Darksiders owner Nordic Games has announced its rebranding as THQ Nordic. THQ declared bankruptcy in 2012 and auctioned off its various properties including Darksiders, Homeworld, Red Faction and so on to various companies. In 2014, Nordic acquired the THQ name itself and now has come the time to finally use it.

Lars Wingefors, chief executive of THQ Nordic, said that “One could say the most defining moment for our company happened in 2013, grabbing headlines like; ‘Who the f*** is Nordic Games?,’ ‘Darksiders Gets Bought By…Nordic Games?,’ and ‘Nordic Games explains who the f they are, plans for THQ assets’.

“While we take great pride in our Swedish roots and accomplished a great deal under the Nordic Games masthead, we decided it was time to incorporate the THQ name. Those key brands will continue to shape our business in a meaningful way going forward, and THQ Nordic represents a core approach of doing much more than owning a highly competitive portfolio of IP. We cherish them, and align them with the very best development resources to expand upon them with the level of experience that communities and established fan bases expect and deserve.”

With 23 games in development, Wingesfrost noted that 13 of these were unannounced at this time. “With this rebrand we are entering the next phase in our company’s evolution. As of now we have 23 game projects in development, 13 thereof have not yet been publicly announced but are sure to be in the next months. Needless to say, the majority of these projects are based on former THQ owned IPs and franchises.”

What are your thoughts on THQ making its return? Let us know in the comments.

Nordic Games has officially revealed Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, a remastered version of the first Darksiders for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Wii U.

Like Darksiders 2: Deathnitive Edition, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition will sport a number of graphical improvements including native 1080p resolution, improvements in rendering, post processing effects, improved shadow rendering, 60 FPS gameplay (with the Wii U version running at 30 FPS) and texture resolutions doubled across the board.

The remaster hasn’t been dated but it is “coming soon” according to Nordic so it can’t be that far off. Darksiders focuses on War as he struggles with the Apocalypse (and the forces manipulating him from behind the scenes). Described as fairly derivative, Darksiders was still very well received for its time.

Will the Warmastered Edition revitalize interest in the franchise, especially with Darksiders 3 rumoured to be in development? We’ll have to wait and find out but in the meantime, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The action game based in the Warhammer universe, Warhammer: End Times: Vermintide, will be launching on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 this October, developer Fatshark and publisher Nordic Games have announced. The digital versions of the game will be self published by Fatshark. Nordic Games, meanwhile, will handle the physical, retail launch and distribution of the game worldwide.

“More than half a million PC gamers have already taken Vermintide to their heart, and this Fall it’s time for console players to do the same. The consoles will get an extended version that includes all DLCs released for the PC version to date,” says Martin Wahlund, CEO at Fatshark.

The game will launch on October 4 on PlaySTation 4 and Xbox One. You can check out a new trailer for the game for yourself below. Let us know what you think of the game, and whether you plan on buying it, in the comments section.

Following the enhanced port of Darksiders 2 for the Xbox One and PS4, Nordic Games is apparently working on a remaster of the first Darksiders.

This is according to a report by Nextn which says the developer revealed this news over the weekend at Gamepolis 2016. No official announcement has come just yet but the port will apparently be out for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Wii U in October with more information coming at Gamescom.

It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen especially given how much better received the first game was. Nordic Games owns the rights to Darksiders after THQ went bankrupt so aside from Darksiders 3, which we’re still waiting on, this is the best possible use of the license. Will we see a possible double pack of both remasters? One can certainly hope/

What are your thoughts on a port for Darksiders on current gen platforms? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.

The re-release of last year’s excellent Ori ad the Blind Forest will be getting a release at retail stores next month, publisher Nordic Games announced today. What’s more, it won’t be just the Xbox One version that makes it to the high street, either- Ori will become on of those increasingly rare PC games that will also be sold at brick and mortar stores.

Nordic will be handling the PC release of the game, which will retail in two versions- a standard edition for $19.99, which will include the game and a collectible poster, and a limited edition ($29.99) that includes a special Steelbook case, the soundtrack, two posters, and two postcards with artwork from the game. Meanwhile, Microsoft will handle publishing of the Xbox One physical release of Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition, which will retail for $19.99 and also release on June 14th, 2016.

Hopefully, this exposes this already wonderful game to an even wider audience than it must have had so far. Ori is a gem of a game, and it certainly deserves to be played by as many players as is possible.

Piranha Bytes will be launching ELEX, a brand new science fiction RPG, on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. It will be launching in 2017, which is later than the previously expected release date of later this year. So that’s a shame- if you were hoping to play it this year, you have one less game to look forward to.

