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While a third Darksiders instalment has yet to be confirmed, the franchise's new custodian - Nordic Games - appears to be testing the waters for a sequel with a remastered Darksiders 2 on PS4 and Xbox One, 'hilariously' dubbed the Deathinitive Edition. The conversion is in good hands too, with developers Gunfire Games consisting of many ex-Vigil Games staff, who previously worked on the two existing Darksiders releases. And there is the sense that this remaster is perhaps laying the groundwork for some kind of new sequel: rather than just convert the existing title, the team delivers a substantially improved lighting model fit for the current-gen platforms, along with higher resolution textures and remodelled geometry.The Deathinitive Edition has clearly had a good deal for work put into it, but the enhancements come at a price - specifically a capped 30fps in line with the original console releases. In comparison, the original PC release easily runs at 1080p60 with max settings enabled on relatively meagre graphics hardware. So with that in mind how much of an actual upgrade are we looking at? And is the leap in graphical quality in the Deathinitive Edition enough to deliver a better experience than the existing PC release, despite the lower frame-rate?
Image quality is certainly improved on the PS4 and Xbox. Both consoles render natively in 1080p, while the developer's previous use of an edge-detect and blur solution to tackle aliasing is replaced with a more refined post-process anti-aliasing technique. Jaggies were never a major issue in the original PC game, and Gunfire Games' new implementation works well in providing a clean image with few artefacts, though we do see some mild texture blurring in play.
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