What is the Darkness, you ask? In case you missed out on the original game... or your memory is fuzzy from 2007, 2K Games has released a three minute video that covers all the basics. You'll learn exactly what the Darkness is, and who Jackie Estacado is. You'll see how Jackie's relationship with the mob gets a bit messy to say the least, thanks to his demon arms.

Just be warned: the video is not for the queasy. Who knew humans were so... fragile?

Watch: 'That's just the way the Darkness likes it' »

There's been talk of a sequel to supernatural shooter The Darkness for some time and now it's as official as official can be. Today, publisher 2K Games formally announced The Darkness II, slated for release this fall on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and, unlike the original, PC too.

The announcement promises "deep and twisted storytelling, "stylistic violence" and a new "hand-painted graphic noir" visual style, which you can see in the solitary screenshot above. And yes, you will still be able to hold two guns while swinging your evil tentacles, a feature which 2K calls "quad-wielding." Read more »

A sequel to The Darkness, the favorably-received 2007 action title based on the comic of the same name, is in the works according to publisher Top Cow.

However, judging by comments made by Starbreeze CEO Johan Kristiansson, the studio that crafted the first game will not be involved in the new project.

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play.tm has been updated with a brief Q&A on The Darkness. Art director Jens Mathies is asked about working on games with an existing license, the involvement from Marc Silvestri and the people at Top Cow, use of darkness powers, having movies and shows on in-game TV sets, and multiplayer balancing.

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A new movie from The Darkness can be found at FileShack today, showing more gameplay footage from the Starbreeze-developed shooter. The footage is from the Otherworld as well as later levels in the game.

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IGN, Team Xbox and Game Informer all have new previews of The Darkness, taking a look at an updated build of Starbreeze's upcoming first person shooter.

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New impressions of The Darkness can be found at Eurogamer, where they've gone hands-on with the first person action game that's due out on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 soon.

