Why Darksiders Is Still the Best God of War Clone 16 Years Later

1 week ago 4

Published Jun 2, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

Ben Veress is a Contributing Features Writer at DualShockers based in Melbourne, Australia. He has been covering games professionally since 2021, with experience writing features, lists, reviews, and news across gaming, tech, culture, and entertainment.

Before joining DualShockers, Ben wrote for Kotaku AU, Gizmodo AU, Vice AU, Pedestrian.TV, Quest Daily, Blunt Magazine, Impulse Gamer, and Inkl. At Pedestrian.TV, he served as the publication’s sole tech and gaming writer, leading coverage of major gaming releases and events for one of Australia’s major youth publications. He holds a Bachelor of Communications in Media from RMIT University and was nominated for Best Branded Content Journalist at the Australian Samsung IT Awards in 2025.

16 years ago, THQ Nordic and Vigil Games released their greatest masterpiece, Darksiders. For years, fans had been asking for a God of War-like series that would look at other pantheons of religion, and it would finally arrive in 2010 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Darksiders would see players take on the role of War, one of the Four Horseman of the apocalypse, as he'd fight against different interpretations of characters from the Abrahamic religions.

The game was spearheaded by comic artist Joe Madureira, whose passion for dark fantasy and comic-book art would lead him to start his very own video game studio, Vigil Games, and concoct the idea for the series. It was this background in comics that would lend to the game's distinct art style, and admittedly, simple storyline. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

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Being a wee lad with a penchant for edge lord media, pulling this game off the shelves of an EB Games (apologies, Australian here) would end up being one of the best risks I ever took on a random game. It was only within the first few moments of loading the title up and seeing the edgiest-looking protagonist turn into a Balrog, I knew I was in for something special.

Darksiders: Warmastered Edition released just the other week for the PS5, which prompted me to pick the title back up after almost a decade, and I immediately fell back in love with it.

Being that years have passed, and we're finally free from the "quick-time-event" contagion that plagued nearly all action games during the PS3 generation of gaming, I couldn't help but feel that Darksiders may have aged the best out of all of these games.

A Brief Recap of Events

I won't lie, Darksiders is a very straightforward game, and while its main plot is a tad bit predictable, the lore here is genuinely enticing.

The game opens with War arriving early to the apocalypse, mowing down angel and demon forces alike. During the conflict, in true Metroidvania fashion, War loses his powers, and is killed in a battle with a powerful demon. He later awakens in the lair of the Charred Council, a bureaucratic union between heaven and hell, who accuse War of breaking the sacred law and triggering the Apocalypse before it was due to happen. We also learn about the villainous "Destroyer", and that we somehow helped him, but that's all we learn for now.

To clear his name, War is sent back to earth to hunt down the forces who triggered the early apocalypse, and to kill whoever framed him. Eventually, you enlist the help of the demons Vulgrim and Samael, who trade with you and impart wisdom on your journey. It's here we learn that the Destroyer has taken over earth and installed powerful guards in key areas in the world.

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Along our journey to kill these evil demons, we pick up some important power-ups and gear that restore War to his former strength, and face off against the Destroyer, who we learn, is actually Abaddon, the leader of the Angels we saw die at the start of the game. Through the character Azrael, we learn of Abbadon's plot to destroy the forces of hell by breaking six of the seven seals to bring the demons to Earth, only to quietly repair them so it looks like hell were the instigators in the conflict.

Of course, someone leaks Abaddon's plans, and the demons are far more prepared for his revolt. After dying in battle, Abaddon is met by Lillith, who turns Abaddon into the Destroyer for some unknown reason we've been waiting 16 years to find out.

In a lot of ways, the story reminds me a lot of how BioWare writes narratives in their games. You have a fairly simple story on the surface, but there's a fully realized world underneath it, filled with characters who inhabit it and have their own motives separate from you. To me, this is one of the most endearing features of the game, and why it stands leagues above other God of War-inspired titles, as I actually care about this world, and want to learn more about it.

