THQ Nordic's spending spree continues. After buying Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios and Gothic developer Piranha Bytes earlier this year it's now opened its wallet for Gunfire Games, the studio behind Darksiders 3 and shooter Remnant From the Ashes, which comes out next week.

Gunfire Games and its 63-strong development team will remain an "independent development studio under THQ Nordic", the publisher said. "The team will...[have] full creative freedom and maintained relationships with current publishing partners. Gunfire will continue to be led by CEO David Adams and all active founders will remain in their current roles," it said.

"Through the acquisition THQ Nordic adds a strong team of RPG experts and award-winning VR developers with an existing intellectual property IP portfolio and an exciting new game pipeline." In addition to Darksiders 3, Gunfire is known for its VR games, which include the excellent third-person action-RPG Chronos.

The publisher did not disclose the purchase price, but said it expects to recoup its investment within three to four years as Gunfire releases more games.

THQ Nordic published Darksiders 3 and acquired the rights to the Darksiders franchise in 2013 when publisher THQ went bankrupt, so the deal isn't a huge shock.

Gunfire Games' Adams said: “Having worked together on the development of Darksiders, we are confident that becoming part of THQ Nordic is a great next step for Gunfire. I believe that the experience and publishing capabilities of THQ Nordic will be important in supporting our growth journey and enabling us to continue doing what we love—making great games. We are excited to continue working together going forward.” 

On the same day it announced the deal, THQ Nordic also revealed it planned to change its name to Embracer Group in September. Embracer Group will be the name of the parent company, which three operating groups beneath it: Koch Media/Deep Silver, Coffee Stain and THQ Nordic GmbH.

We were a bit lukewarm on it, but Darksiders 3 looks like it's performed as well as publisher THQ Nordic had hoped, and Darksiders remains one of the publisher's key series. 

It's a simpler, more combat-focused outing than its predecessors, lacking in the puzzle, platforming and loot departments. Samuel Horti gave it 63 in his Darksiders 3 review, but despite a slightly tepid critical reception, it's sold well enough to recoup its investments and marketing budget, according to THQ Nordic's latest financial report.  

To give the game another boost, DLC is due out this year. DLC was always part of the plan, however, with two new adventures announced in 2018. 

Elsewhere in the report, CEO Lars Wingefors also touched on the subject of distribution platforms and "new entrants". 

"I see the gaming market as more vibrant than ever before," Wingeforms wrote. "There is an ongoing shift in distribution platforms and technologies, involving both established companies and large new entrants. I am in general embracing new opportunities and technology advancements that will enable us to distribute our content more efficiently and to a broader base of fans and gamers. This will challenge established business models, make room for new business partnerships and present a wide array of new opportunities."

Through Deep Silver, owned by THQ Nordic, it seems the publisher has already started to take advantage of these "new opportunities". Metro Exodus, which launched on Friday, is an Epic Store exclusive, at least for a year. 

Cheers, PCGamesN.

EA has added a handful of third-party games to its Origin Access Premier service: Darksiders 3, management game This is The Police 2 and surveillance game Beholder 2. It's the first time that non-EA games are being made available exclusively to Premier subscribers.

The basic Origin Access, which is $5/£4 a month or $30/£20 a year, has an ever-expanding "vault" of 167 games, which you can download and play at any time as part of your subscription. Origin Access Premier—$15/£15 a month or $100/£90 a year—has an extra seven. Previously, they only included new EA games such as FIFA 19 and Battlefield 5, but now it appears EA is happy to add newer third-party games too.

The games were added before Christmas, but I still think it's worth mentioning now because it suggests that EA might add more third-party games to the Premier subscription in future.

It also further differentiates the Premier from the Basic tier: as Samuel wrote last month, Premier is only really worth it if you love sports games and shooters, but that could change if it gets some excellent non-EA games. Personally, I'm still happy with my Basic subscription, but I'll be keeping a close eye on what games are added going forward.

Darksiders 3, which came out last month, is a decent action game marred by a few flaws, as I wrote in my review. This is The Police 2 is pretty poor, judging by Tom's review. He said it had a solid core but "too much bloat". I know less about Beholder 2, a state surveillence game that came out this month, but Andy was intrigued after spending a few hours with the first game. 

EA also added eight games to the basic Origin Access vault earlier this month, including Star Wars Battlefront 2, Knights of the Old Republic (both 1 and 2) and A Way Out. The full list is:

• Star Wars Battlefront 2
• A Way Out
• The Count Lucanor
• The LEGO Movie Videogame
• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2
• Star Wars Rebel Assault
• Star Wars Rebel Assault 2

Darksiders 3 has added a new 'Classic' combat mode aimed at making fights feel similar to the first two games in the series. The biggest change is that you can now interrupt attacks with a dodge move—previously, when you committed to an attack you had to see it through until Fury stopped swinging her weapon.

