Preview by: Meghan Watt

After ten months of design, four would-be developers pitched an idea to THQ on the last day of E3 bearing a TV monitor split down the middle and an unfinished demo. Five years and more than 120 employees later, that idea became Darksiders, an action/adventure RPG set in the bleak aftermath of the biblical Apocalypse. THQ and Vigil recently provided us, along with other media members, a chance to test the game for ourselves before its early January release.

We arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village, CA, ready for a big presentation, maybe a Power Point and definitely some awkward business card exchanges. Instead, Vigil's General Manager David Adams and comic book artist Joe Madureira, the Creative Director, gave the briefest of introductions over breakfast and then immediately ushered us upstairs to our rooms where Xbox 360s, PS3s, flat-screen TVs and, most importantly, Darksiders awaited.

Sparing some time for lunch and an interview, I had roughly six hours to play, not counting the free time many of us had with the game the prior night. The game sports 25 hours of gameplay, so I knew I could only make a dent, but as far as previews go, six hours was a welcome treat. So I closed the curtains, killed the lights, cracked my knuckles and dived in.

POST-“THE ACTUAL” APOCALYPSE

It's been done before: Fallout 3, Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, and on and on. The world as we know it comes to an end, leaving the last dregs of humanity to fight for its survival. But Adams and Madureira had a different take on this oft-used setting: Re-create the actual, biblical Apocalypse and immediately kill off every last human... as an introduction.