ELEX is the new game by the developers of the Risen games. It has been previously described as “a post-apocalyptic Science Fantasy universe,” full of “original characters, mutated creatures, deep moral choices and powerful action.” The game will also feature jetpacks, which will allow for vertical exploration of its world.

All of which sounds awesome to me- the trouble is that with it not coming out any time soon, these details confirming the game’s potential awesomeness just make me antsy. It’s a shame, but on the whole, I think I’ll take a whole bunch of delays and an awesome, polished game, over a rushed game with no delays, but a whole load of glitches and bugs.

GamingBolt had a chance to speak to Nordic’s business & product development director Reinhard Pollice and Gunfire Games design director John Pearl about the experience, especially with Pearl revisiting Darksiders 2 after three years. When is Darksiders 3 happening? The answer may not be what you expect (read: not anytime soon).

"We invested a lot of time and energy into the visuals. We upgraded all the texture resolutions or re-did textures completely. We changed the rendering output to true Full HD 1080p rendering where the previous generation version of the game was actually sub-720p."

What motivated the desire to remaster Darksiders 2 for current gen consoles (besides the fact that almost every other previous gen game is getting a remaster)?

Reinhard Pollice: Darksiders 2 is an extremely well aging piece of a game, and we think that it did not quite have the audience it deserves. Also, revisiting the game was a good choice as the game was left with some issues on the last gen platforms.

Why not include the original Darksiders in the Deathinitive package? Will it be remastered separately for PS4 and Xbox One?

Reinhard Pollice: It would have been close to impossible to include Darksiders in the same app with DS2 so we would have needed to do two separate applications anyways and it would be easily another 6 month of work so we decided to go for Darksiders 2 first.

What new content and tweaks can players look forward to in Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition besides the DLC?

John Pearl: We revisited many of the encounters and rebalanced them to make sure they were challenging but fair.  There were encounters that felt too hard or too easy for where they took place in the game’s progression and we adjusted them accordingly. Additionally there were some major boss encounters that didn’t yield a reward in the form of a unique weapon or item, this is one of the ways we made the DLC content feel more integrated and those bosses will now drop items. All of these items have been rebalanced to an appropriate level to when the player will now find them in game. Additionally there were very few weapons previously that benefited from Arcane Power so a player who went with arcane gear would’ve been at a disadvantage compared to someone focused on strength.  Another thing we added was we hide additional skill points in hard to reach treasure chests. The skill points were previously only given out each time the player leveled and as specific quest rewards. This meant there was a hard limit of 49 possible skill points to spend in the 2 skill tress. Now players who want to explore every nook and cranny of the world can maximize their build even more.

We’ve also added “Deathinitive” Difficulty to the game which is actually harder than the previously max level difficulty “Apocalyptic”. This should present a major challenge to even the most die-hard Darksiders fans.  If that wasn’t hard enough, we’ve also updated Nightmare mode to Deathinitive difficulty where previously it was set at Apocalyptic. Nightmare mode is our truly hardcore mode, where if you die your save is deleted and you have to start over.

Can you tell us about the overall changes to the visuals and frame rate performance of the game?

John Pearl: We invested a lot of time and energy into the visuals. We upgraded all the texture resolutions or re-did textures completely. We changed the rendering output to true Full HD 1080p rendering where the previous generation version of the game was actually sub-720p. We changed the lighting model which becomes quite obvious when comparing screenshots – we think this all adds up to a really nice looking game.

What are your thoughts working on PS4 and Xbox One? Were there any hurdles in developing for either console compared to the previous generation?

Reinhard Pollice: Both of them are great platforms to work with. Working on the PS4 was a bit more straightforward than on the Xbox One. On Xbox One we had to learn just a lot of things as they were completely changed from the previous generation. However the more we became familiar with it the more it made sense and the more we liked it. Sony and Microsoft are really competing on a very high level but I hope that some things like patching and certification processes become even less strict.

"I was quite sceptical about VR. I mean VR is not a natural add-on to the way we are used to play games now. The visual possibilities are amazing but that needs to go hand in hand with things like camera, controls or user interface etc."

Quite a bit has been said about the Xbox One’s hardware and how it pales in comparison to the PS4. Where do you see both consoles in the long run, especially with the rising power of PC hardware?

Reinhard Pollice: The main factor for home consoles is still the price compared to beefy gaming PCs. In the next years consoles will be still a big factor and probably even beyond that if a console manufacturer finds the right formula for price, power, service quality and content offering. Xbox One has just recently announced some great things like backwards compatibility. So I expect them to close the gap.

Has the experience of bringing Darksiders 2 to current gen consoles helped aid you in developing future projects like Darksiders 3?

