Darkness II new look bridges game to comics, "realism done quite a bit" says developer

2K announced back in December that Darkness II would do away with the competitive multiplayer from Darkness in favor of a story-driven co-op mode.  Fine, but how exactly does the new "Vendettas" mode tie into Jackie's single-player portion?

Turns out, the two campaigns are linked by a common figure: Johnny Powell.  You know, that super nervous dude who appears in all the Darkness II trailers, ranting about depressing things like how we're all screwed because the Darkness is pure evil. 

During a group Q&A session, Darkness II Associate Producer Sheldon Carter and Creative Director Dan Schmittou offered further insight behind the story that bridges the campaign to the co-op mode.  Apparently, the four badasses in "Vendettas" are hired to drag Powell in at Jackie's request, whether Powell likes it or not.  Carter explains:

“At the beginning of the game, Jackie goes to his right hand, Vinny, and says, ‘Vinny, I need you to go find this Darkness expert for me.’  And when you come back to the mansion, you see Johnny Powell, and you can talk to him.  Well, when you play co-op mode, ‘Vendettas,’ you see that same guy talking to these four characters, saying, ‘Hey, the boss needs you to go find this Johnny Powell.’  So you get to see how that actually transpired.

“The four characters have some different abilities from what Jackie has, in addition to some crossovers.  So you have some familiar Darkness powers along with unique experiences, like being able to throw an axe you can recall or float guys in the air with a voodoo staff.”

So why drop the competitive multiplayer?  After all, changing into a little darkling and trolling other players was a ton of fun.  Carter names story as the main reason for this, as in Digital Extremes' focus on that aspect, which developers are taking more seriously this time around, if Darkness writer Paul Jenkins' involvement were any indication. 

“We back to our main pillar, which was to service the story.  This game is about telling players a story, so the only way we could have multiplayer in Darkness II was to have it tell you a story.  That’s how we came out with the co-op mode and working on the new characters with Paul.”

Another major change between the two Darkness games that leaves some fans of the original title a bit unsure is the visual style.  The first game, if you'll recall, had a gritty look but came off a bit plain.  In Darkness II, the visual design received a complete overhaul, adopting an incredibly illustrative and graphic style. 

Carter attributes this to Digital Extremes' attempt at creating a stronger link between the game and its comic book roots.  One major reason was that between the first and second games, realism had "been done quite a bit" by other shooters," so there was a desire to try something different. 

“One of the things is that when Darkness came out, it was quite stunning visually.  It was one of the first realistic games, and it really stood out.  Between Darkness and Darkness II, realism has been done quite a bit.  So that's one side of it, and the other side of it is that artistically, we were really inspired by the comic books. 

"You start a project like The Darkness, you go right away to the source material.  There’s pages and pages of these beautiful books, and there’s huge splashes of color, high contrast, obviously hand-drawn.  You can’t help but think, ‘Well, why couldn’t we make a game that looks like one of these comic books?’  It just works for something like the Darkness, because you have big splashes of blood, and these diverse and interesting environments to play with."

Sounds promising, for certain, and we really can't wait to try the game in full.  Expect The Darkness II next week, on Tuesday, February 7.  Check below for a mess of new screenshots.