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Following mixed reception to three original games released throughout early 2000s, Sweden-based independent developer Starbreeze Studios scored a big hit in 2004 with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox, PC), an adaptation of the Vin Diesel vehicle The Chronicles of Riddick. The film saw poor critical reception but, in an uncommon reversal of the typical movie-to-game relationship, Starbreeze's game received nearly unanimous critical acclaim. Now, the studio looks to further the reputation it gained with Riddick by adapting for consoles Top Cow Productions' modern-day gothic fantasy comic series The Darkness. I last checked out The Darkness in July of last year and chatted with Starbreeze developers Mattias Snygg and Jens Anderson. Recently, I was able to see a newer Xbox 360 build of the game, which is also coming to PlayStation 3, and discuss the project with one of its creative personnel working from the other perspective--comic book artist, The Darkness co-creator, and current Top Cow Productions CEO Marc Silvestri. The Darkness is the story of Jackie Estacado, a high-level mafia wiseguy who at age 21 becomes inhabited by the arcane power that shares the series' name. With the power of The Darkness, Jackie has access to numerous abilities, including wielding powerful tentacles and summoning imp-like Darkling minions. These powers are represented in the game alongside the more straightforward first person shooter gameplay, allowing the player to manipulate heavy objects within the physics-based world, and solve puzzles and dispatch enemies using the Darklings. "What [Starbreeze] thought the world would be was exactly Jackie and The Darkness," said Silvestri on working with the Swedish studio. "They got it right away. We just said, 'Oh my God, when can we start?'" Silvestri was sure to stress the importance of conveying the Jackie's character to players as soon as the game begins, properly framing the moment in which Jackie--and players--first have access to the powerful abilities. A consummate playboy and ruthless killer, Jackie is the epitome of the suave gangster. "The most important thing when pitching a character at Top Cow is whether you want to be that character. I grew up with horror and science fiction, and I never wanted to be Frankenstein--I wanted to be Dracula," laughed Silvestri, pointing to Jackie Estacado as a perfect example of a character that readers--and players--want to become. "The vast majority of people who will come across it now have never seen The Darkness before," he admitted, "but Starbreeze has made sure Jackie is communicated so well. You're never bored, from the first three frames. Starbreeze's game begins with an on-rails first person car chase sequence reminiscent of Valve's extended interactive cutscenes; the player, as a passenger in a convertible driven by a fellow mobster, does not have any control over the car itself but can look around and, after hitting a certain point in the scene, take shots at pursuing police offers. Soon, Jackie realizes he has been set up and betrayed by the mob, which had for most of his life also served as his adoptive family. This real-time introduction seemed noticeably visually improved over the version showcased last year, likely due to Starbreeze gaining experience over the course of its first Xbox 360 and PS3 project. So pleased with Starbreeze's telling of The Darkness is Top Cow that the comic writers even plan to incorporate some of the studio's own additions to the mythos into the series itself. "They haven't detracted, they've only added," stated Silvestri. He was clear that, despite the successful series having been in existence for over a decade, Top Cow wanted to be sure to wait to wait for a fitting creative partner before pursuing major licensing deals. "No offense, but we didn't want to be like 90% of the other licensed games," he admitted. "Nobody cares about your own work more than you do." Fittingly, Starbreeze has created a very dark New York for the game, one dominated by grime and shadows. This is crucial not just for atmosphere's sake, but because The Darkness actually draws its power from...the darkness. In order for the demonic entities to manifest themselves, Jackie must be out of the light; to achieve this, the player can shoot out light sources such as street lamps. Turn the page for descriptions of Darkness powers and the game's multiplayer. _PAGE_BREAK_ When wielding The Darkness, two large demon-headed tentacles growing out of Jackie's back flank the game screen and can be manipulated in various ways. These arms can stab and crush enemies, destroy obstacles, shield Jackie from attacks, and, as Jackie's poweres strengthen, throw large objects such as cars. One autonomous tentacle can be sent out away from Jackie's body and controlled in first person by the player to dispatch enemies Jackie cannot reach or crawl through tight areas such as air vents in order to acquire items or solve puzzles. The large arms also essentially serve as the HUD for The Darkness. Their heads are marked with patterns whose color indicates which Darkness power the user currently has selected, and the length of the patters indicates the current level of the player's dark power meter. Finally, the number of eyes on the tentacles indicate the level of the player's Darkness powers. Using the smaller tentacle, players can devour the hearts of evil enemies--but not innocents--to refill the dark power meter and work towards leveling up the powers. Devouring the hearts of particular enemies or bosses may also grant specific special abilities. Music fans will be intrigued to know that, among The Darkness' full cast of voice actors, Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More fame will be providing the voiceover work for the dark power itself. As the game progresses, it tosses out lines of dialogue--delivered with a contorted vocal styling that Patton fans will know he can provide--that shift from being hostile and threatening towards Jackie ("You are nothing but my vessel," "I fill your pores") to becoming more encouraging as Jackie gets a handle on his abilities ("I will protect you, vessel," "You and I will be as one."). At certain points throughout the game's levels, the player can summon Darkling minions through small portals. Over the course of the story, several types of Darklings become available. These include the standard combat-oriented berzerker, the exploding kamikaze, and the Gatling gun-armed gunner. The Darklings are accompanied by hefty doses of dark humor; the female gunner smokes a stogie and wears a helmet bearing the slogan "Born to Kill" from Full Metal Jacket, while the bearded kamikaze chatters in a Russian accent, wears a top hat, and urinates on the corpses of Jackie's enemies. Throughout the game world, programs airing on television sets can clue players into gameplay events occuring elsewhere. For example, paying attention to mobster activity reports on the news may actually allow Jackie to reach an attempted ambush early, giving a tangible advantage. Starbreeze has also acquired the rights to numerous real-world television shows and films that are shown in their entirety on the in-game TVs, including episodes of the Popeye cartoon as well as Murnau's classic horror film Nosferatu. In another nice touch, loading times between levels are masked by monologue's by Jackie that set up story elements or character development. Finally, I was able to check out some of The Darkness' multiplayer mode in a four-person deathmatch. Multiplayer plays out much like a standard shooter deathmatch, with the notable exception of being able to toggle options such as allowing players to transform into Darkling berzerkers at will. This proves to be a great benefit to the multiplayer, as deathmatch would be fairly unremarkable without it. Playing as a Darkling of course gives players no ranged attack, but it does boost speed, confer a particularly powerful melee attack, and, best of all, allow players to scale sheer walls with great speed. Darklings also have the secondary bonuses of being much more difficult targets, thanks to their small size and quickness. All in all, The Darkness' multiplayer is unlikely to be an online staple, but it should prove a fun diversion, particularly early on as players experiment with the novelty of the Darkling. Particularly with Starbreeze's pedigree, it is not difficult to be confident in how The Darkness is shaping up. The game has a well crafted atmosphere, with the promise of a good deal of gameplay variety as long as the various Darkness powers are well integrated alongside the game's FPS mechanics. Though multiplayer does not seem to be a huge draw, Starbreeze's focus was clearly on the attractive single-player. Silvestri certainly seems pleased. "It's like if, in the movie biz, we got the perfect director, the perfect star, the perfect studio," he said. "And this is our first video game! Hopefully we can have that again." 2K Games expects to ship The Darkness for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this June. In our prior interview, designer Jans Anderson implied the game may also see a PC release, but gave no confirmation or projected release period.

