The Darkness 2 Message Board

The Darkness 2 is Best Buy's deal of the day, on sale for $12 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. If you're into juicy, demonic mutilations, psychotic episodes of extreme violence and solid voice acting, this may be the best $12 you spend all year.

The sale extends to in-store purchases only, meaning while you can gaze longingly at the low price point online - you can't have it unless you get up and grab it.

[Thanks, ZombieFever.]

Updates to The Darkness 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

- Widescreen FOV (Field of View) support
- Various fixes for extra-wide resolutions
- Title now retains a very wide screen resolution when changing any video option from the graphics options menu
- Added an "aspect ratio" toggle
- Can choose between 4:3, 16:9, 16:10 and Auto
- nVidia 3D fixes for shadows + now we have 3D reticule & objective markers
- Additional Bug fixes

On paper, The Darkness 2 is a "linear, first-person shooter with some neat twists." It sounds boring, and it was every time I played the game in a preview session before it launched. I'd hole up at some PR office in Manhattan and they'd run down a prepared spiel about "quad-wielding" or "the Darkling." The what?

In reality, The Darkness 2 is a beautiful, hand-drawn game from a team with derivative dreck like Dark Sector and Pariah in its past. It also has surprisingly realistic and impressive voice acting, which gets paired with gorgeous art direction right off the bat for a "last time on The Darkness" reintroduction.

But as impressive as the game's art style and voice acting chops are, it's not very easy to shape a marketing-driven preview session around technical aspects like that. But that's the case for most of what's so great about The Darkness 2 -- touches, moments and experiences that don't fit onto a bullet point list.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning kicks off life atop the UK charts, which is not a bad place to begin a fateless destiny. This is the first new intellectual property to reach the top spot since Dead Island (another surprise hit) back in week 37 of last year, according to Chart-Track. But, wait, here's where it gets crazy: you have to go back to the year 2000 (the first Pokemon game) to find an original RPG winning the week.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 slipped one spot into second, with Darkness 2 premiering in third. The top of the charts are actually stacked with "core" titles this week, with Mario & Sonic London at the 2012 Olympic Games being the closest "family" title. Certainly not a "family" game is Catherine, which debuted in the 20 spot. Check out the UK top ten after the break.

The thing about video games as a hobby and fascination is that they can be quite expensive. Some may employ unscrupulous means to whet their appetite, but you won't have to do the same for a free taste of The Darkness 2.

Gaikai has added the demo to its list of streaming titles, joining the ranks of Dead Rising 2, Orcs Must Die!, The Witcher 2, Spore and others. It's all part of Gaikai CEO and industry veteran Dave Perry's goal to offer pre-release demos of major titles to all (with good internet connections).

Okay, well, technically that other trailer for The Darkness 2 was the grossest, but this new one is a really, really close second. If there's one thing we know for sure at this point, it's that these demons are seriously offended by human heads being attached to human spines and bodies.

The Darkness 2, due out on PC on the 10th February, finally has its demo out on PC.

Impatient for noisy, noisy violence, Alec has already taken a look at what’s on offer within on his 360. But now you can find out what it looks like in glorious technicolour, with edges that don’t look like a broken escalator. This also means we have min and rec specs, and a “launch” trailer, which you can see below.

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Why is it that when we never ask for something, it turns out to be some kind of evil presence ruling over our lives, like Darkness 2 protagonist Jackie Estacado? Why can't it be, like, a free muffin or something?

Do you want an evil spirit bound to you for the rest of your existence? How do you really know? If only the forces of evil got together and decided to offer some kind of pilot program.

Thankfully, in this day and age of video games about evil things, we have demos. 2K Games is set to offer an early taste of The Darkness 2, starting with Xbox Live Gold subscribers next week, January 17. PC and PS3 users will be able to sample it on January 24. PS3 users in Asia/Pacific and Europe regions will have to wait an additional day, until January 25.

2K didn't offer any details on the contents of the demo, so we just hope it helps us gauge whether we're going to pressure our friends into buying it -- not to mention our tolerance level when it comes to evil hissing things and guys talking in thick, wiseguy accents.

