It can be argued that the visuals can borderline on being too bright and colorful for the mature tone of the game and series, but it just makes The Darkness II more stylized than anything.
Visually The Darkness II is a radical departure from the first game, taking a cel-shaded approach more rooted in the comics and it will age far more gracefully than that of the original game’s realistic approach. Thankfully gone are the overlong trench levels from the first game, replaced by tiny sections where Jackie is trapped in a mental institution that aren’t that long and provide necessary character development for the protagonist and his motivations in the story. Instead of being open, events play out far more linear with only brief stops in your penthouse apartment to look at collectibles you can find within levels that reveal details about the history of The Darkness. The Darkness II is similarly short, but it’s a game that feels far more focused. The Darkness has aged okay, but it feels like it’s trying too hard to mask its short playtime by forcing you to travel back and forth between a small play area. One of the best parts about The Darkness, the solo asides meant to hide load times but provide entertaining insight into Jackie’s character, make a return and Bloom’s performance in these sections show that he was an excellent choice to take over from Acevedo and these small, quiet segments are possibly much better utilized here as The Darkness II is far more action heavy than the first.
Actor Brian Bloom ( Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus) replaces Kirk Acevedo as Jackie Estacado and it’s hard to pick a favorite among the two as both do a great job with the role. Mike Patton once again returns to voice The Darkness, about the only holdover from the last game, and still very much revels in the role. Because it’s lighter in tone, but still very dark and mature, it doesn’t quite hit the emotional high points that The Darkness does, but you still care a lot about Jackie and want him to overcome his struggles against those who are putting his life in turmoil. Such things are not meant to be taken as an insult though, as Starbreeze’s original game struggled to really marry the comic book origins of their game with the more serious sections and it’s something that the sequel handles better. The Darkness was a great crime revenge story that often felt like it was ashamed of the more supernatural, comic book aspects of the property, which is certainly not the case in The Darkness II. At any moment you almost expect Jackie to don his iconic armor from the original run of the comic and for Witchblade to show up as a boss. When Jackie is violently attacked in public by a cult seeking the power of The Darkness entity, Jackie must unleash the symbiote he had worked to control in order to combat these new attackers and eventually learn about more about the secrets of The Darkness and things it has managed to keep hidden from its host. Taking place a few years after the first game, you once again play as Jackie Estacado who has managed to suppress The Darkness entity and take over as head of the Franchetti crime family. With a new development team in the form of Digital Extremes, best known at the time for their cover based shooter, Dark Sector, the sequel to The Darkness, appropriately titled The Darkness II, leans much farther into the comic book roots of the franchise than Starbreeze did and builds upon the best parts of the original game while still managing to tell a story that you’ll care about, even if it does lack a little of the heart that made the first game stand out. Given that level of success, it was surprising that it would be close to four years before any type of sequel would be announced and almost five before it was eventually released. 2007’s The Darkness was a commercial success for developer Starbreeze and publisher 2K Games, going on to sell over one million copies, which was a pretty good figure for a game based around an IP that wasn’t that well-known.
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