2007's The Darkness is showing its age and isn't that fun to play anymore.

I’ve been playing video games for a long time and I’m pretty comfortable playing games from almost any era. While modern games tend to be my favorites (I think Breath of the Wild and God of War 2018 are my two favorite games of all time, in that order) I have no problem going back to older stuff. In the last couple years I’ve played through the entire God of War series, took a detour to play through Dante’s Inferno on the PS3, have played a number of remasters including Katamari Damacy, and have had fun with all of the above. Older graphics don’t tend to bother me, and I can adjust to older mechanics and controls once I start playing. I like revisiting prior eras of gaming, and especially filling in gaps of my gaming knowledge.

I started playing through The Darkness on Xbox 360 in 2015 when it was already 8 years old and the Xbox One and PS4 had been out for a couple years. It was a game I had always been intrigued by and while I don’t remember what specifically caused me to boot it up on my 360, I remember mostly liking it despite the quirks of its age. Then I got busy and the game fell by the wayside, but I always meant to get back to it someday. That intent was amplified when the game came to Xbox backwards compatibility, because it meant that jumping back in would be easy and convenient (I still have my 360 but it’s not hooked up) and I just generally enjoy playing things on backwards compatibility. It’s neat, and I prefer the XBONE controller to the 360 pad.

I’ve been messing around with a few random things while I wait for Outer Worlds to release and I wanted something Halloween themed, so I scrolled through the installed games on my Xbox One and came across The Darkness. I booted up my old save about 60% of the way through the game and over the last few days I chipped away at it until I rolled credits. I enjoyed the conclusion to the story (though I remember only the vague outlines of the first half) and it was very seasonally appropriate (especially that intense ending that really makes you feel like a monster) but overall I only had sporadic fun with it this time around. I liked it more in 2015 and I think that it’s because some of the mechanics that were old but not totally antiquated at that time are now showing their age to a much greater degree.

The Darkness was by Starbreeze Studios, and like most of their shooters it had some very interesting ideas, especially for 2007. The story comes from a comic book and is about a young mobster who is betrayed by his uncle, the Don, and merges with a malevolent entity called The Darkness, kind of a family curse, in order to take revenge. It’s a well-told tale with some really nice voice acting, and the game is very dark and atmospheric. The Darkness grants you a variety of powers, including summoning “darkling” little creatures to help you out in various ways, and being able to manipulate objects in the environment and also kill enemies in a few different ways other than with just your guns.

All of that is pretty standard, but the Darkness is also quasi-open world, with a bunch of maps that you can travel between stitched together (though there are also some levels that you go to that aren’t attached to the rest of the world.) It takes place in New York and there are two subway stations you can travel between, each with multiple exits. The subway is full of non-enemy NPCs, some of whom you can talk to and who give you sidequests. Other areas have a mix of enemies and non-violent NPCs, and the city of New York has a real sense of place and reality for a game from 2007. In addition, The Darkness is stronger in…the Darkness…so the game rewards you with additional power if you destroy various light sources. Neither is anything spectacular, but it is a nice throwback to the days when shooters were a little more experimental and trying to do different things (Titanfall 2 is an example of a modern game that does this very well, and whose campaign was extremely well received because of it.)

However The Darkness definitely shows its age in a few ways. The first is the shooting controls, which are…not great. You have a reticle and a very basic zoom feature, but no look down sights ability and or other way to fine tune your aim (though the reticle does autotarget if you get it close to an enemy.) It’s a system that works okay, but feels a little clunky. This interacts with the next issue, which is that The Darkness is tough in some bad ways. Your character, Jackie, does not have a lot of life and can go down very quickly. Enemies are aggressive, able to shoot accurately over long distances, and your own guns are mostly pretty inaccurate, with the exception of the M-16 style assault rifle. However because the ammo system is clip based, you can’t carry that many clips, and enemies often take multiple shots to kill, you need to rely on a number of different weapons, many of which are not really up to the task. In addition, the game has a very 2007 desaturated gray look that makes enemies kind of difficult to pick up from the backgrounds, and enemy placement is often pretty tricky, flanking you from blind alleys or behind boxes. This leads to a lot of quick cheap-feeling deaths where you start getting hit, don’t know from where, and go down very quick. Jackie also cannot run (though he can crouch) so if you’re caught in the open you’re going to get cut down.