The Darkness 2 is available right this very second for pre-order on Steam for $49.99, with a free upgrade to the limited edition included. Remember: 2K Games is offering this same deal to all pre-orders, from any retailer, which kind of makes the Limited Edition like the Normal Edition, and then anyone who buys it after release gets the Sub-Normal Edition. If that's how you want to view the world, that is.

So, we're not mathemagicians but we're pretty sure we've got this worked out. The big marketing gotcha in The Darkness 2 is quad-wielding, meaning your character, mob boss Jackie Estacado, can not only dual wield pistols but also dual wield Darkness arms at the same time. With 2K's announcement of a co-op mode in the game, playable by up to four friends, we had to use all of our fingers and toes to figure out how much wielding is going on and ... we think we have it. Ladies and nerds, allow us to introduce: hexadeca-wielding. Google says that's the Greek prefix for "sixteen."

The co-op mode, dubbed "Vendettas," is a "team-focused, mission based experience" with new environments and new story elements, "that takes place parallel to the single-player story." And instead of getting stuck with ol' Jackie Boy, perhaps you might try your hand(s) at another of the new co-op characters: Inugami, "a dark and mentally unstable character with revenge-driven motives" ... and a samurai sword; Shoshanna, an Israeli Intelligence agent with a gun that fires "multiple rounds of gunfire at one time" which, real talk, is impossible; Jimmy Wilson, an alcoholic Scotsman (really!) who hates the English and summons Darklings with his "Dark Axe"; and lastly, J.P. DuMond, a New Orleans-based practitioner of voodoo medicine or, as he would perhaps be more commonly called, a witch doctor!

So that's Vendettas, the first game to feature four-player hexadeca-wielding co-op play, a back-of-the-box feature that's sure to bring all the boys to the killing yards.

For the most part, we as a culture have become desensitized to the ridiculous level of extremely graphic, realistic violence pervasive in most forms of entertainment media, which is why we're so damn impressed by how incredibly disgusting the latest trailer for The Darkness 2 is.

Watching a man's spine and skull get ripped out through his scrotum (by chattering tentacle creatures, no less) wasn't really something we had planned on doing today, but there you go. While you check out the trailer, we're going to go cleanse our palate with something a little less violent, like Mortal Kombat.

Perhaps today's news that The Darkness 2 will give players a chance to terrorize "The Brotherhood" with Jackie's little Darkling friend wasn't enough to sate your thirst for dark essence ... or, uh, information about the game? This volley of trailers should more than suffice!

At various points throughout The Darkness 2, main character Jackie Estacado will relinquish control to his limey compatriot, the Darkling. During the past several preview events featuring next year's Digital Extremes-developed Darkness sequel, said Darkling has been a part of the environment, wantonly assisting in the murder of Jackie's foes but not allowing himself to be commanded.

In a preview session this past week in Manhattan, however, I was shown how one specific Darkling section will play out in the final game. After somewhat stealthily winding Jackie through a dingy brothel, he arrived at a brightly lit area (which can't be accessed due to his dark powers) with a conveniently Darkling-sized ventilation shaft just above the door. Moments later, and I'm inside the Darkling, piloting him through the vent and out into a new area.

I was told that these sections are scattered throughout the game, allowing for limited, context-specific Darkling action sequences (read: you can't use him whenever you want). The emphasis during his brief scene was on puzzle solving, allowing Jackie to progress through the door -- the Darkling had to navigate bright lights (which hurt him), enemies with guns (bullets hurt, too), and unknown corridors to find the solution. Sneaky Darkling pilots can pounce on unsuspecting enemies from behind, quietly murdering the bad guy and allowing for an escape.

After a few more moments of sneaking around, I disconnected the light's power source with the Darkling and was instantly zipped back to Jackie, thankfully skipping an unnecessary trek back through where I had just come from. Unfortunately for Jackie, however, the demo was just about to end, which meant he was moments from being trapped by the forces out to steal his powers. Maybe next time, Jackie boy!

All pre-orders of The Darkness 2 will be upgraded to the "Limited Edition," publisher 2K Games announced today. The pre-order edition includes an alternate "Crazy Abdul" darkling outfit, "Gourmet Hearts" and "Relic Hunter" character ability upgrades, an illustration by Marc Silvestri and download codes for The Darkness Origins Volume 1 and Volume 2 comics.

