Darksiders Genesis PC review: Is this Diablo-like action game worth buying?

Darksiders Genesis Source: Windows Central

Darksiders Genesis is a top-down activeness game that takes you through a diversity of levels. Unlike the interconnected nature of Diablo Three, you teleport into various environments and are tasked with uncovering a number of secrets and defeating bosses. While the story is a little convoluted and difficult to follow, the gameplay is sublime. The ability to freely motility around the earth and slay hordes of demons with two distinct characters feels incredible.

Explore the earth

Darksiders Genesis box art

Darksiders Genesis

$30

Lesser line: Darksiders Genesis is a great top-down activity game despite some modest issues.

Pros:

Replayable levels
Great visuals
Satisfying combat

Cons:

Short entrada
Confusing story
Disruptive skill tree

Darksiders Genesis environments and gameplay

Darksiders Genesis may look similar Diablo Three, but it features a number of puzzles, the ability to jump, glide, ride a horse, and traverse the levels in a number of ways. This freedom of motion allows you to notice hidden chests and other collectibles during its brusk, only memorable campaign.

From the get-go, you're given control of ii characters. State of war is the Horseman of the Apocalypse we've come up to know, merely Strife is a welcome addition. Strife's carefree attitude and witty banter is the perfect foil to State of war's serious demeanor. You should listen to the interactions considering they're hilarious. Luckily, both of them possess unique skills, too.

Strife relies on guns and long-range attacks to accept out enemies. This comes in handy when y'all can't get close to sure foes. There's even a laser beam-like super ability thrown in there. War, on the other manus, comes with a behemothic sword and tin take out certain creatures with ease through melee attacks. If yous're playing on your own, y'all can hands switch between both heroes so you'll have to decide who's better equipped for any given combat scenario. If y'all're playing in co-op, you lot and your friend volition control one character each.

Darksiders Genesis secrets and upgrades

Darksiders Genesis Source: Windows Primal

Darksiders Genesis features a lot of replayability considering, equally you gain new abilities, you'll have to return to past areas and admission new pathways. If yous're unsure what a magical plate does or tin can't break a particular structure, come dorsum after progressing further in the story. Usually, health upgrades or Trickster Keys are hidden in these unreachable locations. Both come up in handy because the game gets progressively more difficult as the levels go by.

Upgrading your characters is the fundamental to success in Darksiders Genesis. While the system may seem a fiddling complex, calculation cores to your skill tree makes you stronger considering you acquire new skills. However, y'all can also purchase new moves and upgrades – from damage output to health upgrades – by visiting the hub earth and talking to the various demon merchants like Vulgrim. Souls and Boatman's Coins that yous collect from each level are used as currency.

Darksiders Genesis performance and visuals

Darksiders Genesis Source: Windows Cardinal

Unsurprisingly, Darksiders Genesis looks and plays the best on PC due to the variety of settings you tin tweak. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to feature any enhancements on Google Stadia. The game appears to be running at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. The connection we played on was 330 Mbps and the Chromecast Ultra was connected to an ethernet cablevision. While the stream quality was broadcasting at 4K resolution, everything outside of the menus was a piddling blurry.

By no ways does Darksiders Genesis look horrendous on Stadia – it's quite a beautiful game – but I would've liked to meet a higher resolution presentation like that found in Metro Exodus or Trials Ascent. Since those games manage to return at 4K, it's possible. Shockingly enough, additional input lag was barely noticeable, and I quickly adjusted to the difference. The real issue with Google's platform at the moment is the image quality in my opinion. Games that should run at 4K run at 1080p due to poor optimization.

A great example of this problem is Last Fantasy XV which reaches 4K on Xbox One X, just only 1080p on Stadia. Stadia has an virtually 5 teraflop advantage over Microsoft'due south machine. Developers need to optimize their games for Google'south hardware.

Darksiders Genesis final thoughts

Darksiders Genesis Source: Windows Key

Overall, Darksiders Genesis is a great game, but it would've been even meliorate with a meliorate story and less disruptive skill tree. The Darksiders Universe is complex and telling a mature tale would've served the title well. However, these are only minor grievances because the gameplay is incredibly responsive and performance is buttery smooth on PC and Stadia.

Darksiders Genesis won't be available on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 until February 2022, so if y'all desire to experience it, you should either play it on PC or Stadia. If y'all don't have a gaming laptop or desktop, you should check it out on Stadia because it's the get-go reason to subscribe to Google's service in my opinion. It's but that good.

Spin-off

Darksiders Genesis box art

Darksiders Genesis

Introducing the Horseman Strife

Darksiders Genesis is a summit-down spin-off from the master series that follows the Horseman Strife and his brother War. Team up with a friend and get gear up for some co-op action.

The game was reviewed on Shadow and Stadia with codes provided by the publisher.

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