Review Game Darksiders 3

With a new Darksiders game comes a new protagonist, and this time around, it’s the whip-wielding mage, Fury. She was introduced in the original Darksiders as one of the franchise’s four horsemen - the anti-heroes of the apocalypse - with a unique spin on that apocalyptic lore. I don’t know what a horseman named ‘Famine’ (as in the actual bible) would be like, but Fury and her remaining brother Strife sound a little more fun.

Aside from her name and very distinct, billowy red hair, the only other thing we’ve known about Fury for a while is that she wields a whip, and it seems like it’s as much a part of her identity as War’s sword, Chaoseater, was to War. There’s mystery surrounding it, though - the whip largely sits at Fury’s side as just a handle, and it seems as though the actual weapon is summoned as some kind of magical ability. Fury controls the strike rate and the length, but the developers at Gunfire Games didn’t want to tread into spoiler territory by telling me exactly how. Darksiders 3 definitely will have RPG elements like upgrades, though, and I’m willing to bet some of those apply to new movesets with the whip, and maybe some secondary weapons, too.

In combat, Fury is significantly faster than War, but slower than Death. The core moveset has her feeling a little like Catwoman in the Batman: Arkham games, with her dodge abilities looking more like graceful cartwheels than aggressive strafes, and there’s a lot of flippy verticality involved in her attacks. It was easy for me to pick up Fury’s combos and the whip itself does feel like it has a sharp impact - it’s not overly floaty, and despite being fast, I still felt like I had to be cautious and particular when faced with multiple enemies.There actually are less enemies on screen than there were in Darksiders 2, since Fury can’t take on as many as Death could at once, and, being a World-of-Warcraft-inspired mage, she is a little squishy. Gunfire Games told me that Darksiders 3 is set to be harder than the previous games in individual combat instances, though not necessarily harder overall. Plenty of aspects of Fury, and the horsemen who came before her, were inspired by MMOs, but this one specifically has combat animations inspired by the Dark Souls series.

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Personality-wise, Fury is confident, driven, and loyal. She’s sent to Earth to track down the studio's take on the Seven Deadly Sins - a menacing bunch of bosses that originally took all four horsemen to take down, before they managed to break free. With Death dealing with the events of Darksiders 2 and War chained up, Fury has to take down all seven of them completely on her own, and she seems eager for the challenge, with one of her driving traits being that she wants the horsemen to be well-respected, and renowned. Unlike War, Fury is fully loyal to the Charred Council - the entity who maintain balance and order in the Darksiders universe. In that, it’s hard to picture her getting along with War and Death successfully enough to accomplish the things that they have (and those two won’t be in Darksiders 3, so we can’t see them interact, unfortunately), so I'm interested to see how her personality ends up fitting in.

One thing I do know, and find oddly interesting, is that Fury’s hair almost acts as a character itself. When she’s idle it naturally flares up around her face, but that intensifies in combat, like a dog with its hackles up. Supposedly - though I didn’t get to see it in action - it changes even more as you unlock her magic abilities, with her hair turning into flames if you use a fire-based magic ability, and so on. It was one of the hardest things for the team to figure out, since it has to be programmed both to respond to physics (like trailing above her if she falls) and to reflect her personality. Long hair in videogames is incredibly hard to get right as it is, and Fury’s is on a whole other level.

It’s also just a cool extension of Fury’s original concept designs, drawn by Joe “Mad” Madureira, who also actually personally re-designed Fury for Darksiders 3. He further developed the original designs and helped the team map out her proportions, though he isn’t working on the full game. Fury’s armor has a whole lot in common with War’s - they share some of the same skulls and designs, and as such, I think they’d look pretty fitting standing next to each other in a family photo, if that ever happens.

Overall, I’m interested in Fury, but not entirely sold on her, and considering everything I’ve seen of Darksiders 3 is still pre-alpha, I feel like that’s a pretty safe place to be. Gunfire Games told IGN, “we hope Fury inspires our fans” and mentioned being excited by the idea of Fury cosplays emerging into the world, which I’m pretty excited to see, too. Darksiders 3 is our IGN First this month, and if you haven't already seen it, check out our video about how on Earth Darksiders survived losing a studio, and a publisher.