2K Games also reiterated that The Darkness 2 will arrive at retail on February 7 and 10 for North America and "internationally," respectively. Fleeing the packed holiday schedule, the sequel was originally planned for October.

Hey, Jackie boy. The Darkness 2 has been delayed until 2012, with 2K Games announcing new launch dates for both the console and PC versions of February 7 and 10 for North America and Europe, respectively. The sequel was originally scheduled for this October.

If you're attending Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend, there will be eight playable demo kiosks of The Darkness 2 at the Top Cow booth (#2629). There will also be a "Spreading The Darkness: From Comic Book to Video Games and Entertainment" panel on July 21 at noon in Room 9 of the convention center, featuring the co-creator of The Darkness comic, along with talent from the game. No word on whether or not the actual Darkness will show up and eviscerate the audience, but we're going to recommend keeping your distance just in case.

We're common people, with appetites that are almost embarrassingly easy to sate. At one point in this gameplay trailer for The Darkness 2, the titular Darkness throws a pool cue through a dude. So just know that when we say "this trailer is totally great" that bit was pretty much all it took.

Those anxious for a Starbreeze-developed The Darkness 2 may still be looking for an explanation. Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark told CVG that the decision to tap Digital Extremes was all on 2K and out of his studio's hands.

"The decision was not up to Starbreeze, and when it was decided to do a sequel we had already started working on a new project," he said. That new project is "RedLime," a new title for EA oft-rumored to be a Syndicate remake. Starbreeze had also previously began work on a Jason Bourne title, though that was canceled last year, so the studio has been admittedly pretty busy.

Despite the lack of Starbreeze, The Darkness 2 is shaping up to be a fine title, quad-wielding marketing jargon notwithstanding. In both of our preview sessions, we were impressed with how capable and brutal protagonist Jackie Estacado is in the sequel -- and how his power translated into interesting gameplay.

#watchthis The Darkness 2, sequel to the cult-hit, will be available in the US and Canada on October 4th, with a global release coming on October 7th. I never played the original Darkness but I saw this game back at PAX East and was impressed by the game's surprisingly intuitive Quad-Wielding system, which lets players quickly switch back and forth between traditional weapons and your Darkness powers. Since the trailer won't give you much of a feel for the game, there are also a couple of screens here to help properly set the tone. More »

Everyone's favorite possessed hitman, Jackie Estacado, will return in The Darkness 2 starting October 4 in North America and October 7 internationally. To commemorate the news, 2K has also release a new trailer, which can be found after the break. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait to see the wonders of quad-wielding in action, as the trailer is bereft of gameplay.

Jackie Estacado is an indestructible demigod. At least that's what the early stages of a recent demo for The Darkness 2 taught me about the game's main character. After unnamed assailants quite literally crash the dinner he had just sat down to eat -- subsequently murdering the erotic dancers he's dining with, of course -- Jackie's hurt pretty badly. His right foot is clearly mangled from the explosion, and soon enough he's being dragged to safety by a fellow mobster, all the while shooting at foes in pursuit.

Thankfully for Jackie Estacado, though, he can take a lot of bullets. Like, dozens. From point blank range. At one point during the demo, I stopped firing back for a full 30 seconds to see what would happen. Lo and behold, the mobster dragging me kept right at his task and, aside from the occasional splash of red on the HUD, Jackie was no worse for the wear. Though a 2K Games rep assured me that Jackie could die during the sequence, the dozens of bullets that had already riddled him didn't do much damage.

After that worrying intro, however, things improved greatly. Jackie was granted the power of quad-wielding and, soon enough, I was using his two crazy snake arms - the titular Darkness -to impale, assassinate, rip, and a whole host of other verbs, all while firing off bullets with my boring hands. Project lead Sheldon Carter with incoming developer Digital Extremes refers to Jackie's arsenal of arms as a "symphony of death," employing two weapons and two arms all at once to engage multiple enemies in a variety of ways.

May 7 is this year's Free Comic Book Day, the annual event when fans all around the country crowd into comic book stores for free promotional minicomics (and agoraphobic readers put off picking up their subscriptions).

In observance of this ritual, Top Cow Productions is releasing a free The Darkness comic book that is intended to act as a prequel to the upcoming The Darkness 2 game in the works at Digital Extremes. Although we'd argue that if you really want a prequel to The Darkness 2, you could check out The Darkness -- or the comic book series that ran from 1996 to 2005. But those wouldn't be free!

