Darksiders II Interview

AusGamers recently chatted up Darksiders II lead designer Haydn Dalton about the look they were trying to achieve with Death, the archetypes we'll be able to choose from, the puzzles they're integrating, how the loot system will function, and more. A taste:
AusGamers: Now that's a huge component of your game: combat -- the first game and the second game. But now you guys are talking about [Death] as a more assassin type character; he's a more stealth type character. But you have archetypes as well this time around which is a little bit different. Kind of taking from the RPG realm, where you've got the warrior and the necromancer and the rogue. How do you find the balance to make it seem like he's not... how does the warrior component -- that archetype -- differentiate himself from War?

Haydn: Well the core things that make Death, like the way he moves around the environment, the way he moves around in combat, they're more always core to Death as a character. You can never actually change those core pieces of the character. The things that you do is actually basically: you supplement Death with the type of gameplay elements and synergy that you like as a player.

So if you like to stand off from the battlefield and launch things at a distance, there's a route for you. If you like to get in there and do all your combos and be a little bit more like War; or just be into that skillful combo-based type of game, there's a route for the player for that.

Everybody will experience the same core movement and dynamic of Death, but then they'll flavour it with their own dressing or whatever you like to call it. That's the core thing, that customisation is one of the core big things of this game, is being able to give the player choices of their type; of their version of Death.