092
presented levels. You can trade in souls and
Boatman coins for upgrades to the horsemen’s
gear and movesets, discover new tools, and
find Trickster keys that allow you to access to
optional areas (often filled with their own loot).
Everything is plentiful, so you’ll rarely have
to grind. The most beneficial collectibles are
the creature cores dropped by defeated enemies,
which you can equip to give both horsemen
passive buffs. All the enemies, even the bosses,
can be finished off when their health is low
enough by tapping e, which feels great to do.
And the more cores you collect from a certain
type of enemy, the more War or Strife’s core will
level up. Where you place them in the creature
core grid can lead to additional buffs, and only
some slots can house higher-level cores, so you
have to put in a fair bit of thought if you really
want to maximise certain horseman abilities.RIDE TOGETHER
You can play the entire game in two-player co-op
or by yourself. Little tweaks to some puzzlesensure it’s completable either
way. Alone or with a pal,
it’s important to make the
best use of War and Strife’s
differing abilities. While
their basic controls are the
same, their specialisations are
very different. War mostly
handles in the way you might
remember from the first
Darksiders game, though thanks
to the more dungeon-crawling
nature of this outing he feels
different. He’s all about getting
up close, mixing up light and
heavy attacks, and performing
long combos. Strife, the new
horseman, is more of a long-
range specialist, able to pump
enemies with bullets from his
dual-wielded pistols – and he
can have two types of ammo
equipped at once on u and i.
Later on, the brothers get
differing tools to help out with
traversal. For instance, War can
use a Vorpal Blade boomerang
to activate switches from a
distance, while Strife can use
Void Bombs to create portalsbetween two places to help to
solve puzzles. Genesis might
have a zoomed-out perspective,
but it still feels very Darksiders.HELL OF A VIEW
But these levels are far from a
succession of combat arenas.
Excellent level design means
not only do the areas you
travel through all look visually
distinct, from the fires of a
forge to ice-capped mountains,
and even Eden itself, they all
feel differently designed too.
Some are relatively open-ended,
throwing you into a fairly large
area and tasking you with
activating three or so switches.
Others are more linear, such
as ones where you weave up
forested mountainside ruins.
Every one is a visual treat,
especially when you reach a
high point and can look down
on the intricate level below you.
The camera is usually aware
of the best parts of the level
to show off, zooming in or
out a bit as appropriate. You“YOU CAN PLAY THE ENTIRE
GAME IN TWO-PLAYER
CO-OP OR BY YOURSELF.”
Right Big
demons just
mean you get
to use even
bigger finishing
moves on them.Left Hell has
never looked so
good. Each level
makes you want
to explore.