Those of you who finished The Darkness will remember the end scene, in which [spoiler alert!] protagonist Jackie Estacado unleashed all of his rage and the full power of The Darkness, murdering a mansion full of goons. The only problem was that we didn't get to play it -- we had to just watch.

"At the end, you see Jackie going nuts with the demon arms, but you can't play that," Digital Extremes project director Sheldon Carter lamented about the first game, "and that's what I wanted to play. So that's what we're doing for the second game."

Watching a guided demo at GDC, the developer's mission was clear: Jackie is far more aggressive and powerful in the sequel.

Former Faith No More singer Mike Patton will reprise his role as the titular Darkness, a chaos entity inside Jackie Estacado's body, in Digital Extremes' Fall 2011 sequel, The Darkness 2. It's all wife arms and demon arms with this guy, it seems.

In making the announcement, 2K Games also revealed that The Darkness 2 will be on-hand at GDC in San Francisco in less than two weeks. We'll be lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on any and all news there.

The Darkness was developed using Starbreeze's proprietary Starbreeze Engine; however, for the sequel, Starbreeze is out, as is its proprietary tech, in favor of some different proprietary tech. New developer Digital Extremes is using a new version of its own Evolution Engine, seen in the 2008 glaive-em-up Dark Sector. It's evidently well-suited for games with "Dark" in the title. This title marks DI's return to ... its own engine. After Dark Sector, the developer has assisted on Unreal games including the two BioShocks and Homefront.

The switch to both a new developer and a new engine suggests that The Darkness 2 could be a very different game than its predecessor. Thankfully, we've already learned that the new engine is capable of rendering "Demon Arms," so it won't be completely foreign.

Today, there's good news and bad news for fans of Starbreeze's underappreciated 2007 comic book-based shooter, The Darkness. First, the good news: A sequel, The Darkness 2, has just been announced for fall 2011, reuniting players with Darkness-packing mobster Jackie Estacado; and the bad news: Original developer Starbreeze is out, rumored to be busy with a Syndicate reboot for EA, and relatively unproven Digital Extremes (Dark Sector, anyone?) is in.

The sequel promises more of what made the original such a delight: giant Demon Arms and "stylistic violence." The Darkness 2 marketing team got their hands on the game and came up with "Quad-Wielding," which seems as sellable as any other first-person gimmick. "The Darkness II breaks out of the sea of conventional first-person shooters," the press release reads, "with its fervid Quad-Wielding gameplay, which will allow players to slash, grab, and throw objects and enemies with their Demon Arms while simultaneously firing two weapons."

That's all well and good, but how cool is the game? For that, we'll turn to the admittedly biased Marc Silvestri, founder and CEO of Top Cow Productions and co-creator of The Darkness comics. "So often disappointed when a favorite character gives birth to a lame movie or video game, us fans have come to expect the worst," Silvestri said. "And sometimes we get it. But not with The Darkness II. Yeah, call me biased [Ed's note: We did!], but this second installment of Jackie Estacado's epic saga is - in my humble opinion - one of the most brutally cool games I've ever played. 2K Games hammered this one out of the park."

As convincing as that sounds, we'll reserve our judgment until we get our hands (and yes, our Demon Arms) on the title.

We've been hearing murmurings about a sequel to 2007's The Darkness since back in 2008 when the property's creator -- comic book company Top Cow Productions -- hinted about one at the New York Comic Con. Fast-forward to this morning and we're once again back at the Jacob Javits Center on NYC's west side bugging Top Cow about The Darkness 2. "There are certain rights issues that we needed to clear up in order to move ahead with The Darkness 2. Those are getting cleared up. While there are no specific plans, it is definitely that is still on all of our minds," sales and marketing director Atom! Freeman explained to us this morning.

We pushed for confirmation that a sequel to The Darkness is still being planned. "Absolutely. We loved the game. The fans loved the game," he told us, adding, "There's no reason to not do another one. Just making sure that all of our ducks are in a row so that we can begin that process." Unfortunately, that's all Freeman would tell us, preferring to keep other information ... shrouded in darkness for now.