Vigil dropped 20% of designed content from Darksiders II

Vigil Games scaled down its ambitions for Darksiders II by around one fifth.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Vigil games studio manager David Adams assigned some approximate figures to content which was brainstormed but didn't make the final cut.

"The game we ended up with is probably, in Darksiders II, 80% of what we designed," he said.

The figure is likely quite arbitrary, and it should be noted that the "missing" 20% isn't necessarily stuff you'd want to see in the finished game so much as wild ideas and prototyping - as evidenced by Adams's comment regarding the original's design process.

"The game we ended up with in Darksiders 1 was probably like 1% of what we started out with," he joked.

"So our ability to predict what we can get done increased drastically with the second game."

Having said that, Adams admitted that some ideas axed from Darksiders made their way into Darksiders II.

"We definitely had the opportunity to add stuff in we wanted to get in the first one," he said, but then added:

"I actually think in development, limits are good, so it was good to have a game that had an established gameplay style. Like when we didn't have that in Darksiders 1, we were just reaching all the time. It even took us awhile to get a firm grasp on how exactly the game would play out.

"We knew what the kind of game we wanted to play, but it's really hard to take a high-level concept and imagine the moment-to-moment gameplay. You have the comfort of not having to think about that with a sequel. Once you have some rules in place, it makes everything way easier."

Click the link above to read the whole feature, which includes some interesting discussion of internal testing of the first Darksiders, launching a new IP, and self-critique.

Darksiders II is expected in June on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with a Wii U version also on the cards.