Reinhard Pollice: Of course – shipping a title is always invaluable experience that we at Nordic can use for all our projects. So for example working on PS4 and Xbox One will be a great help for upcoming titles that we announced for those platforms like our huge Open World RPG “ELEX”. With regards to Darksiders 3 I can only say that the more successful Darksiders 2 Deathinitive Edition becomes the more likely Darksiders 3 is.

What improvements or changes would the gameplay see if Darksiders 3 were to happen?

Reinhard Pollice: There are a few very good and obvious possibilities gameplay-wise for Darksiders 3. We are evaluating all these paths carefully. But I am not here to talk about a maybe-Darksiders 3 😉

Generally speaking, what are your thoughts on the emerging technologies in gaming like virtual reality and HoloLens? Will there be a place for third person action adventure titles like Darksiders?

Reinhard Pollice: I was quite sceptical about VR. I mean VR is not a natural add-on to the way we are used to play games now. The visual possibilities are amazing but that needs to go hand in hand with things like camera, controls or user interface etc… A couple of games are more fit then others for this and add a lot to the overall experience of a game. For example the BulletTrain demo on the rift was a really great VR experience that brought action gameplay to a new level. Also the Gunfire crew are working on a great VR title – “Chronos“. For third person action adventures like Darksiders it is a bit difficult. I think you have to go a step back and for example provide a total different camera scheme as we are used to see today. But after all I think that a lot of gamers still want the way we play games today.

What do you think about introducing multiplayer into the Darksiders universe, be it through co-op or competitive play?

Reinhard Pollice: It would be really cool! I would love to play that but I don’t think it’s the only way to achieve the most fun for a Darksiders game.

When do you think you will actually begin to work on Darksiders 3? You do know that fans want it.

Reinhard Pollice: Sorry, no comment.

"I am not sure if cloud based processing is the future. After all games should work forever and I am sure that in 10 years from the original launch most providers will have shut down their services – just look into the past – even very cheap services have been shut down already."

The remastered version runs at 30fps on both the consoles. Was there a specific reason why you guys did not achieved 60fps on the PS4 and Xbox One?

John Pearl: When we started out, we looked at what it would take to achieve 60 FPS but we knew it would be a very challenging undertaking. It sounds easy especially as other games have achieved it but it really depends on howthe game was built and how versatile the engine is on console. In the end we would have had to re-do some levels from scratch to achieve 60 FPS. Some areas in the game currently run well over 60fps while others run at 30fps. Running the game unlocked allowing the max frame rate would end up resulting in a lot screen tearing and an overall poor experience for the players.

Additionally, to get an engine running at a solid 60fps on consoles it has to be a goal when creating the engine and the assets or at least a lot of serious work has to be put into it to get it running at 60fps.  The engine that both of the Darksiders games run on were not optimized to run at 60fps on console nor was the data optimized for that.  There would have had to have been major overhauls to the way things were rendered at the core of the engine and some major changes to some of the visuals.  There are technical cheats out there that would allow the game to run at 60 fps at the cost of a variable resolution.  We decided a locked 1080p at 30 was more important to us than the 60fps with major drops in resolution.

I am sure you must be aware about Crackdown 3 that uses the cloud to enhance physics and destruction effects. Do you think the next Darksiders could use something like that given that the scale in the previous games has been nothing short of impressive? Furthermore what are your thoughts on cloud based processing used to improve visuals?

Reinhard Pollice: Yes, I have seen something about that but first they need to ship with that. I am very much looking forward to it. Great physics/destruction effects were also possible with the last generation – just look at our title “Red Faction Guerrilla”.

I am not sure if cloud based processing is the future. After all games should work forever and I am sure that in 10 years from the original launch most providers will have shut down their services – just look into the past – even very cheap services have been shut down already.

Did the Xbox One’s eSRAM posed any issues while developing the game on it?

Reinhard Pollice: Well, there isn’t a lot available so we had to cleverly use it.

So what is next from the development team? What projects are you currently working on?
Reinhard Pollice: At Nordic Games we have a focus on PC titles based on our IPs for 2016 – We are working hard to shape SpellForce 3 and The Guild 3 into awesome games and then we are hard at work with “ELEX” the next big open world RPG – this time in a fresh Science Fantasy setting.

John Pearl: At Gunfire Games, we’ve got a few projects in production. Primarily we’re focused on finishing up Chronos. An action adventure game made exclusively for the Oculus Rift and will be available at launch. Fans of Darksiders and action adventure games in general will find a lot of love in Chronos in terms of combat, puzzles and exploration. We’ve also been working to update our Gear VR game Herobound: Spirit Champion to take full advantage of the higher specs of the Oculus Rift.   Additionally we’ll be launching a smaller, multi-player focused game called Super Fuse Ball on steam in the very near future. Suffice to say, we like to stay busy!

Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition is out now for PS4 and Xbox One and it’s a surprisingly strong remaster of the three year old action adventure title. One question remained though – given the technology on hand, why didn’t developer Gunfire Games go with 60 FPS? The original game ran at 30 FPS and there’s clearly enough power on the current gen to handle a higher frame rate.

GamingBolt spoke to design director John Pearl about the same and he noted that, “When we started out, we looked at what it would take to achieve 60 FPS but we knew it would be a very challenging undertaking. It sounds easy especially as other games have achieved it but it really depends on how the game was built and how versatile the engine is on console. In the end we would have had to re-do some levels from scratch to achieve 60 FPS. Some areas in the game currently run well over 60fps while others run at 30fps. Running the game unlocked allowing the max frame rate would end up resulting in a lot screen tearing and an overall poor experience for the players.”

It was also dependent on the original engine the game was running at. “Additionally, to get an engine running at a solid 60fps on consoles it has to be a goal when creating the engine and the assets or at least a lot of serious work has to be put into it to get it running at 60fps. The engine that both of the Darksiders games run on were not optimized to run at 60fps on console nor was the data optimized for that. There would have had to have been major overhauls to the way things were rendered at the core of the engine and some major changes to some of the visuals. There are technical cheats out there that would allow the game to run at 60 fps at the cost of a variable resolution. We decided a locked 1080p at 30fps was more important to us than the 60fps with major drops in resolution.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a developer for this – it’s just that we’re so used to most remasters trying to hit 60 FPS and 1080p resolution. Regardless, what do you think about the decision to stay at 30 FPS for Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition? Let us know in the comments.

Cloud assisted gaming seems like it will garner steam when Microsoft launches Crackdown 3, a game that uses the cloud to enhance physics and destruction effects. GamingBolt recently spoke with Reinhard Pollice who is the Business & Product Development Director, Nordic Games and asked him whether hypothetically, the next Darksiders could use something like that given that the scale in the previous games have been nothing short of impressive. It must be noted that Nordic Games have not yet confirmed a Darksiders 3.

Talking about Crackdown 3, Pollice stated that he has seen the demo and he is looking forward to how it shapes up. “Yes, I have seen something about that but first they need to ship with that. I am very much looking forward to it. Great physics/destruction effects were also possible with the last generation – just look at our title “Red Faction Guerrilla”.”

“I am not sure if cloud based processing is the future. After all, games should work forever and I am sure that in 10 years from the original launch most providers will have shut down their services – just look into the past – even very cheap services have been shut down already.”

Pollice is possibly referring to OnLive, a cloud based service that went defunct in April of this year. However Microsoft’s cloud service is an all together different beast. It’s not a service as Microsoft won’t be charging its users for the same. It’s not going to stream games like PlayStation Now but will instead only focus on making the visuals better.

Only time will tell whether Microsoft’s cloud service is successful but in my personal opinion, it will only grow as more multiplayer/online only games adopt it to deliver fantastic visuals.

Darksiders 2: Deathinitve Edition is out now and has signaled the return of Vigil Games’ action adventure for the current generation of consoles. It’s even more interesting how Gunfire Games, the team that handled the porting process, is composed of several former Vigil staff members with publisher Nordic Games also offering its support.

GamingBolt actually spoke to Nordic’s Reinhard Pollice, business and product development director, on the development of Darksiders 2 for the PS4 and Xbox One. Given that the game was optimized fairly well for PS3 and Xbox 360, did the team face any hurdles in bringing it to PS4 and Xbox One?

“Both of them are great platforms to work with. Working on the PS4 was a bit more straightforward than on the Xbox One. On Xbox One we had to learn just a lot of things as they were completely changed from the previous generation. However the more we became familiar with it the more it made sense and the more we liked it. Sony and Microsoft are really competing on a very high level but I hope that some things like patching and certification processes become even less strict.

As for the Xbox One and how its power compares to the PS4, we asked Reinhard how both consoles would fare in the long run especially as PC hardware becomes more advanced.

“The main factor for home consoles is still the price compared to beefy gaming PCs. In the next years consoles will be still a big factor and probably even beyond that if a console manufacturer finds the right formula for price, power, service quality and content offering. Xbox One has just recently announced some great things like backwards compatibility. So I expect them to close the gap.”

Have you played Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition and not been scarred by the game’s obsession with threes of everything? Let us know in the comments.