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Following the release of its acclaimed movie tie-in The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox, PC), Swedish studio Starbreeze Studios became something of a sudden and unexpected hero of independent game development. After all, Riddick represented one of those exceedingly rare instances in which the game is widely considered to be superior to the movie--but, more importantly, the game was a fine achievement in its own right, a successful blend of genres with a well conceived and unique first person melee system, all with some of the best visuals the Xbox had yet produced. With a reputation built on the solid reception of Riddick, Starbreeze is now working on another adaptation, a supernatural action title based on Top Cow's comic book series The Darkness. We got a demonstration of The Darkness during E3 this year, and you can read our impressions from the show. This week, during the San Diego Comic-Con, we checked back with Starbreeze to take a look at another section of the game. The E3 demo began after the game's introductory sequence, which Starbreeze elected not to show at the time. This week's demo consisted of that previously unseen intro in which player protagonist and Mafia hitman Jackie Estacado has his twenty-first birthday and, coincidentally, acquires The Darkness. The Darkness is a a force that possesses Jackie and gives him various frightening powers, including summoning the impish Darklings, controlling huge fanged tentacles rising out of his back, and opening small gravity wells to suck in any nearby objects or people. The game begins with an impressive and lengthy first person car chase sequence that feels a bit like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, except everyone in the car is in the Mafia and they're opening fire on police officers. Of the three Mafiosos present in the car at the beginning, only Jackie remains by the end, but thanks to a less than welcome birthday gift he soon finds himself unconscious. Upon awakening, he has been possessed by The Darkness. Appropriately, The Darkness can only be activated when it is dark, meaning the player must frequently shoot out the lights using Jackie's dual-wielded pistols. To control the dual-wielding, the game uses two reticles, one for each gun, rather than simply having each weapon converge on a single point. Admittedly, this mechanic seems like it could use a bit of work; watching the game being played, it sometimes seems difficult to quickly focus on a small object such as a light fixture or a far off enemy, since rather than being centered on the screen they must be positioned slightly off center to fall under one of the reticles. Fortunately, it seems like a great deal of the game's combat is done up close, where enemies are susceptible to the brutal Darkness powers--they can be maulled by the huge tentacles, attacked by the summoned Darklings, sucked into a vortex, or crushed by a car or other huge object effortlessly picked up and thrown. For those who still want to use their guns, the game has a melee system that will pull of a brutal point blank finishing move with the pistols if the player is in close enough proximity to the enemy. Some other interesting features were described as well. Designer Jens Anderson spoke of Starbreeze's new "vocap" system, which allows developers to record motion capture and voice acting simultaneously so that actors can essentially deliver a straight performance rather than have it composited by developers later. He also showed off a few examples of what will be showing on the in-game television sets; in addition to news broadcasts that further the plot of the game, public domain works such as Popeye and classic horror film Nosferatu will be airing if players want a bit of a break. Following the demo, I had the chance to have a quick chat with Anderson and concept artist Mattias Snygg about their experiences working on The Darkness.