Classic mode will also let you use items instantly, which means you'll be able to heal without worrying that Fury will die during the animation (something that happened to me quite a lot during my playthrough). 

You'll be able to select between the new combat mode and the default settings when you load up any save game or when you start a new game.

The update also adds some checkpoints so you can save progress more often, boosts the damage that you do in Havoc form, fixes crashes, and introduces a new item that lets you refill your Nephilim’s Respite healing flask at the Vulgrim shops. You can read the patch notes for the full list of changes.

The changes all sound positive, although I'm still not sure Darksiders 3 is worth splashing out on until it gets a significant sale. As I wrote in my review, the combat is punchy and the setting very pretty, but the camera is wonky, its puzzles too simple, and the lack of proper loot means you can't customise Fury as much as I'd hoped.

Darksiders 3's first patch following its release this week has introduced multiple performance fixes and made its easiest difficulty mode, called Story, even "more forgiving". 

Difficulty on Story mode wasn't something that bothered me when I played it for my review, but it's not the relaxing, no-danger stroll that some players would've hoped for. Part of the difficulty adjustment comes from changes to protagonist Fury's invulnerability window when she dodges—you're invulnerable for longer on the easiest difficulty, while on other difficulties it's been "adjusted", although Gunfire games doesn't say in which direction (I assume it's been made more generous).

The patch also promises "better readability" for hit indicators. This could perhaps help address my biggest issue with the game, which was its inflexible camera. If the patch makes it more obvious where off-screen enemies are, particularly any that are about to strike from behind, it'd be a positive step.

The performance changes should "significantly reduce stuttering in high-density areas", Gunfire Games said. The game ran relatively smoothly for me, although I did experience a couple of judders. 

The patch is not yet available to all players: it's part of a testing branch of the game so that Gunfire can make sure it doesn't break anything critical before rolling it out widely. If you want in, you can activate the patch by following the instructions here.

When you fight small groups of demons as the nimble Fury (who's one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), Darksiders 3 feels special. She’s agile and responsive when you tell her to dodge, and she swings her weapons in flashy arcs of elemental magic that send sparks dancing from enemy to enemy. It all looks fantastic. But when taking on larger packs, the clunky lock-on camera makes fights frustrating, and outside of combat, the platforming and puzzling are far too lightweight. It’s been six years since the last Darksiders game, and this is a far cry from the return I’d hoped for.

The Charred Council have tasked Fury with stopping the apocalypse by defeating the seven deadly sins. To reach those bosses you’ll travel a semi-open world, plough through waves of enemies, solve puzzles and navigate platforming sections.

The grunts are impressively varied: demon children chuck toxic goo, winged angels summon clones, and four-armed brutes hide behind steel shields. Their unique abilities combined with Fury’s fragility—she’ll go down in three heavy strikes—means you'll have to fight with caution, noting attack patterns before diving in.

I enjoyed this ponderous approach when facing four enemies or fewer. Pulling the left trigger locks the camera onto one, and you can switch between targets by flicking the right stick, directing your strikes. Dodge as an enemy swings and you’ll trigger slow motion, setting up satisfying counters that you can combo into other moves, attacking with both your default whip and one of four other weapons you’ll pick up at fixed points in the story. 

But when you fight multiple enemies—which is most of the time—the pulled-in camera doesn’t play along. Enemies to your back or sides often jump in from off-screen and hit you in one movement, which feels unfair. A white marker warns you when that’s going to happen, but keeping track of these markers, the enemies in front of you, and far-off ranged attackers is too much to ask, and I constantly felt like I was wrestling with the lock-on to focus on the right target.

Difficulty is therefore uneven: it feels right for small groups of hard-hitting enemies, but battling larger groups of often weaker foes is frustrating. Boss difficulty is similarly wonky. One-on-one battles, including in the late-game, are too easy: learn the attack pattern, dodge at the right time and counter punch. But when I fought bosses that summon minions, like the giant bug Sloth, I ran into the same camera problems as when I faced big groups of grunts, which makes them feel disproportionately hard. 

The seven sins draw on familiar tropes—underwater sea monsters, giant bugs, a huge man in fire armour—but they all have different quirks that stop them feeling boring. Sloth, for example, sits on a throne carried by smaller bugs, directing his army. Chip away his health bar and he’ll jump out of his seat, swinging a giant club.

