying, so it has that going for it at least. It sounds like the camera can be a real problem, though that's something that could be patched.

From what I’ve read and seen the game seems plagued with performance issues. It doesn’t even seem to play at a stable 30 fps on consoles. Hopefully that all gets fixed.

I remember reading the CEO of THQ Nordic saying they thought they could make a new Darksiders game of just as high quality as the previous ones but with way less money and people involved.

Nothing wrong with low budget games, but looking at DS3 it kinda sticks out like a sore thumb.

Another Darksiders was such an unlikely event that I had to buy it no matter what, but the early reviews are certainly disappointing.

Yes, for one I put very little stock in reviews these days as to how very little of it is likely to apply to my gaming preferences.

Secondly Darksiders 3 has been a long tome coming, a series that I very much played multiple times through, so whether I'll like it or not I sure damn well am going to play it regardless.

Sad to hear it's another Souls clone, please tell me that it doesnt force you to use the bumpers to attack? (just to clarify I like Dark Souls but I miss old school hack 'n slash games)

ill 100% buy it if Jeff says its good. Which means I 100% wont be buying it.

The things I've heard really do seem to be budget issues, even before reading specifically about that.

At some point? Yes. Any time soon? No. I want to beat DS2 sometime. I played it a bunch...this year? last? But it's so big and long and kind of boring in some specific ways that it was hard. I don't want my 30 hour save file to feel halfway into the game, I wanted it to feel -done- at that point. I love DS1.

Thought Darksiders 1 was great. Darksiders 2 felt like they added too much and didnt do enough to make it interesting. Seems like darksiders 3 is landing with a flop rather than a bang from what I've heard so far. I was really excited to see what happens after the amazing cliffhanger of the first game, but at this point they've missed the window to capitalize on it for me. I'm keeping a eye on general reactions to it in case it's a sleeper hit, but I dont have my hopes up.

I think it's something I'll wait for a sale on. Early impressions don't seem like something I'm incredibly eager to play, but I would also like to support the franchise because it's a story I'd like to see through to the end, and maybe(?) there's a shot at getting the series completed.

I knew it was in development but I thought it wouldn't be out until sometime next year at least. I didn't even know it was going to be out this year.

I might get it, although I watched a few minutes of Jim Sterling's video on it and man, he was not kind to it. Jim Sterling is a man whose feelings towards video games tend to come off as exaggerated, so I'll definitely look at some other opinions before really making up my mind.

The loot from Darksiders 2 seems to be totally gone and the world seems to be smaller now, so instead of a vast expanse of monsters dropping random items, it seems like the game has a clearer, more linear direction. And thank God for that, Darksiders 2 looked great and all but those massive areas with not much in them just got kinda boring. I keep meaning to give that game another chance one of these days, but I remember large swaths of it being kinda boring.

It seems like it's getting sent out to die.

Judging from some the reviews, it seems like a very straightforward, b-tier action game...which I think I’m okay with. It does help that I bought it for cheap.

Not thrilled about possible performance issues though. First Darksiders was one of those few games on PS3 for me, where the rough performance and jagged-up graphics pushed me away from it originally, ’till I returned later and just ignored the issues to get through the story.

I'll probably give it a shot. Darksiders just dragged for me and I never tried the second one. The souls clone nature might at least keep me interested.

I am perfectly content to fund a potentially mediocre installment of series that has clawed its way out of the brink like this.

I saw a bit of the combat, it looked pretty cool. Idk about everything else but I'm interested.

Maybe I'll finally crack open the copy of Darksiders 2 I have. I liked the 1st one well enough but a part of me just remember it as the game that came out along with Bayonetta and Bayonetta is a legit classic and Darksiders 1 is great b-game.

IGN's Metacritic summary actually has me interested:

The straightforward simplicity of Darksiders III is a refreshing change of pace after exploring so many dense open-world games. That simplicity doesn’t refer to the combat or boss battles, though, which are complex and almost startlingly unforgiving. Its throwback philosophy is comfort food for action gamers of a certain age, but it would’ve been nice to see the third game in the series introduce some new concepts to relaunch Darksiders in the modern age.

Overall the impressions I see are highlighting the fact that it's an action game throwback. That could be interesting for someone like me, who's going through a bit of open world fatigue at the moment. Though I'm a bit sad they didn't iterate on the Zelda-like structure and spiced that part up some.

I bounced off the first game pretty quickly, which shouldn’t surprise me since I bounce off all Zelda games.

Never went back to try Darksiders 2. No plans to try Darksiders 3.

I loved both Darksiders games so I will definitely be getting this. I don’t put much stock in reviews anyway and I’m just happy that the series is continuing after such a long break. I’ve asked my wife for it for Christmas and I’m excited to play it.

Yes, and for several reasons. I love the series. I adore the first game a lot. I liked the 2nd ( even if it was too long). I know this game will be discounted probably before Christmas and from what I've read its a game very much stuck in 2010 (not at bad thing per se. Not every game has to reinvent the wheel), but I want to support the devs and it was my last pre-order as part of Amazons Prime discount. It seems to be more linear & less like 2 which is great, But seems to be more like Dark Souls and less like 1, which sucks.

I do appreciate that each game in the series does feel different. I'm knee deep in Red Dead so idk when i'll be able to commit time to it.

