The dissolution of THQ last year was a heavy blow to the gaming industry. The company was responsible for creating excellent series such as Saints Row, Company of Heroes, Homefront, Red Faction, Warhammer 40K, and of course, Darksiders. These franchises were later bough by other companies who said they are planning to continue the good work of THQ. Both Darksiders and Red Faction were acquired by Nordic Games, an Austrian-based publisher best known for their work on Alan Wake, Spellforce 2, Painkiller, and Arcania: (“not really”) Gothic 4. GenGame had the opportunity of talking a bit about the future of the franchises with Nordic Games’ product development director Reinhard Pollice. The interview took place back at E3 2014, but was only posted recently.
“We’re right now at the stage where we are looking at all possible design directions for the Darksiders franchise,” Pollice said. “I think the Darksiders franchise is well lined out, in terms of what gameplay mechanics worked out really well. Darksiders I and II teased certain things and obviously we don’t want to disappoint people. So we really want to sit back a bit, take a look at what possible angles we can take for the next Darksiders game, and also work with the right people on that.”
Pollice revealed that Nordic Games is still in contact with some of the people who worked on previous Darksiders titles including Joe Madureira and David Adams. The two have been hired by Crytek USA after THQ subsidiary Vigil Games closed its doors. “They still love Darksiders. I don’t know if they will tell it publicly, but they do. We are talking to those guys, but that’s all I want to say right now.”
Before shutting down Vigil Games hinted that Darksiders 3 might feature something along the lines of a four-player co-op mode with War, Fury, Strife, and Death as playable characters. Pollice says this is still a possibility, but the main focus will be the single player campaign. Unfortunately he didn’t mention which of the characters we’ll get to play in the next installation, but he does say that Darksiders most definitely has a future. “Definitely don’t pull it off the radar,” Pollice said. “Just watch out. Check out what we’re announcing. There will be a future for Darksiders. There has to be a future for Darksiders… ”
“Darksiders is always awesome and it will continue to be awesome. It’s a rule. That’s like a rule. In the rules of the world, it is written, Darksiders must be be awesome, or is awesome,” he concluded.