He’s also wonderfully sarcastic and has a cutting tongue—more than can be said for most of the cast. I caught glimpses of the unabashed corniness that drew me to the first two games, but Darksiders 3 takes itself too seriously. Fury changes too much during the story, and too suddenly, for it to feel like a natural character arc, which makes it hard to care come the finale.

Outside of combat, puzzling and platforming are underwhelming. There’s no wall-running or climbing as in Darksiders 2—you’ll be whip-swinging between conveniently-placed metal bars a lot, which offers little challenge. Puzzles are unimaginative early on: I lost count of how many times I had to lead a bug to a pool of fire, watch it fill up with flames, and throw it at a cobweb to reveal a path.

The puzzles are better in the last third, where you’ll have to combine powers you pick up during the story in quick succession. In one, I used my force power to knock a beam round and round, following up with stasis to freeze it in place when it was perfectly positioned for me to use as a swinging anchor point. Hardly taxing, but it at least made me think.

Environments also improve as the game goes on. For the first four hours I was stuck squashing bugs in generic sewers, but above ground it’s very pretty. I fought demons on a crumbling highway, in underwater ruins, and in a broken city in which giant trees snake through windows. The art style is standard fantasy fare, but it’s bright and colourful. 

I like the flexibility in the order you can face some of the seven deadly sins, too. Your compass tells you the nearest one, but you can backtrack and explore to find others. Sadly, the lack of proper loot—you won’t find any weapons or armour—gives you little reason to poke around the environments. Side paths yield resources for upgrading your weapons, but you’re just bumping up damage output, and there are only a handful of unique enchantments to slot into weapons, such as one that heals you as you deal damage, which isn't especially interesting.

With less loot to grab, simplified platforming and easy puzzles, Darksiders 3 leans harder on its combat than previous games. And while Fury packs a punch, the wonky camera makes fights more frustrating that they should be. It doesn’t condemn Darksiders to oblivion, but it’s the lowlight of the series so far.

I’m a wee bit worried, pals. Darksiders 3, resurrected by THQ Nordic, is almost upon us, and I can’t muster up very much enthusiasm. Tom found Darksiders 3 under-featured and underwhelming when he took a preview build for a spin, and now the intro trailer is making me very eager for a nap. Unfortunately, this tale of Fury and the apocalypse begins with an exhausting lore dump. Cure your sleep deprivation by checking it out, above. 

Another trailer from last week makes a better impression, thankfully absent long exposition. There’s plenty of magic, murder and one angry Horseman. Lamentably, there’s also quite a lot of questionable combat animations and hideous urban ruins, calling to mind the blandest environments from the first game. I don’t want to be the jerk who says it looks like a game from 2010, but it looks like a game from 2010.

"I can feel Darksiders’ spirit in here somewhere, but the level feels empty," Tom wrote. "There are no platforming sections. There are no treasure chests full of weapons. There is some very light puzzling, involving throwing insects at web barriers. Mostly you just run through some gloomy corridors and squash some giant crabs."

Part of me is still a little sore that Gunfire Games has kicked all the fun RPG stuff from Darksiders 2 out, turning it into more of a straightforward action game. It had such a transformative effect on the series, elevating it from a solid action romp with some cool comic book character designs into a meaty epic that appealed to anyone who wanted to explore a striking world or tackle some brain teasers, not just action nuts. 

Darksiders 3 is due out on November 27. Expect our review soon. 

Darksiders 3 feels like a throwback to the first game. Back then we played as War, a thundering brick of angry flesh who enjoyed pummeling enemies with a big hammer. The new hero, Fury, has a hammer too, though she tends to lash her insectoid foes to bits with a whip in sharp, satisfying combos. Both characters love to press forward and break everything in their path, but after a couple of hours with a playable preview build, Fury’s adventure feels like a bit of a retrograde step after the rich, colourful world of Darksiders 2.

I can feel Darksiders’ spirit in here somewhere, but the level feels empty. There are no platforming sections. There are no treasure chests full of weapons. There is some very light puzzling, involving throwing insects at web barriers. Mostly you just run through some gloomy corridors and squash some giant crabs.

I have access to three of Fury’s weapons: the Barbs of Scorn, the Mallet of Scorn, and the Chains of Scorn, and digging into the menu screens here we find some numbers that hint at some depth and progression systems. You can slot ‘Enchantments’, in this case a ‘Demonic Fortifier +1 that adds 6 percent physical and arcane damage, and a five percent health boost. It doesn’t look like weapons and armour will drop as loot. I’d guess Enchantments are the main way to upgrade your weapons, and there is a section of your inventory dedicated to ingredients that a character called ‘Ulthane’ can mould into new weapon boosts. In addition, Fury herself has health, strength and arcane stats that you can increase with attribute points.