Of course once you die from being ambushed you know where that enemy is (if you were lucky enough to see him) and can deal with him the next time, but that leads to the next issue, which is that checkpoints are not that close together, and often happen when you enter one of the mini-levels off the hub. This means that you might walk into a room, get shredded by a dude who came out of nowhere, and then go back to a checkpoint several minutes away, requiring you to not only walk all the way back through an empty level, but also re-collect any of the dozens of collectables you might have found along the way, many of which are a pain to collect because you have to use fiddly powers to get to them. There’s also a mechanic where you have to eat the hearts of your enemies to increase your power, and that is a kind of long animation, and something you have to do all over if you die.

The back half of the game had several areas where I had to take a dozen or so attempts to get through, and while this wasn’t so bad when the game checkpointed me right in front of the big gunfight, it was very frustrating when the checkpoint required a significant amount of backtracking to get to where I was supposed to go, only for the game to kill me again quickly. I ended up having to adopt a sort of turtle style of play, sending out lots of Darklings to clear away some enemies and funneling bad guys to me to kill. In game where you’re a superpowered mobster with demon guns that is…not the way I want to play it. The game also seems to want you to be more aggressive, with lots of powers that only work at close range and a variety of execution animations if you can get right next to an enemy, but while that worked in the first part when there are only a few enemies at a time, those mechanics were all pretty useless in the second half, when you would die very quickly in a hail of gunfire if you tried to charge an area without meticulously picking off enemies from behind cover.

I would have much rather it have been closer to something like Quantum Break, which rewards you for using your various powers and fighting out in the open, and is much more fun to play because of it. Even if that’s not the style it was going for, simply having better checkpointing, a bit more movement speed, and easier to stop enemies would have eliminated the frustration. Those are all things we see in modern games but in 2007 games were a little more stand-offish and willing to force the player to come to them. It made the back half of the game kind of a slog to finish. In 2015 I was much more willing to tolerate this stuff than I am 4 years later, and it really showed me that this generation has changed some things even if it has not felt revolutionary.

Despite these annoying mechanical issues I’m glad I went back and finished the Darkness, if only to get it off my backlog and because I’ve read that the sequel is much better and I want to play that. The game can also be pretty exciting when you’re not getting massacred. It has very good enemy damage animations with visible gunshot wounds (something I always love in games) and bad guys being sent flying by gunshots and sometimes going down without dying, writhing on the floor in agony. It gives the fights a lot more punch than they would otherwise have, and adds to the grimy brutal atmosphere.

The story is also decently told and kind of fun, so I’m glad I saw that. It’s certainly Halloween appropriate, with lots of blood and gore and horror elements, especially in a couple vivid segments where Jackie travels away from New York for a bit. The ending is especially brutal and really made me feel a sense of horror at what was happening, and even empathy for the enemies I was slaughtering.

But despite those merits I think The Darkness is a game whose time has passed. It’s old now, and it’s creaky and frustrating and showing its seams. I never tried the tacked on multiplayer either, but based on the achievement completion percentage not many people did, and I can’t imagine it was particularly fun. If you want a horror-themed shooter to play for Halloween you could certainly do worse. It’s not a terrible game. But there’s better stuff out there too. The Darkness can be safely left in the shadow of gaming history.

At time of release, I LOVED The Darkness, but I totally get how it would age poorly. It wasn’t stellar from a moving and shooting perspective, but the story, voice work, and abilities were really great.

I played Darkness 2 as well. I liked it, and it probably holds up better, but The Darkness was my goddamn jam...

Playing The Darkness was always a bummer to me, honestly. It had some great strenghts but the gameplay wasn't one of them. 2 was a massive improvement on that front, from what I remember.

I remember when I played it around 2012 that parts of it were really frustrating. Can't remember exactly why, I think the end was one of them.

@alias: The World War 2 in Hell segment?

