For fans of the series, Darksiders has always had its own way of doing things. The first two games were products of the action, hack-and-slash of the time with exploration and collection elements thrown in. However, both games always felt very much inspired by older games with their collection quests, treasures placed conveniently, and some bosses having to be defeated with items collected previously (just like Zelda). But Darksiders 3 has taken cues from a different series – Dark Souls.

Darksiders 3 gameplay trailer reveals much more than just how it will look. The biggest reveal is how far the combat has come. While previous entries into the series looked far more like God of War or Devil May Cry, the newest installment bears much more resemblance to Dark Souls or Monster Hunter.

It’s clear that invincibility frames play a huge part in combat as Fury cartwheels the moment an attack swings her way, negating it entirely. This is similar to the Dark Wood Grain Ring in Dark Souls, a ring which allowed the character to flip instead of roll away from attacks, providing more invincibility frames against attacks.

While Darksiders 2 featured some of these mechanics, it was best to treat it as a bridge in the series. Combat in previous installments was more chaotic, more flashy, and more cartoony than in Darksiders 3, while the focus here seems to be on reading attacks – such as the long wind-up for the hammer swing – as well as caution. It’s evident that Fury is hit twice in the video, once while doing a combo on a skeleton, and once from a quick jab by the fire giant. Both showcase that combat will be more dynamic and challenging than simply hammering X until the enemy falls.

However, the biggest changes to the Darksiders series come in the level-design. The major complaint against Darksiders 2 was that it often felt like two games. The puzzle elements were interspersed between combat but never a very fluid part of it. Darksiders 3 hopes to change that.

Gunfire Games wants any platforming to feel like an intuitive part of a level, not a stapled on dressing. The little bit that we’ve seen of the game showcases a far more rapid pacing where Fury’s ability to traverse levels is as fluid as her ability to fight enemies. By comparison, Darksiders 2 would often feature fast and furious combat only to walk to a ‘platforming area’ moments later and spend the next few minutes climbing slowly, dropping, swinging, and jumping to the next area.

This idea of puzzles and traps also ties far more into actual layout and theming of the game. Dungeons are going to be interconnected to try and create a seamless experience. In an interview with IGN, Gunfire indicated that their goal would be to allow players to see other parts of the map from vantage points, and if they went up or down a level, there wouldn’t be a loading screen – the player would actually just descend to a new section of the map.

In this way, the game borrows heavily from the legacy set by Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3. One of the most influential aspects of the series was the interconnectedness of the game. By packing all the content together and allowing players to see Anor Londo from the first bridge and boss battle, it created a sense of anticipation as well as realism. Darksiders 3 hopes to take the good aspects of the Dark Souls series to help revive the Darksiders series.

Gunfire has also said that enemies should feel more consistent with their locality, not just enemies populating maps randomly. While this is hardly a complaint many gamers would have – Breath of the Wild sure had a lot of the same enemy everywhere – it is something very in tune with Dark Souls.

The different zones of Dark Souls were known for their theming (that’s theme -ing). Traversing to Blight Town, a map poisoned by tainted magic, featured a giant spider boss – emphasizing the poisonous nature of the zone. However, the zone was also placed beside the fiery Demon Ruins. Because of this, all the enemies were representative of poison, fire, or the swampy nature of the zone. For Darksiders, building a world around this concept is a huge departure for the series which previously featured a limited number of enemies – like the iconic skeletons from Darksiders 2 – which were as prominent and varied as the Bokoblin’s from Breath of the Wild.

It’s also been reported that the major villains, the Seven Deadly Sins, will form the inspiration of each zone as well as each of the enemy types. All of that sounds an awful lot like Dark Souls to us, but we don’t mean to say that they copied. Another THQ Nordic game, Biomutant, has borrowed from the success of RPGs like Fallout, but we don’t hold it against them. It looks much more like they are looking for what worked in other games and trying to tie it into their own, and it makes us all the more excited for the Darksiders 3’s release in Spring of 2018. This is also releasing