At a recent developer conference call, two members of devleoper Rebellion talked about The Darkness II, out this Tuesday for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. The game takes place two years after the events of the first one released in 2007, and players once again reprise the role of Jackie, a mob hitman who was consumed by The Darkness when his girlfriend was violenty murdered by a rival mob. In the last two years, Jackie went from being a “lowly” hitman to becoming a full-blown don.
But his personal demons stemming from the violent loss of his girlfriend still trouble him. Additionally, The Brotherhood, a group dedicated to taking control of The Darkness for its own purposes, is after Jackie. After a failed attempt on Jackie’s life, The Darkness re-awakens and is thirsty for flesh and blood. As Jackie, players will be able control a variety of realistic guns and The Darkness itself. The ability to quad-wield two guns and two Darkness tendrils gives ample room for creativity in combination attacks and executions (heart-eating, spine-smashing, etc). These abilities are unlocked and upgraded via the Talent Tree. Jackie can call upon the assistance of a Darkling, a separate creature to help keep Jackie on the right path in terms of level-navigation and also to dim the lights.
Light is a severe detriment to The Darkness, and as such, enemies will use light to their advantage to stifle Jackie’s ability. Rebellion also mentioned that the enemies will seek to disarm your guns too, so, you may find yourself in some potentially difficult, but manageable, spots when the lights take out your ability to use The Darkness and the enemy soldiers have temporarily disarmed you.
Despite gameplay that would seem to focus almost exclusively on violent FPS action, Rebellion made it clear that they put a lot of effort into crafting a good story. Writer Paul Jenkins penned a narrative exclusively for the game. The Darkness II will also include deliberately slower areas to give players a change of pace from the fast-paced action. Similar to the subway in the original game, these areas will mix up the pacing of the game and allow for additional character and plot devleopments to unfold.
When asked about the strengths of Evolution Engine that was used to create the game, Rebellion responded that one of its primary strengths is in creating believable realtime dynamic lighting, which is crucial to the gameplay. The cel-shaded look was also adopted fairly early on and will give the game a more comicbook look to it. Additionally, the coders of the engine are in house, meaning the creative director(s) could get his artists and coders together to make some very interesting environments.
The Darkness II will have only co-op multiplayer, no deathmatch, and it is known as Vendettas. Jackie is not part of Vendettas, instead, four new characters are introduced. They are complete with names and a brief history, and, a unique weapon. None of them are as consumed by The Darkness as Jackie, but each can use their respective weapons (samurai sword, shotgun, etc) with Darkness-enabled tweaks. The two modes you can play with these newcomers include Campaign and Hit List. Campaign is the more fleshed-out of the two and sees the players battling CPU AI to obtain miscellaneous items that have the essence of Darkness. Vendettas is more to the point of action and also drop in/out friendly.
Stay tuned for more coverage of The Darkness II including a review in the coming days.