I remember really digging the game A LOT, but it was definitely a little stiff and robotic, even for its time.

@nutter: That segment is pretty easy, with the exception of the two pseudo boss battles, which are poorly explained and a little difficult to figure out (I looked at a walkthrough for the final boss of that segment. and that is a dumb encounter but not difficult, just very unintuitive.)

I think he's probably talking about the final assault on Paulie's mansion. There are just an insane number of enemies who keep pouring out of it, and you basically have to turtle up and hope to survive because they come from all kinds of angles. Eventually when you clear the courtyard a little you can make it to one of the side areas and then funnel the remaining dudes towards you and use the black hole power around corners to kill them, but it definitely took me a number of tries, and they were not short tries. I looked back at the walkthrough to see if maybe it was infinitely respawning guys, because it definitely felt like it, but there's not. There's just like a couple dozen of them. The walkthrough was basically like "This is a really hard battle, good luck, and when you think you've cleared the area be careful because you probably haven't yet." That was true. The first time I thought I cleared it I walked out into the open, went down really quick to a guy who came out of nowhere, and had to play the whole thing over. Fun.

It's a tough, frustrating, battle and I definitely wouldn't say it's that fun because the turtle style of play is not fun, but at least it's not boring because the checkpoint is right in front of the mansion. That's opposed to the fight with the SWAT team and the helicopter, where the checkpoint is back where you get the briefcase and you have to walk like a minute at Jackie's slow speed just to grab a couple collectibles and get gunned down by that dumb helicopter. I actually had one time where I killed the chopper with the black hole, popped the achievement, and then the helicopter gunned me down as it fell out of the sky, so that was lots of fun.

Seems a bit unfair to judge a game you played 60% of and finished up 4 years later? I don’t think you’re wrong in what you’re saying but games do have a mechanical, difficulty, and narrative progression. I don’t think it’s crazy to think that there might be some disconnect playing through it the way you did. Imagine doing this w a book or movie, even one that you were enjoying back then.

And personally, I’d cut the gameplay a huge slack. It’s a 12 years old game working in the most popular genre ever, from an era when they were still trying to figure out the HD thing. I don’t think it was ever some amazing playing game but it was trying to do something with its powers. You’re empowering a monster, it’s not a pure shooter. It’s going for something unique and different and I think it succeeds in that.

@liquiddragon: I don't understand how what you said contradicts anything that I said?

I never judged the game as bad and I acknowledged that it had cool ideas and a good story. I also didn't really judge the gameplay in the context in which it was released, I just said it's showing its age and isn't that fun now.

I'm pretty good at picking things back up after long breaks, including books and movies, and I adjusted to the game's mechanics after a little bit. There were definitely aspects that I'd forgotten about, and it took me a bit to remember them and I didn't complain about those parts (like how you need to recharge your Darkness powers by knocking out light sources.) The checkpointing and visibility issues aren't something that requires knowledge of the game's mechanics to judge, and the clunky controls and gun accuracy issues are what they are, as are the health and enemy placement choices. All that stuff was definitely more acceptable in 2007. That's why I said it's showing its age.

It's definitely not a pure shooter. Beyond the "empowering a monster" thing, the game has a lot of adventure game elements. It has sidequests, characters to talk to, a bunch of areas where all there is to do is walk around and interact with people/things. The collectible system of finding phone numbers that you call from a payphone is neat, as is the way you advance objectives by calling and talking to people. Even the loading screens are cool, with Jackie adding a lot of flavor to the game with his random and/or plot related monologues. Modern shooters do these kinds of things a lot more than games in 2007 did but all those elements are neat to see and still pretty fun.

But I would not recommend someone play this game in 2019 unless it's out of curiosity or they just really like games with moody stories (or 2007-ass shooters.) I think a Let's Play would probably be a better way to experience it.

It’s been a LONG time, and standards for games have evolved, but I remember the war/hell segment being a slog. Maybe it was just long, aimless, and boring (or poorly communicated to the player).

