Darksiders II opens with Death, the most feared of the Four Horsemen, on an errand no one asked him to run. His brother War is blamed for wiping out humanity. Death does not argue the case. He sets out to undo the crime.
Vigil Games built the 2012 sequel around that premise, and THQ published it for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and as a launch title for Wii U in November of that year. It is a hack and slash action role-playing game, the follow-up to Darksiders, and it cost $50 million to develop. That figure made it one of the most expensive video games ever made.
Trailer, via PlayStation.
Death Carries Two Scythes
You play as Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He is nimble and agile, capable of acrobatic feats that let you move through the world in ways the first game never allowed. His primary weapons are two scythes, one in each hand.
Secondary weapons split into two camps. Hammers, axes and maces are the slow options. Gauntlet-style weapons give you claws and bladed arm extensions — faster, with less range and power.
Movement is its own system. Death swims, runs along walls, and climbs specially placed wooden elements like wall pegs and beams. Later he acquires Death Grip, a grappling hook that works on certain objects, and Voidwalker.
Despair, Dust and the Open World
The maps are vast. Each holds open world regions you can explore freely on foot or on horseback. Death rides Despair, a horse available in open areas of the overworld for faster travel. A raven named Dust guides him to objectives.
Dungeons hold the quest objectives. You can fast travel between map points instantly, and inside a dungeon you can jump back to the overworld while saving your location — no lost progress when you return.
The puzzle work is constant. Levers, doors, elevators and portals stand between you and the next area. Most of the time you need a key or a specific power to pass.
Customize your experience with varied armor sets, weapons, and skill trees allowing players to create their own Death.
That line is the game’s own promotional copy, and it is a fair description of the systems underneath it.
The Crowfather Breaks the Amulet
The story runs parallel to the first game. The Four Horsemen — War, Strife, Fury and Death — are the last of the Nephilim, cursed fusions of angels and demons who warred on all Creation for a place to live. The Charred Council gave them power in exchange for slaughtering their kin.
Death cut down the last of their brethren himself: Absalom, the first Nephilim. He secretly kept the Nephilim souls in an amulet, defying the Council, and gave it to the Keeper of Secrets, the Crowfather.
With War blamed, Death goes to the Icy Veil seeking proof of his brother’s innocence and a way to restore Earth. The Crowfather tells him to go to the Tree of Life and demands the amulet back. Death refuses. The Crowfather attacks him in the shape of War.
Death kills him. The Crowfather shatters the amulet and drives the fragments into Death’s chest before sending him through a portal.
The Forge Lands and the Guardian
Death wakes in the Forge Lands, a world of the Makers — physically imposing beings who are the architects of Creation. Their world, like many others, has been overrun by Corruption, a dark force that has blocked the Tree of Life and seized the Makers’ constructs.
Among those constructs is a massive Guardian built to fight the Corruption. With help from a Maker named Karn, Death reaches the tainted Guardian and destroys it, letting it be reassembled free of Corruption.
The plot then hands the Horseman a bigger problem than an earthly Apocalypse. An ancient grudge may threaten all of Creation.
Leveling, Loot and the Long Game
The role-playing layer is where Darksiders II earns its length. A full leveling system, skill trees and endless equipment combinations let you build the Death you want rather than the one the campaign hands you. Dozens of side quests sit alongside the main path, with main and side boss fights.
This is the part of the design that has aged best. The combat is solid but rarely surprising; the loot and skill choices are what keep a second run interesting. The open regions and the dungeon structure give the game a rhythm that holds up, even when a puzzle stalls the pace.
The $50 million budget shows in the scale, not always in the polish. The game reaches for a universe unlike anything seen before, delivered in the unique style of Joe Mad, and mostly gets there.
What Darksiders II Gets Right
Death as a character is the smartest call Vigil made. He is not War, and the game never pretends otherwise. He is quick where his brother was heavy, and the acrobatic movement turns traversal into something closer to play than commute.
Despair and Dust do quiet work too. A horse for speed and a raven for direction solve the two problems open worlds usually fumble: getting somewhere and knowing where to go.
The Crowfather sequence is the strongest stretch of storytelling in the game. It takes a fetch quest and turns it into a personal debt, then buries the fragments in Death’s chest as a physical reminder. That is a better hook than most action games of its era managed.
Where the Sequel Falls Short
Darksiders II is a confident sequel that fixes the first game’s stiffness without losing its identity. The parallel plot keeps War’s story intact while giving Death his own reasons, and the customization gives players a stake in a character who could easily have stayed a silhouette.
It is not flawless. The Corruption arc leans on familiar fantasy scaffolding, and the puzzle density will wear down players who came for combat. But the scale, the movement and the build variety carry it.
A ported version, Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition, followed in 2015 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows, published by Nordic Games, with a Nintendo Switch port in 2019 and a Google Stadia release in 2021. Darksiders III arrived in November 2018, and the spin-off prequel Darksiders Genesis in December 2019.
Fourteen years on, Darksiders II remains the high point of the series. The horseman who rides to clear his brother’s name is the one worth riding with.
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