I loved the previous Darksiders games, both of them, but I am sad to see that much of what I liked has been reduced or just straight out removed. I will buy it on a sale because I want to see more of the story and the universe, but more than anything this has just made me go back to play more Darksiders Definitive Edition.

I doubt I'll be picking it up anytime soon. It looks...underwhelming. All the screenshots and video clips I've seen make it look very last gen, which is disappointing as hell. Even more disappointing to hear that their inspiration this time around seems to be Dark Souls - something I'd definitely be up for - but they completely f'ed it up. It just seems telling that they pushed the thing out the door with no fanfare, releasing it in the middle of the holiday rush where it was destined to get buried and forgotten. At the same time, they probably didn't want to release it early 2019, where it would be more closely compared to heavy hitters like Devil May Cry 5 and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Feels like even they know the game is a flop.

Still, I really enjoyed the previous Darksiders games, so I'll eventually give this one a chance. But it'll either be one of those games I buy for $10 or less during a holiday sale or something I play when it's free with Gold/Plus.

I had it pre-ordered but canceled it. I will buy it on sale a year from now when it has lots of patches. I really don't feel like paying $60 for an unfinished game.

I need to play the first two games first; they've been in my backlog for a while.

I loved the first game, while it was not all that original, the art design the story was really fun and very well done. The platforming and puzzles reminded me a lot of what zelda did with Ocarina of Time. The 2nd game ot me fell off a cliff and felt very unfocused and just not nearly as fun of a game. The mechanics also felt worse than the original and the story seemed very light and not nearly as interesting as the first game. This new game looks interesting but seems to be even a further departure from what I loved about that 1st game.

Just got it, liking it so far, getting used to the controls etc.

Small tip for anyone else getting it on PC, turn AA down to "Low", this actually disables AA fully and the reason you would want to do this is that the game uses one of those super shitty AA types that makes everything blurry as fuck like if you had beer goggles on, with AA off the game looks much much better.

The game is also having no issues for me (so far) maintaining a steady 60 with everything else maxed out at 1440p (this is on a regular 1080)

It all seems to be coming in as a divisive game and not an unfortunate trash fire so I will definitely pick this up when I am able.

It will also be nice to play a game again that is not a fuckin' hundred hour open world.

Jason talking about this on the Bombcast was rough, especially the bug that wiped away 12 hours of his progress and other technical hiccups.

I might end up starting Odyssey before this, depending on how fast they’ll put out patches.

I really like what I've seen of it so far, but it's probably a good thing that I won't have the money to get it for a while; hopefully they'll have dealt with these technical difficulties by the time I've gotten around to it.

So far, I've played for about five hours and killed two of the Deadly Sins. The difficulty can be pretty extreme (but still manageable) and there's some wonkiness & inconsistency with the controls. Aside from that, I'm having a good time.

What system are you playing on and have ran into any crazy bugs? I've heard its a mess on the bug front

@atastyslurpee: PC. The only bug I can think of encountering was an enemy that was standing around and jittering.

After we have seen more of the game now, I don't think I will.

Yay for me, who hasn't started playing this yet, I guess.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-12-21-darksiders-3-patch-makes-combat-more-like-previous-darksiders-games

Not so yay for those, who bought it at release I guess. Or those few who might have this waiting in a gift wrapping and have a garbage internet/no internet at all and get to play a game that has been patched several times in less than a month to (hopefully) be less of a technical mess and also had a new combat system added.

I think it's weird to suddenly pretend like Darksiders has a (mechanical) identity of its own when its claim to fame has always been 'Let's ape other gameplay styles'. Whether it's Zelda or Diablo or now Dark Souls. Hearing that it 'plays like previous Darksiders' barely even means anything.

Well whatever, it definitely needs some technical work too so hopefully that's in there.

e: Tooled around with it a bit and now the game just feels weird. It's the sort of mashy combat of the previous games with all of the encounter design and enemy placement of a Souls like.

I liked it a lot - It's not nearly as "epic" as the other games and it kind of has a different vibe to it, but maybe that's okay given the kind of character Fury is. I enjoyed Fury's journey and growth, in fact, I think she is by far the most dynamic horsemen. Also, like with the previous Horsemen, gunfire studio chose a suitable antagonist for Fury, much like how the corruption and abandon were connected to the character development of death and war. In fact, I ended up enjoying the seven a lot more than I thought I would, with Wrath and Gluttony being my personal favorites.

I'm not a huge fan of the changes in combat seeing as how this one definitely takes after the soulsborne 1v1 style - There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but I just liked the hack and slash style of the previous games a lot more. I don't think the soulsborne style fits in with the aesthetic of the series given that you are a HORSEMEN of the apocalypse. You are supposed to be powerful, so it's kind of disheartening when one grunt gives you a run for your money. It made more sense to me when Death and War were juggling large crowds of monsters because that presented a reasonably difficult experience without undermining the protagonist's prowess in combat.

I will say though that given the new difficulty curve, winning a fight was particularly rewarding.

Moreover, I missed the loot system, but the Hollows were an excellent replacement. I was skeptical about them from the trailers, but they ended up being a great addition to the game, and they were excellently integrated given that I ended up using all four of the hollows against different monsters. Even in situations when the game clearly wanted you to use a CERTAIN hollow, I managed to find use for the others in the very same situation, which shows just how well these abilities were designed.

Overall, while it's far from perfect, it's a pretty solid game given the small budget and history of the production. 8/10 BRING ON STRIFE!