Okay, you guys, I need to start this off by saying, I missed Darksiders the first time around. I’m not sure how it happened, but I had never played either of the Darksiders games. I slightly recall friends insisting that I did so. I can’t recall what the hell was going on at the time to pull me from playing it, but it must have been complicated. Because, Darksiders is a game that was made to be a bat out of hell, it was made to stand apart from the pack and it was made to be plain ole’ badass.

With the release of Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, I was able to finally play the game. I can’t say that the entire experience ran smoothly but I feel like I can call myself a Darksiders fan now that I have experienced it for myself.

For those as unfamiliar as I was, Darksiders it follows War, one of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse.  When the Seven Seals are suddenly broken, it shakes up a truce between heaven and hell and unleashes the apocalypse on Earth. The only thing is, only War is called down to earth, the other Horsemen weren’t informed that it was time for the apocalypse. War travels to Earth, to discover heaven and hell battling in the streets, slaughtering the world of man. The Great Destroyer from hell is running rampant destroying everything in sight.

“It is a face-melting, metal-inspired

world that is just plain badass.

For traveling to Earth without any of the seals being broken, War is stripped of his powers and returned to Earth to attempt to find out how this all happened, and to kill The Great Destroyer.

How is that for a setup?! I couldn’t think of anything more metal if I tried. The world Darksiders introduces you too is one of a kind. The design is inspired by Nordic aesthetic and characters are carefully and awesomely rendered to have a heavy presence. The world created by comic book artist legend,  Joe Madureira is vibrant and stand-alone. It is a world rich in lore and something you want to be immersed in.

This remastered version gets all the bells and whistles. Comes with doubled up texture resolutions, 1080p rendering and 60 FPS to make for a game that runs well on PS4 and Xbox One. The remaster did come with some buggy sound issues on the build that I reviewed. Mainly, these issues were sound effects cutting in and out randomly. Hopefully, this is something the team can patch out. Everything else runs smoothly and makes for a nice, next gen version without making you feel like you are playing anything  dated.

Combat is satisfying and full of gory finishing moves. Much like ‘God Of War,’ your combat is combo based and you are rewarded for racking up the big numbers. As you go along, you begin to gain your powers back by helping out certain allies and searching out treasure chests in the world. The game has an intense and intricate weapon level up system too. You are able to add modifications to your weapons, as well as being able to buy upgrades to combat moves. All these additions constantly make the game feel fresh. Figuring out how to bridge the moves together to get a high como score becomes an obsession.

Boss battles are awesome and user friendly. After playing punishing games like the ‘Dark Souls’ series, these battles are more fun and approachable. These battles against huge enemies are more akin to the boss battles from’ Legend of Zelda.’

The story does a great job of pulling you in and holding your attention in place. Revelations, take twists and turns as fragile alliances become unstable and things end up being more complicated than you thought.

I regret not getting into Darksiders sooner. It is a face-melting, metal inspired world that is just plain badass. This is such an original world and story that it reminded me of what games felt like when I was a kid. Me and this game spent long hours together, those same bloodshot, sleep deprived hours that I had as a kid playing my Nintendo. It’s a great game to re-visit or play through for your first time.

Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, is now available on Playstation 4 and Xbox One for $19.99.