Darksiders Warmastered Edition Review Summary

Last updated: 2026-03-28
  • Enjoyable and varied gameplay
  • Engaging story and creative boss fights
  • Great visuals and improved Warmastered Edition
  • Excessive and tedious puzzles
  • Game-breaking bugs and performance issues
  • Camera, control, and audio issues
Darksiders Warmastered Edition header

Emotions

Archetypes

What players like:

Common complaints:

Gameplay feedback:

Performance notes:

Recommendations:

Other player notes:

Review evidence

Why players say this

What players like

Enjoyable and varied gameplay: The gameplay is described as fun, engaging, and action-packed. It offers a variety of mechanics, including combat, puzzles, and platforming, making it enjoyable for players.

Hack-and-slash with puzzles and exploration: The game combines hack-and-slash combat with puzzles and exploration elements, creating a unique blend of action and adventure. Players enjoy the mix of frantic combat, rewarding exploration, and environmental puzzles.

Engaging and captivating story: The game features an engaging and intriguing storyline with a compelling narrative. The story is well-crafted and keeps players interested throughout the game.

Great visuals and art style: The game features excellent visuals, vibrant graphics, and a unique comic-book art style. The visuals are appealing and hold up well, even in high resolutions.

Improved visuals in Warmastered Edition: The Warmastered Edition of the game features improved visuals, performance, and graphics. These enhancements make the game more visually appealing.

Common complaints

Excessive and tedious puzzles: The game is criticized for having too many puzzles, which are often difficult, tedious, and uninteresting. Players find them frustrating and time-consuming, especially in later stages and specific locations like the tower and final dungeon.

Game-breaking bugs: The game is criticized for having bugs, including game-breaking ones. Players report crashes and various glitches.

Audio and voice acting issues: The game has poor audio mixing, inconsistent audio, and poor voice acting. Players also report delayed and glitching audio in cutscenes.

Camera and control issues: Players report issues with camera movement and controls. The camera is described as stiff, and controls as confusing and buggy.

Aged poorly: The game is criticized for showing its age, with outdated graphics and gameplay. Players feel it has not aged well.

Gameplay and performance

Action-adventure with hack and slash combat: The game combines action-adventure elements with hack and slash combat. It also includes open-world exploration and adventure elements similar to God of War.

Zelda-like exploration and puzzles: The game features exploration and puzzle-solving mechanics similar to The Legend of Zelda series. Players can expect dungeons and puzzles that open up new areas as they progress.

Diverse puzzle mechanics: The game includes a variety of puzzle elements, ranging from logical puzzles to those involving portals. Some players find the puzzles enjoyable, while others may find them monotonous.

Interesting combat system: The combat system is noted for its interesting mechanics, including combos and the use of various weapons and magical abilities. Some players find it primitive, while others enjoy its complexity.

Creative boss fights: The game includes a variety of boss fights that are creative and require specific strategies and tactics to overcome.

Crashes and performance issues: Several players have experienced crashes and performance issues, including frequent crashes, game-breaking bugs, and frame drops. Some crashes are specific to certain actions or settings.

Steam Deck cutscene issues: Multiple reports indicate that cutscenes on the Steam Deck are problematic, often being skipped, crashing, or having audio issues. This includes problems with cinematics and videos not playing correctly.

Improved textures and graphics: Players have noted significant improvements in textures, resolution, and overall graphics quality. This includes better lighting and visual fidelity.

Stable frame rate: The game has been praised for having a stable and smoother frame rate, especially on modern systems and hardware.

Optimization and performance: The game has been noted for its improved optimization and performance on various systems, including modern hardware and high settings.

Recommendations

Highly recommended for action fans: The game is frequently recommended for fans of action, hack and slash, and adventure genres. It is praised for its immersive gameplay and is often highlighted as a must-play for those who enjoy dark fantasy and classic action games.

Worth the price: Many players feel that the game offers great value for its cost, stating that it is worth every penny and a good investment for the quality of gameplay provided.

Plan to play the series: Many players express interest in playing or buying all games in the series, indicating a strong franchise appeal.

Recommended despite its age: The game is recommended even though it is older, suggesting that its gameplay and story hold up well over time.

Buy on sale: Several suggestions to purchase the game during discount periods to get the best value.

Buying context

Community fair range: $5.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 25.0h.

Story completion: 15.0h.

Session length: 2.0h.

Endgame: 10.0h.

The game is fun immediately due to its engaging combat and progression system, but becomes less enjoyable later due to repetitive puzzles and backtracking.

Friction: Repetitive combat; Excessive puzzles; Backtracking; Tedious tasks.

Player profiles

Combat Enthusiast: Focuses on mastering different weapons and combat techniques. Motivation: Engaging and varied combat mechanics. Stance: buy.

Explorer and Lore Seeker: Balanced approach to combat, puzzles, and exploration. Motivation: Exploration and immersive storytelling. Stance: buy.

Completionist: Methodical and guide-driven to ensure full completion. Motivation: Achieving 100% completion and unlocking all content. Stance: sale.

Platform notes

Steam Deck: The game has significant issues on the Steam Deck, particularly with cutscenes, stability, and the need for extensive tinkering. Users report frequent crashes, audio problems, and the necessity of using Proton Experimental or other tweaks to get the game running properly. These issues detract from the overall experience and indicate that the game is not fully optimized for the Steam Deck despite its 'Verified' status.

Linux and Proton: The game requires extensive tweaks and specific Proton versions to function properly on Linux/SteamOS, particularly for cutscenes. While the core gameplay experience is reported to be positive once these hurdles are overcome, the initial setup and compatibility issues are significant barriers.

Extra review signals

External guides: The analysis of user feedback reveals significant issues related to navigation and bug fixes, gameplay and puzzle difficulty, and overall user experience. Many users reported needing external guides and walkthroughs to progress through the game, indicating areas for improvement in game design and user support.

Other review notes

Average completion time: The average time taken to complete the game is around 42 hours.

External community links shared: Players are sharing links to external community groups, possibly for additional resources or discussions.