Shack: When doing concept art for The Darkness, do you deal at all with any of the artists from the comic, or are you working independently on your own materials? Mattias Snygg: Well, we don't have any direct contact with them, but we hear from them through 2K and before that through Majesco, how they feel about what we're doing. Mostly we just use the comics for background material and draw from that. Jens Anderson: We got an initial reaction from Top Cow. They wanted us to do our style, to redefine the comic a bit, so we experimented a lot, and then you did a lot of different tests. Mattias Snygg: Sure. Jens Anderson: For instance, the Darkling. We went through a lot of different designs for that one, because we felt that we really wanted to try something different, but we weren't sure what, so we have a whole bunch of different designs. The final one is what you see on the floor today with the costume, walking around. Mattias Snygg: It turned out pretty cool, actually. Shack: Are there any major ways in terms of story or atmosphere in which you're deviating from the original comic? Jens Anderson: To some extent, we are retelling the core story of The Darkness, much in the same way they do with X-Men the movie, and Spider-Man. We wanted the most crucial story element to be when Jackie gets possessed. We tell it in a quite different manner, but the core elements are there, there are a lot of the characters there. Mattias Snygg: We've done it darker than what they did. In part because we feel that it suits us better, to do something like that, but also when you bring a very stylized comic into a very realistic rendering with our engine, it immediately becomes grittier and darker. Shack: Speaking of that, at the time Riddick came out, you guys were not as well known as you are, and it was this big surprise. People were saying "Look at these Starbreeze guys, where did they come from?" What's it like now, working on a game when you have all these expectations, coming off of that release? Jens Anderson: It's more fun, actually. We showed off this demo at E3, we had a great reception. A lot of people came in and said, "We were dying to see this game because we loved Riddick so much," and they wanted it to have a lot of similar elements. And as you saw, there are a lot of similar elements, with the genre being quite similar, and stuff like that. From what I've heard, very few people are disappointed, and, well, it feels really good to have Riddick to stand on. People are more interested than they were when we showed Riddick for the first time. Shack: Have you gotten any feedback from fans of The Darkness, who maybe aren't familiar with video games? Jens Anderson: There are...a lot of them. Mattias Snygg: A lot of them are here. [laughs] Jens Anderson: Yeah, a lot of them are here. We had a situation at E3. One guy came into the booth, he came up and said [deep voice] "I'm one of the biggest The Darkness fans, so don't fuck this up!" [laughs] So he sat down and watched the presentation, and he looked all sour, but in the end he was up and he gave us a nod of approval and walked out. Shack: Well, there you go. Jens Anderson: Yeah, so I hope... Well, we do a lot of stuff differently, but I think most important is to make a great game and have the core elements in there, and from what I've seen people are happy about it. Shack: So obviously one of your great strengths is taking an established property and melding it to fit better within the confines of video games, and maybe better within your own style and vision. Do you ever seen yourselves going back to original material and creating original franchises? Jens Anderson: Definitely. It's more of a random thing that we have been working with licenses so much. Enclave was original, the thing we did before Riddick. Then Riddick was a great experience for us. Doing a comic license is very different, especially now working with Top Cow who is so open with giving us freedom to do a lot of stuff that we want to do. Of course, there's a great charm in doing original concepts as well, and we'll see with our next project. Shack: How did you end up with this one? Did you approach them, or did they approach you? Jens Anderson: It was a lot of talk between one agent we've been in discussion with. After Riddick, we wanted to work on a next-generation title, and it was basically most publishers wanted in-house teams to do that because [the systems] were so early in development, so we didn't have so many options. So we worked with this agent, who had just gotten the Darkness IP and was approaching publishers with it, and it fitted with us perfectly. We worked together with them to design a concept that we liked and pitch it to publishers, and Majesco got hooked on it. Sadly Majesco couldn't keep it, but 2K is great for us now. Shack: Finally, any chance this game will make it to PC? Jens Anderson: Probably, I would say, but they would kill me if I said for sure. [laughs] No, we're focusing on the console versions and as you know, in Riddick after the release we did a port for PC, so I hope we will see it. Shack: Great, well thanks for talking to us, and good luck with the game. Jens Anderson: Thank you. Mattias Snygg: Thanks. Starbreeze Studios' The Darkness is set to ship for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2007.

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