HD remasters are all the rage right now and why not? Often, it’s a relatively easy cash grab by the studios to milk more money for old games on new systems. Some studios do it right with games like The Last of Us and the new Uncharted Collection while others simply port their games to next-gen consoles with little or no effort like the Prototype Biohazard Bundle; a release so disappointing it had soured me on third-party remasters… until now.
Thankfully Nordic Games has gone the extra mile with their newest remaster, Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition. Originally released in the summer of 2012, Darksiders II was easily one of my favorite games of that year – you can read our original review here. The game offered the perfect balance of action and adventure mixed with some nice roleplaying elements via the integrated skill tree and massive inventory system. Toss all that into an epic fantasy world rife with religious overtones and a quest to save the world and you have yourself a quest of at least 30-40 hours.
Nordic Games has built upon the solid foundation of the original reworking not only the graphics which now feature new lighting, shadows, and texture detail, all in native 1080p, but they even went into the game design and tweaked the loot distribution system – my one and only major complaint with the original. As an added bonus, the Deathinitive Edition comes loaded with all of the DLC adding even more items and quests, making this the best version of the game to date.
With so many other great games currently available and more coming every week it might be hard to recommend this game to those who already played it on last-gen consoles, but if this title escaped your radar in 2012 you could do a whole lot worse than checking it out now. Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition is a fantastic remaster worth playing…and if you have a spare 30 hours…worth replaying.