I really don’t remember the mansion being so bad. I remember having a bunch of demon helpers and powers and sort of brick shit housing my way through the end. I do think I maybe spent some time near some rock walls just funneling dudes towards me to black hole-ify. Back to standards for games, this just may not have stood out to me as broken/shitty/whatever back in 2007. I feel like that was during a run where A LOT of games fumbled their ending sequences. We had Bioshock’s final sequence, Halo 2’s shitty ending sequence, etc. Instead of ending a story based game in a way that satisfies you, they just amped the difficulty and forced most folks to retry over and over...or gave you some hokey boss fight that felt at odds with what you’ve been doing for the last 10 hours.

I’ve considered buying The Darkness again, and this thread about how poorly its aged actually kind of makes me want to see for myself. I don’t doubt it at all, but it would be interesting to experience. It also REALLY makes me want to see someone like Respawn try their hand at a remake (Mike Patton voice work required). I feel like they’re making the sort of novel and interesting shooters that Starbreeze wad making back in the 360 era.

I also remember being thrilled with the use of the song Captain Midnight during the credits (I love that song and had no idea they were going to use it, so it was a great surprise). Maybe that’s candy coating my memories, a bit.

Again, this was years ago when I was faster, younger, without kids, and was pretty fucking good at games...these days...I usually play on normal or one step up and generally avoid competitive multiplayer with strangers...

“...Father time is undefeated”

- Dave Lang

@bigsocrates: I’m not trying to contradict you. Am I? I literally said I don’t think you’re wrong. And I’m sure your great at picking things back up years later. But this is not how things are or should be judged so I don’t think you can blame someone for taking your critique with a grain of salt.

It was a super rough game even when it released in 2007. I have the PS3 version and the frame rate on it drops down to the teens regularly. It's crazy how many 3rd party games were terrible for the PS3.

@nutter: The war/hell segment is pretty boring, and there's a path off to the side you have to find to progress back to the village, so I could see it being annoying. Those boss fights could also be irritating if you didn't know what to do, so that makes sense.

I don't think the final battle at the mansion would have stood out nearly as much in 2007. I think it would have been just another hard final battle that, as you said, was not uncommon during that period (and it's not quite the end of the game....there are a couple sequences after that are pretty easy.) It wasn't truly awful and wasn't my least favorite part because you knew roughly where the guys were coming from, and the checkpoint was right before the fight, so it felt more fair than some of the areas where I had to walk 2 minutes from a checkpoint just to have a guy jump out of a room I'd already cleared (I don't think he spawned there I think he flanked me from behind through another entrance) and spray me down with a machine gun before I knew what was happening.

I wouldn't dissuade you from trying it again if you still have your copy or can get it cheap. It runs great on XBONE (or if you have your 360 hooked up I guess) and the story stuff has actually aged fine. While I think the ending wasn't super satisfying from a gameplay perspective, I actually think it was very satisfying from a story perspective. It really resonated with the themes of the game and as I said it had an emotional impact on me. I have rarely felt bad for enemies in a video game, but I did here. The game definitely does some neat things. I wouldn't have played like an hour a night for the last few days if it wasn't doing anything cool. I have a LOT of games on my backlog!

I totally agree it would be fantastic to see Respawn's take on this. As I said the powers in The Darkness and its experimental nature reminded me of Titanfall 2, and that was definitely a game that did not reward turtling. I think Remedy would be another interesting choice. They do a lot of similar things from a third person perspective.

The music and voice acting in the game are both absolutely on point, and would have been even more impressive in 2007. I really intended this blog to be more about my experiences interacting with older game mechanics than as an attack on The Darkness as a game. It's definitely a more interesting game to me than something like the most recent Ghost Recon, even if that game wasn't an apparently broken mess. I like the weirder and more experimental games from that era, which is one of the reasons I go back to them. I just wish this game had aged as well mechanically as something like God of War 3, but shooters are just a twitchier genre and there have been more refinements in them than something like a beat 'em up. It's a little harder to go back.

@liquiddragon: I mean, sure. Absolutely. The whole reason I included the discussion of the long break I took from the game was so that they could incorporate that information in judging what I had to say.