An Impressive Mix of Influences

Darksiders is a game that makes no apologies for what it is. It's edgy, it's colorful, it's inspired by comics, and it knows that it's following in the shadow of God of War. In saying that, what makes Darksiders stand out amongst similar titles released at the same time as Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, this game seeks to be more than just "God of War but Abrahamic religion", and is closer to a genre mash up of several great titles.

If you were to ask Madureira what game inspired him most, he'd actually say it was the 3D Legend of Zelda games like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, which clearly shines through in the games' color, and open-world design. You can also see the Twilight Princess influence throughout the game in how it approaches puzzle design, offering up some pretty difficult puzzles you can't simply coast through on autopilot. What really seals the deal on the influence, though, is the little jingle that plays whenever you solve one of these small puzzles, which is kind of a cute call back when you think about it.

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Speaking of puzzles, some of these also make certain references to other beloved games of its generation. In the final tower where you fight Straga, you'll receive a new item which is effectively a portal gun from Valve's beloved puzzle game, Portal. And it doesn't use this as a temporary gimmick, either. There are some complex puzzles designed with this mechanic, and you'll even be able to reach new collectibles in older areas thanks to it.

It's all of these elements coming together that demonstrate Vigil Games' impressive vision for this series, and how they're able to draw from all these different influences, and make something truly unique. I haven't even gone into the obvious homages to Blizzard IPs like World of Warcraft or Diablo here, but if you're a fan of those franchises, you'll definitely appreciate the nods to those games.

I think the greatest home run for Darksiders legacy is that its sequel, Darksiders 2, would introduce a new RPG loot system to the game. While fighting enemies, you'll be able to add items to your character, which will raise their overall item level and enable you to take on tougher bosses scattered throughout the game. It was only six years later that God of War would borrow a similar mechanic for its Norse reboot, letting players gear up Kratos and raise his very own armor class to take on tougher enemies in the game.

It's a small thing that cements Darksiders legacy as more than a God of War clone, but a companion piece that can stand next to it on the basis of its own ideas.

Where is the Darksiders Franchise Today?

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Unfortunately, the Darksiders franchise never quite picked up steam the way that it should have. Despite Darksiders 1 and 2 receiving pretty impressive acclaim, THQ Nordic would go bankrupt a few short months after the sequel would release, keeping the franchise in limbo for several years to come.

Thankfully, several developers from THQ and Vigil Studios would branch off to create two new studios, the first being Airship Syndicate, led by Joe Madureira, and would go on to make Darksiders Genesis in 2019, and Gunfire Games, made up of other Darksiders developers, who would go on to release Darksiders 3 in 2018.

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Due to them being made by smaller teams, and the Darksiders franchise losing all of its momentum, these games didn't quite make the splash that they needed to bring the franchise back to the zeitgeist. Given how beloved the previous two games were, Darksiders 3's smaller scale was also met with a fair bit of scrutiny, with some reviewers critiquing the game's linearity and short run time.

You have a fairly simple story on the surface, but there's a fully realized world underneath it, filled with characters who inhabit it and have their own motives separate from you.

This entry would also shift from its Zelda influence, and instead looked to the Soulslike genre, which came with some ludo narrative dissonance as Fury, the third horseman you play as here, felt too fragile as she'd go down in a few short hits. It also didn't help that the game was released in a pretty poor technical state, which hurt the series from drawing in new players.

An image of Darksiders 3's protagonist Fury

Still, by some miracle, it would be announced in 2024 that Gunfire Games were taking yet another swing at the franchise, and were actively developing a Darksiders 4. In the short trailer shown, it finally looks like we'll be getting a genuine sequel to the first Darksiders, which will see the story finally move forward after the events of the first game.

I'll admit, I'm approaching this one with some optimistic caution, but I'm hoping the team at Gunfire Games took on some lessons after Darksiders 3, and are whipping up something that goes beyond imitating the flavor-of-the-month at the time. The original Darksiders is a certified classic, not because it's a competent God of War clone, but because it's a celebration of so many beloved game design philosophies, which all come together to make something truly special.