Darksiders (Warmastered Edition)

Darksiders casts you as War, one of the Four Horsemen, framed for triggering the Apocalypse prematurely and stripped of his power. The core loop is classic action-adventure with heavy Zelda DNA: you fight through large arenas, earn new weapons and abilities, unlock previously inaccessible areas, and boss-fight your way toward the truth of who set War up. The Warmastered Edition layers 4K output support, doubled texture resolutions, and re-rendered HD cutscenes on top of the original, making it the definitive way to play on PC. Combat is the game's strongest card. War accumulates a small but satisfying arsenal - the Chaoseater greatsword, the Scythe, the Crossblade, a pistol called Mercy - and each weapon has enough depth that you will actually rotate between them rather than mashing one button forever. Enemy variety is decent for a game of this era, and the Chaos Form transformation (basically going full demon) lands as a genuine power fantasy when the meter fills. What holds it together is pacing: fights escalate steadily, abilities feel earned rather than handed out, and the dungeon design borrows Zelda's item-gating structure without becoming a puzzle museum. The RPG elements are light but present. You collect souls as currency, upgrade weapons at Vulgrim's shop, and unlock passive bonuses. Do not come expecting BG3 build depth; the progression is closer to God of War 2008 than Baldur's Gate. Choices do not branch the narrative. Still, the upgrade path is coherent, and the combat rewards learning its system rather than over-leveling. The writing punches above its weight for an action game. The central mystery - who set War up, and why - holds together through the full runtime. Voice acting is committed, particularly Liam O'Brien as War, who plays the stoic wronged-warrior archetype with enough restraint that it reads as cool rather than hollow. The worldbuilding borrows liberally from Christian mythology and comic-book aesthetics (Joe Madureira's art direction gives everything that heavy-lined, oversaturated look), but it earns its own identity. The lore does not require homework, but it rewards paying attention. Weaknesses: the camera can be awkward during tight corridor fights, a couple of the mid-game dungeons drag with backtracking that tips from "satisfying exploration" into "filler", and the PC port, even Warmastered, is not the most technically polished release in THQ Nordic's catalog. The game also ends on a cliffhanger that assumes you will immediately buy Darksiders II, which is either a feature or a flaw depending on your tolerance for franchise setup. Bottom line: if you like hack-and-slash games with dungeon structure, a mythology-drenched world, and combat that rewards learning over grinding, Darksiders holds up well. It is not a long game by modern RPG standards, which actually counts in its favor. No padded XP grind in sight.

Monika · Scout Team

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