What I mostly took away from the Darkness was how easy it was to headshot people with the pistols. It felt like that simple action was so easy that a lot of the other stuff you could do didn't seem to matter that much. But it's been a long time since I played!

@rorie: Yeah, I seem to remember being on a street scoring headshots on snipers with a pistol. But the powers were so damned cool that I used them anyhow.

I’m a sucker for:

- Storytelling

- 360-era Starbreeze

- Mike Patton’s voice

- Mike Patton’s music

- Non-traditional shooters

- Use of light and dark

- Really all the powers were cool, but I’m always down for a singularity bubble

So with all the ways I bet this game aged like shit, I still have the fondest of memories of it.

@bigsocrates@nutter: Yeah I think it was that end assault on the mansion. I don't remember much but it was something like I was stuck at a very specific point and like you said had to face wave after wave of enemy. I recall dying a lot, maybe I got an unlucky checkpoint or something, I can't remember.

I always meant to check out the sequel because of how often it was on sale but never did get around to it.

Never played the first The Darkness but I did play and love the second one. I don’t know how it’s aged but you should give it a try. It’s a great game. It’s a shame we won’t ever get a third game. The ending to The Darkness 2 is nuts. This also makes me realize that most publishers played it very safe this gen. If it weren’t for Sony’s first party studios, this gen would’ve sucked.

I think The Darkness had those problems when it came out, they aren't just a result of age. Starbreeze games always had a different "feel" to them, with character movement and shooting trying to feel more weighty and momentum-based. They definitely got better at that sort of thing as they went along, and you can clearly feel the evolution of that style in the new Wolfenstein games. But yeah, The Darkness didn't play great when it came out.

It's definitely a game that is more than the sum of its parts, because a lot of the individual parts of that game are clunky as fuck. The praise it received was more due to the game's narrative, structure, and overall atmosphere. It made dealing with the weird gameplay worth it. It definitely did to me. I loved that game, but even at the time I was never fond of the shooting, or the WWI segments. God those sucked. I did like the heart-eating though. I just liked the noise it made.

You should play The Darkness 2 if you get a chance. It's a completely linear, almost arcadey experience. The action is very solid and I bet holds up pretty well. It's very short but there is never a wasted moment. The story is actually still worth it, too. Fantastic ending that will unfortunately never be made good on. Plus, you can pull a guy's spine out through his asshole.

@alias: I preferred 1 to 2, but I like weight and heft in my shooters. I’m also fine if things aren’t super streamlined, in favor of being unique and interesting.

Darkness 1 did suffer from more of a feeling like a gun attached to a camera than Riddick or Syndicate, as I recall. I do hate that feeling.

I remember Darkness 2 being much more palatable to tastes at the time, and I bet it holds up better as a result.

I guess, similarly, I liked Killzone 2 A LOT, but was indifferent about 3 and was bored by 4 (and quit after a couple of stages)....I kinda think Killzone 2 might hold up really well, though.

@nutter: I actually tried to go back to Killzone 2 a couple months ago, made it through a couple levels and...legitimately hated it. I hate playing shooters with the PS3 controller (I guess I could try a PS4 controller) but also I just hated how quickly the weapons spread and how inaccurate they got. It made the shooting feel really loose. Also there are multiple places in that game that do have unlimited enemy spawns and it's not always clear what to do, and I hate that mechanic too. I will probably try to finish it at some point because it's short, but between the two games I would much rather play The Darkness. Also because the writing and story in that game are much better, though Killzone 2 is also atmospheric.

@killem_dafoe: I have a digital copy of the Darkness 2 I got cheap and that is also backwards compatible on XBONE so I do plan to play it. Maybe I'll boot it up this week for some Halloween horror inflected fun. I know it's not a scary game, but at least the Darkness 1 had some really fun horror elements that felt seasonally appropriate. I don't really like being scared, so The Darkness series, like Doom, satisfies that urge for horror related stuff that isn't actually scary.

Even at the time I don't know that I would have gone to bat for the gameplay in The Darkness. It was noteworthy for other reasons and you just sorta played it to see that.

The sequel though, I maintain is a joy to control.