THQ Nordic, publishers of the Darksiders games and recent jankfest Elex, have bought Koch Media, the companies have announced. Koch are the father-company of Deep Silver, who publish games like Saints Row, Metro, Dead Island, and Homefront: The Revolution. That means THQ Nordic now own alllll of those bad boys, among others. Due to all the combined plates this company now spins, they could now make a game where the hero of Mighty No. 9 fights jazzy paint-monster De Blob in a doomed bid for supremacy on Mars, aka, Red Faction 3. Although, they probably shouldn’t do that.
]]>Update: Yup, it's now official. THQ Nordic have announced that Darksiders 3 is coming in 2018, made with the former Vigil Games folks at Gunfire Games.
It seems a Darksiders 3 [official site] will indeed rise from the ruins of THQ with more Apocalyptic action, as listings for it have unexpectedly popped up on Amazon. This time, Fury will be the Horseman riding out to duff up monsters. This is not officially official yet, mind, as Darksiders owner THQ Nordic haven't announced any such game. But the Amazon listing is right there and doesn't look like a prank. THQ Nordic have said for years that they wanted to make a third Darksiders, so here we go?
]]>OOGILY BOOGILY BOOGA BOO!
I apologise for shaking you ｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｖｅｒｙ ｃｏｒｅ ｏｆ ｙｏｕｒ ｂｅｉｎｇ, leaving you with fingernails bitten ｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｂｏｎｅ as you sit in ａ ｗａｒｍ ａｍｍｏｎｉａｃ ｓｏｐ, but it's important that I prepare you for Hallowe'en shocks. And for this next ｓｐｉｎｅ－ｃｈｉｌｌｉｎｇ surprise: Darksiders: Warmastered Edition [official site] has been delayed. The revamped rerelease of Vigil Games' 2010 Apocalyptic action-adventure was due on October 25th, in time for the day we all know as The Big Spooky, but publishers THQ Nordic have pushed it back by one month.
]]>THQ is dead, long live NordicTHQ. The world's greatest purveyor of Good 7/10 Action Games sadly succumbed to bankruptcy and closed down in 2013, but most of its assets, studios and franchises were bought up by various other firms. Gearbox got Homeworld, Sega got Relic, Deep Silver got Saints Row and young Swedish publisher Nordic Games got Darksiders, Red Faction, Supreme Commander and a bunch of other stuff left among the ashes. As well as, it transpires, the THQ name. Nordic is now to be known as 'THQNordic'.
]]>2010's Apocalyptic (that's with a capital A) hack 'n' slash Darksiders [official site] is being revamped for a prettied-up re-release, like its sequel already has. And like the sequel with its 'Deathinitive Edition' subtitle, Darksiders is picking up a dreadful title: the Warmastered Edition. Like 'remastered', yeah? But War because the game's about that surly fella out the Four Horseman? The preponderance of puns is the surest sign of the impending end times, if you ask me. But this surely brings us closer to a Darksiders III?
]]>Opinion is divided over the Darksiders games. There are those who wrongly don't like them, while far better looking people recognise what a tip-top third-person action-adventure biff-me-do they truly are. And right now they're 90% off on Steam. I'm not usually one to make a post because a single game is having a sale, but bloody hell, £4.50 for both of them?!
]]>Can even the Four Horsemen survive an apocalyptic event? Nordic Games hope so. When THQ went down in flames, Nordic bought up Darksiders - but not its creators, Vigil Games - and (naturally) declared that the hack 'n' slash action-RPG was not dead. While some assumed this would mean a Darksiders III, Nordic were a little vague, and the first we saw of DS again was the revamped Deathinitive Edition of Darksiders II - which hit PC last week. Worry not, they do indeed want to make a third game, and hope this re-release will help them with that.
]]>What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 10 of the sale.
]]>The ghost of THQ is still with us today as some of the publisher’s greatest hits find new life on GOG. Deep Silver and Nordic Games, who bought the rights after THQ's demise, have released Saints Row 2 + 3, Darksiders 1 + 2 and Metro: Last Light Redux on the digital store, all at a discounted price until May 18th.
This is the first time any of these games have been made available completely DRM free.
]]>Update: Confirmation/statement from Nordic Games below. The short version? "We can and will not settle for second-best solutions in the case of Darksiders."
