Don’t let them languish in your inventory. (This menu won’t be available early in the game.) The Creature Core tree all lit up Airship Syndicate/THQ Nordic via Polygonĭarksiders Genesis won’t pester you about applying Creature Cores, so they’re easy to forget about. Slot them into the nodes the Creature Cores menu (pictured below), and you’ll make Strife and War more powerful in a variety of ways. Don’t forget to assign your Creature CoresĬreature Cores are special items that you collect when defeating enemies or purchase from Vulgram. Look at the Side Mission menu when you enter a new level and commit to being a thorough explorer.
During the game’s first mission, there’s a side mission called Back to Work that says to “ defeat the fleabags shirking their duty in Dethroned.” If you find and kill them all, you’ll get some additional Creature Cores. Other quests apply to specific missions and maps, and they also appear under the Side Mission menu on the left side of your map screen. Find 50 Boatman’s Coins, and you can claim 1,000 Souls as a reward. You’ll find a comprehensive list of quests in the appropriately named Quests button on the main menu. Completing them grants great gifts like hundreds of Souls or bundles of Boatman’s Coins. Quests are one of the most lucrative systems in Darksiders Genesis. If you’re having trouble finding or reaching an item, consider returning later when you have the appropriate gear. A few items are out of reach behind locked doors or later-game upgrades for Strife and War. You can collect almost everything you find during your first trip through the first few levels.
(You can see Treasure Map location for the first level, Dethroned, above.) You’re free to explore before you find the map - and you really should, because you’ll almost always find something - but collecting everything is easier after you find the Treasure Map. Find it, and you’ll add the location of collectible objects like Boatman’s Coins and Trickster Keys to your map. Treasure Maps reveal each area’s secrets Airship Syndicate/THQ Nordic via PolygonĮach area has a Treasure Map hidden somewhere. Items like Small Chests, Item Chests, Limbo Chests, and Summoning Stones are the easiest things to find on your first trips - but you don’t have to rely solely on observation to clear a level. You won’t find any special features like treasure chest locations on the map unless and until you’ve approached them (knowingly or not). When you enter a new area for the first time, you’ll have access to a sparse map that grows as you explore.
Exploration is essential for upgrading, making money, and ultimately unlocking Strife and War’s full potential. Explore every corner of every level for collectiblesĭarksiders Genesis is littered with collectible items, treasure chests, keys, and special locked doors. The inverse implication is also true: Don’t perform an Execution if you really want (blue) Souls, Darksiders Genesis’ currency. When an enemy’s health is low, you can press B to perform an Execution, which looks cool, but also has two advantages: You’re invincible during the animation, and Executions produce (green) Health and (yellow) Wrath Orbs from enemies (and sometimes even Souls.) Here’s how we decide between regular killing and Executions. The way that you kill an enemy has an effect on the glowing orbs that fly out of the dead. Use Execution to gain Health and Wrath Orbs War is also much better at dealing with crowds than Strife, so if you’re ever surrounded by large groups of enemies, call in War. Stay close to enemies and swing his sword. War plays as he did in the original Darksiders: like a tank wielding an enormous sword. Strife can fight up close, but it’s not his specialty. Create space between Strife and his enemies using Dash.
Play to their strengths, which you can intuit from their weapons. Use Strife from afar and War up closeĭarksiders Genesis has two playable characters - Strife and War - and they approach combat very differently. In Polygon’s Darksiders Genesis beginner’s guide, we’ve corralled our best tips to help you, Strife, and War get better faster. The change in perspective is just the beginning. If you’ve battled as a horseman before, this will feel familiar. Darksiders Genesis looks like a Diablo-style dungeon crawler, but it plays like a Darksiders-style action game.