Darksiders 2 combat design to be more "open ended"

Darksiders 2 players will discover all sorts of ways to combine Death's moves which aren't listed in the instructional manual; a conscious design decision by Vigil.

"We definitely played every combat game. It doesn’t matter if it’s considered the best game of all time or the worst game of all time. We play ‘em all. Obviously, we had the Zelda inspiration with the puzzles and stuff. But for combat, we are huge DMC and Bayonetta fans," combat designer Ben Cureton told Siliconera of the RPG's influences.

"We didn’t want to re-create DMC and Bayonetta, but we wanted to re-create the feeling of open-ended combat; allow players to come up with their own combos and be creative."

Cureton said the first game was "a little lacking" in allowing players to explore War's moves, so Vigil responded to fan feedback by making Death's abilities more open-ended. The result is a combatant who feels quite different from War.

"We didn’t just want people to play Darksiders 1.5, we wanted people to play Darksiders 2.5," Cureton added.

"We wanted to raise the bar on what they expected from our franchise, and not come in and feel like they were playing the exact same game. So we decided to make Death completely different from War, but at the same time he still feels like a character from the Darksiders universe."

Darksiders 2 is out now in the US and Australia and hits Euope next week, for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Wii U version is expected.