THQ Nordic has dropped a teaser for a new Darksiders game.
A few days ago, THQ Nordic shared the trailer as part of this year’s THQ Nordic Digital Showcase. The trailer shows the Charred Council reviving, flames in sockets and maws glowing brightly, and ending with the words “Be prepared to ride again.” It also shows the logo of publisher THQ Nordic and developer Gunfire Games.
The announcement comes a week after Gunfire Games revealed the end of support for their critically acclaimed title, Remnant II. Its third and final DLC, The Dark Horizon, is coming this month in September.
It’s likely that Gunfire has been working on both Remnant II and this new Darksiders game simultaneously for some time now. While some fans wish that Gunfire would make their games and content quicker, they scheduled this tease because they knew that they would be ready to deliver it sooner rather than later.
We don’t have a date or platforms for this for now, but we’re confident it’s closer to ending than starting development, because of the way video game marketing works nowadays. With games taking a minimum five years in development, developers can’t announce a game at the start of one year to release them next year. So it’s common for games to be completely kept under wraps until when they’re ready to release.
It’s quite a trip for the Darksiders franchise overall. The first game was developed by Vigil Games, and published by the original THQ in 2010. 14 years later, Darksiders has survived the end of its original publisher and developer. Its current developer, Gunfire Games, also survived the wave of layoffs that hit its parent company, Embracer. We lament to this day the sudden end of Saints Row and Timesplitters, and their respective studios Volition and Free Radical, but somehow, we still have Darksiders.
And the franchise is somehow in the best position it could be for a comeback. Gunfire Games will be coming off of their most financially and critically successful title to date, and their own reputation can elevate Darksiders from being a popular AA, to the next big action game.
Spoilers follow below.
Darksiders fans are now left speculating on what this new game could possibly be, because of the lore established by the previous games. The Darksiders revolves around a supernatural militia called The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who were blamed for the extinction of the human race after Hell invades Earth.
The Four Horsemen, named War, Death, Fury, and Strife, are all split apart to undergo different missions in the fallout of these events. Each game tells us the story of each of the Horsemen, and what they did in the interim. But even the first game tells us that the four would eventually reunite, to face the story’s true antagonists, the Charred Council.
So, the obvious question here, is is this game the one where the Horsemen finally fight the Charred Council? And how will Gunfire Games set this up for what had mostly been a single player action game series?
Gunfire Games leaned on procedural generation, Soulslike shooter gameplay, and cooperative online multiplayer, with Remnant II. So are these the elements we should expect for the next Darksiders game? The franchise has not hesitated to take risks and switch everything up, so they really could try anything.
You can watch the Darksiders teaser trailer below.