Original: Things were not looking so great for, er, Death for a little bit there. THQ had a run-in with its own sort of reaper, and the Darksiders license sat in limbo seemingly unwanted for ages. That is, until Nordic Games scooped it up along with roughly one trillion other pieces of THQ's flaming wreckage. But it's not like the Painkiller: Hell & Damnation publisher can just churn out sequels to everything from Red Faction to Supreme Commander. You'd figure, then, that Darksiders is probably stuck on the sidelines - not pushing up daisies, but not pushing blocks or scything occult beasties either. Former series creative director Joe Madureira, however, claims we might not have to wait long to see something new after all.
]]>OK, Nordic Games, the jig's up. You can go ahead and change your name to THQ II: The Rise Of Mecha-Bilson already, because seriously, you just purchased the publisher's legacy. Sure, Gearbox snagged Homeworld, and the company's modern heavy hitters found new, loving homes, but Nordic now (pending court approval) owns nearly everything else. Red Faction? Yep. Darksiders? Oh, certainly. And oh man, Titan Quest? Sure, why not. Supreme Commander too. And hey, remember Full Spectrum Warrior? I must admit, I - along with my good friend, Basically The Entire World - had forgotten about it, but Nordic deemed the military tactics sorta-sim worth salvaging. Here's the kicker, though: all those? Only the tip of the iceberg.
]]>Every dark cloud has a silver lining. It's a delightfully optimistic statement, though in truth, it's not always, well, true. (Note: I mean this in the metaphorical sense. I don't claim to be an expert on clouds' relative silver content, as I still believe they're made of cotton candy.) Case in point: at first, it sure seemed like Darksiders dev Vigil Games would be getting some of said rain in its gothic Death mascara while everyone else found new homes in the wake of THQ's collapse. But now, that dark cloud within a silver-lined dark cloud has found a different silver lining. On the wings of nanosuit-clad angels, Crytek's descended to save the day. Or, well, most of it, anyway.
]]>Update: I got in touch with the Humble Bundle folks to find out more about how this out-of-nowhere partnership came about. See what they had to say after the break.
Original: I was incredibly tempted to begin this post with a joke about how the charity slider on this Humble Bundle is redundant, because THQ is already basically a charity. That would be mean, though, so I opted to-- oops, I already did it. Hm. Shame backspace was never invented. Anyway, the latest bundle of densely packaged humility puts the spotlight on a decidedly non-indie THQ, but oh well. Indie's a pretty terrible word when it's used to write off great games because they weren't coded by a half-person team in a garage-bedroom constantly beset by subarctic winds and ravenous wolverines. So, right then, let's take a look inside.
]]>Jim posted this yesterday, assuming it was a leak and that it would be pulled down quickly. He was right on both counts, the smooth little genius, but now the same trailer's been officially released and awaits you below. Seeing as this is a video of a video game you might possibly play down the line, in watching this trailer you are, essentially, gazing into your own future. You ever think of it like that?
]]>First there was ultra-bombastic supernatural sword-swinger Darksiders, and now there is two of it. The sequel, which was announced earlier this week, will features a different horseman of the apocalypse as its main protagonist - Death instead of War - and you can see a little of him in action below. I'm afraid the linked trailer quality for this one is in Super(bad) Grain-o-vision, as if filmed from a TV set in the 1980s, but I'll try and update it with something a bit better if I manage to dig it out. EDIT: New vid up. Presumably it's a leak of some kind, so go take a look before it gets zapped.
The PC version of THQ's demonic hack 'em up adventure Darksiders is out today, and I've been having a bit of play. In it you thump your way through the hyperbolic story a fallen horseman of the apocalypse. With an ultimate goal of cosmic revenge, you chop many unpleasant creatures into pieces with a sword the size of an ironing board. A satisfying undertaking, you might think. And perhaps a welcome break from World War II RTS titles, too? Well, read on for some more thoughts.
]]>THQ have dropped us a line to mention that console hack-n-slash business Darksiders will be coming to PC in June. Not played it myself, but I've heard good things, so this is pleasing. It's a game about WAR, whose name must be spelled in all-capitals and shouted if you say it out loud, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, doing harm to demons and stuff. Vigil Games' David Adams says this: “We are really excited to have the opportunity to bring Darksiders to the global PC audience. We feel that the growth of digital distribution and PC online communities creates a great environment for our game. We are working really hard to make sure that key features such as user-defined resolutions, interface and both keyboard and game pad control sets are all up to the standards for today’s discerning PC consumer.” That's YOU, because you discern all the time. Hooray! (Original launch trailer below.)
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