Personally, I will miss the ongoing visual character changes that loot allows for, but it looks like there will be some numbers to play with, and Darksiders has always leant heavily into the ‘action’ part of action RPG. You fight with a familiar array of light whip attacks and heavy secondary weapon attacks. You dodge with the right-bumper, and if you dodge at just the right moment you can respond with a powerful slam with your weapon of choice. Weapons have powerful abilities that hurt enemies and, in the case of Fury’s purple rock explosion power, be used to traverse the level—one trailer shows fury using the purple rocks to climb a wall of crystal. Sadly, there's no sign of any finishing moves.

The environment’s a bit underwhelming too. Darksiders has lots of dungeons, but particularly in the second game, there were outdoor areas too with a sense of scale and adventure. You even got to ride around on your horse of the apocalypse fighting titanic bosses in game two. Most of the screenshots and videos of Darksiders 3 are set in similarly glum cave structures. D2 had its share of derivative areas, but you also got to dangle off a ghost ship pulled by two flying, angry leviathans.

There are reasons for hope here. The huge grasshopper boss shown recently has some of that old Darksiders flair. Where is the rest of the personality, though? In all of the marketing materials we’ve seen so far barely a word has been spoken by any characters. We know that the seven deadly sins have overrun Earth, but there’s no sense of context or drive to Fury’s journey in this preview build or really anywhere. Maybe, for a change, that’s all being saved for the November release. 

I really want Darksiders 3 to be good, because I've always had a surprisingly good time with the the series, and even ended up heading back into Darksiders 2’s DLC. Still, these few hours have put me back to ‘wait and see’ mode, even though I’m rooting for THQ Nordic to get it right. It's due out on November 27.

Darksiders 3 may be gearing up for its November 27 launch, but it's also now unveiled not one but two incoming DLC packs—The Crucible and Keepers of the Void. 

With the promise of new puzzles, challenges items and enemies, the former sees fiery protagonist Fury summoned by a strange entity. Never one to back away from a challenge, says publisher THQ Nordic, Fury heads for the eponymous Crucible to lock horns with waves of hell-born baddies. 

Keepers of the Void, on the other hand, offers similar material goods, but sees Fury embarking on a quest from Vulgrim. Only by removing an ancient threat from The Serpent Holes can Fury claim "the biggest prize of them all"—'The Abyssal Armour'. Sounds ominous.

No hard release date on any of that as yet, but expect Fury's further adventures in the weeks and months that follow Darksiders 3's November 27 arrival. Till then, have another gander at the Force Hollow trailer that landed last week:

THQ has released a new trailer for Darksiders 3, which reveals more about how the game’s modular combat will work.

Titled “Force Fury”, the minute-long video demonstrates the third horseman’s unique combat style. As well as being a harbinger of the endtimes, Fury is apparently a mage, empowered with a range of abilities called “Hollows” that enable her to evolve into different forms. 

The form demonstrated in the video is her Force form, which centres around concussive and telekinetic powers. This includes the ability to pick up chunks of rock from the world and hurl them at opponents. It also turns her hair purple.

The video shows off some suitably apocalyptic environments, and as you'd expect plenty of combat. In one section, Fury squares off against what I can only describe as a giant, morbidly obese grasshopper, which suggests there will be some intriguing boss encounters in the game. In fact, here's an image of the big cricket you'll be battering.

THQ provided some more information about Fury’s powers. “Her so-called Hollows are powers bestowed upon her by the Hollow Lord to help her lead the Horsemen and defeat the Seven Deadly Sins. Once she's unlocked them, Fury can switch between her four Hollows at will to adapt to her enemies and environment.” Fury will apparently use these powers to battle “from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell” as players explore a “free-form planet Earth.”

It’s been six years since Darksiders 2 let us roam the Forge Lands as Death himself. In that time its developer, Vigil Games, died and rose anew as Crytek USA. That studio was then downsized after Crytek ran into trouble, and the core team reformed again as Gunfire Games, who are developing Darksiders 3. 

Evidently it's been a turbulent few years for the series and the people behind it. Despite this, however, Darksiders 3 looks sufficiently in keeping with the previous games’ Zelda-ish blend of environmental puzzle solving and combat.

Darksiders 3 launches on November 27. If Gunfire can pull-off everything they’re aiming to do, Darksiders 3 could yet prove to be this year’s surprise hit.