Darksiders II

THQ and developer Vigil Games are serious about the portrayal of Death as a character. How serious? In a recent event for the upcoming Darksiders II, festivities were kicked off not with a demo or a trailer for the game, but with…a lecture. Dane Munro, an expert on the artistic depiction of death through the ages got on stage to show us the evolution of this dark topic over centuries. With context gained, THQ darkened the room and moved on to the most recent and exciting version of Death yet.

Things kick off with Death entering a lava-filled cave, where he’s immediately confronted by Ghorn, a rock golem who threatens to smash the nimble protagonist. Ghorn smashes the ground in front of Death, crumbling the bridge he was standing on. Death tumbles to a lower level where he runs into a traversal challenge.

Unlike the previous game’s protagonist, War, Death is agile and able to climb walls in graceful, Prince of Persia-style strides. Upon entering a narrow vertical area, Ghorn smashes on the ground from up above, causing lava to rise. In this timed challenge, Death must scale up the wall before he is burned alive.

He begins with a wall-run and latches onto a groove. Sliding to the right, he tosses himself across a gap to another groove, then launches himself up to catch one above him. At certain points, Death is able to latch onto hooks that are sticking out of the wall with his ghost hand ability. A well-placed button press after grabbing on sends him flying even higher than normal.

Past the rising lava, Death runs into a few enemies, a mix of smaller rock golems and demonic creatures that look similar to the bad guys War fought in the first game. As with his movement, Death’s combat is also faster than War’s. He wields two scythes, and at the end of combos they will often come together as one giant blade to smash down at a foe. Death can also swap to his secondary weapon on the fly – even mid-combo. In this case, he’s using a gigantic hammer that does huge damage but moves very slowly.

Rounding out the combat with a couple of spells, Death uses exhumes, which summons two coffins up from the ground. The coffins then burst open, producing tiny zombie minions that fight on his side for a bit. He also has a spell called Murder that summons a big group of crows to flock toward an enemy. The crows do a small amount of damage but mostly serve as crowd control, distracting opponents so you can focus in on one. At one point, Death even uses his ghost hand in combat, whipping it toward an enemy and then pulling the creature back at him.

After clearing away this group of enemies, Death stumbles upon a ridable construct, a giant stone creation that springs to life when he jumps on its shoulders. Death uses the construct to cross a pit of lava that would kill him normally. On the other side, he attacks a few smaller enemies with giant swipes and smashes one of the construct’s rocky fists.

At the end of this cave, Death discovers a circular indentation in the ground where he parks the ridable construct. This opens a gate leading to a final face-off against Ghorn, the rock creature that has been causing him trouble throughout this area. This enemy is probably double Death’s size, but THQ cautions that he is still merely a mini-boss as far as this game is concerned. Actual bosses will be much larger.

The battle against Ghorn features a familiar number of attacks with obvious tells helping Death figure out what to do. At one point, Ghorn glows red and begins shaking, a sign that he’s about to perform a big area-effect attack. Death has a few seconds to back off and avoid taking damage. Another attack has Ghorn relentlessly slamming at the ground, sending bursts of lava into the air that Death must dodge. When half of Ghorn’s health is drained, he summons smaller golems to fight alongside him.

After a fun-looking five minute battle, Death drains the last bit of Ghorn’s health, setting the mini-boss up for a finishing move. Death summons his Reaper form – a giant, spectral hooded figure – and brutally hacks at the enemy with a huge scythe.

This whole area looked great, but THQ had one last surprise to share upon the demo’s completion. The whole fifteen or twenty minutes I just watched? It was a completely optional side dungeon, an exciting addition to Darksiders II that should significantly beef up the amount of content in the game. Call me crazy, but I can’t wait to see Death again.

For a more in-depth look at Darksiders II, including exclusive information about the game’s skill system and puzzles, check out my feature in the upcoming March issue of Game Informer.