Darksiders, or as I like to call it, The Legend of Hellda, is getting a sequel. THQ VP of Core Games Danny Bilson gave some details recently at the IGDA Leadership Forum about what the sequel might be about and who might be starring in it.
First, the bad news. War, the husky voiced protagonist of the first game, will not be the main character. This displeases me, especially considering the ending of the first game. I’m going to include some spoilers here. Do you mind? Because I don’t. At the end of Darksiders, War gets well and goodly fed up with all the shenanigans between Heaven and Hell and calls in his three best friends, the other Horsemen, to give him some backup in dealing with said shenanigans. So to see the sequel not dealing with that really cool premise…I dunno. I’m just confused now.
“It’s a different character and takes place simultaneously to the first game’s story, because there’s only one apocalypse, and has new mechanics and features that differentiate it a lot and grow it from the first game,” Bilson said. “You have to build on the first one; you can’t repeat it and I think that’s very important in franchise building.”
Bilson later said that the game was on a 24 month development schedule and that the new game was about 25 percent longer than the original. He also expressed his hopes on growing the Darksiders series into a big franchise.
“When we come out with a better, more exciting game we’ve got those people to market it for us, buy it themselves the second time around, and I believe we can grow the audience that way,” Bilson said. “So it’s a combination of a belief that at a certain penetration there’s a viral quality because of used games to how many people touched the game.” He later added, “If Darksiders 2 does 1.3 million there won’t be a third one. If it doesn’t grow, it just won’t support itself financially.”
Well, okay, so he’s really thinking about how to make Darksiders bigger and better. Still doesn’t make me feel better about not being War again. I better be playing as another Horseman. And you know what would really make me feel good? More Mark Hamill demon sidekick goodness. That would be fun.
The Legend of Hellda…I mean, Darksiders 2…comes out in 2012.
