Darksiders' Joe Madureira

A% Super Moderating Hero: Good afteroon, Eurogamer readers. Keep those questions coming - Joe's ready to begin at 3pm on the dot.

A% Super Moderating Hero: We've got him! Here's here right now. Let's begin. Joe, please can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you are so famous?

A% Joe Madureira: Hello Eurogamer, I'm Joe and I'm creative director at Vigil Games. Why am I famous? I guess it's my work as a comic artist.

A% Super Moderating Hero: You used to illustrate comics - what's it like having a proper job now? Ahem. I mean what benefits has that background bestowed on your videogame career?

A% Joe Madureira: It's definitely opened alot of doors for me. I met alot of the people I work with currently because they knew my work from comics. And it's probably put me in a position where they trust me more than they would if I were just some guy off the street.

Q%ZuluHero%29832% I know you probably hear this a lot but what on earth happened with Battle Chasers? It was such an awesome comic, that just seemed to fizzle out. Any plans to finsh the story of Gully and Co off?

A% Super Moderating Hero: I would love to some day. I am amazed how many people ask me this. It's somehow managed to live in people's minds all these years. I feel like I HAVE to finish it some day.

A% Super Moderating Hero: In a videogame perhaps?

A% Joe Madureira: That would be amazing. But I'm so possessive of it, I would demand it be done by Vigil. And we have too much on our plate these days to take on another project. So we'll see!

A% Super Moderating Hero: How much of Darksiders is you - where are fans going to see your influence the most?

A% Joe Madureira: Definitely in the characters. I had oversight on the entire game, but my direct involvement was mainly on concepting characters, especially some of the bigger story characters and creatures.

A% Super Moderating Hero: Which one is your favourite? Which one do you dream about when you go to bed?

A% Joe Madureira: There's a character you meet later on in the game - a weapon smith named Ulthane. I really like how he turned out. I wouldn't say I dream about him at night though. If I did, I'm not sure I'd admit to it.

Q%Buztafen%136486% Hi Joe, my three friends and I formed a team called The Four Horsemen while playing Left 4 Dead. The member that we refer to as 'War' is called 'Donk'. He's got ginger hair, is 6ft 7 and we're pretty sure he could kill people with his bare hands. If you and your team are thinking of doing a sequel to Darksiders, could you put an evil character (perhaps War's Nemesis?) in it called 'Donk'. He'd be well chuffed!

A% Joe Madureira: Donk sounds pretty epic. I'm putting it on the list.

Q%CaptainCortez%396898% Lots has been made of how Darksiders borrows ideas, particularly from God of War and Zelda - and to good effect. But how much influence did those games actually have?

A% Joe Madureira: I think it's impossible not to be influenced by something that you've enjoyed, or that's made an impact on you or the genre. It's funny, because most of the time we would fire up God of War it would be to make sure we WEREN'T doing something that was too close. Trying to make sure that we were differentiating ourselves enough. If anything we took pains to move away from these games. The adventure structure of games like Zelda was at the core of our game design from the beginning, though.

Q%KinanEldari%388267% Hey Joe. I'm not sure whether this question has come up already somewhere during the development of Darksiders, but what made you change from doing comics to creative direction of games?

A% Joe Madureira: Being a big fan of games all my life, and having worked in comics for so long, I just felt like creatively it was time for me to make the move. I didn't want to look back and regret not making the jump. It's an exciting industry, and I love being a part of it, though of course, I do miss comics.

Q%Budr%89317% Any musings on the move from static to interactive entertainment? Challenges posed, doors opened, etc.

A% Joe Madureira: Designing for games is much, much, MUCH harder. Did I mention MUCH? Lots of limitations and considerations. I could probably write a book about it. I won't bore you. Just take my word for it!

Q%Budr%89317% There was talk of a pre-release demo a couple of months ago but then all went quiet. Any update?

A% Joe Madureira: It was extremely difficult to create a demo that really showed off what the game was really about, and still fit into the size limitations of a downloadable demo. In the end we felt it was better not to release a demo that could potentially misrepresent the game. The good news is, you can pick up the game in a couple days!

Q%henrix%68225% Could you please draw me a picture? Please!

A% Joe Madureira: No.

Q%KinanEldari%388267% Alright. Since Darksiders is now complete and pretty much available to the public in most territories, what else are you thinking about? What other ideas do you have that you want to take up with Vigil?

A% Joe Madureira: Right now Vigil is really focused on our other internal project, the Warhammer 40k MMO. We've got a couple other projects on the burner, and hopefully we'll announce them later this year.

Q%Oli%50547% It's strange that comics have a huge cultural influence these days - especially in Hollywood, where every other film seems to be a comic adaptation - but don't sell many copies, while games sell millions but remain in a cultural niche. Do you think either of those things will chage?

A% Joe Madureira: I think it might as game stories improve. Until recently, there wasn't that much emphasis on game stories. It's not what sells a game, it's all about the gameplay. Comics still produce fantastic stories, it's still one of the purest visual storytelling mediums, which is why it still makes such an impact.

The sad fact is, most game stories stink.

A% Super Moderating Hero: How's that Warhammer 40K MMO coming along - can we draw any clues from Darksiders as to the game's final look and feel, or will the two be completely different beasts?

A% Joe Madureira: They are pretty different, though our love of giant armor and weapons will be pretty evident in both. And huge, massively detailed creatures.

A% Super Moderating Hero: And how's development going? Will we see something of it soon?

A% Joe Madureira: Cant really discuss it, but I would be very, very surprised if we don't start releasing some initial glimpses of the game later this year. Don't quote me on that!!!

Q%Ainigma%177223% It's refreshing to have a new game thats not all about multiplayer, and it's also refreshing that reviewers haven't used this as a reason to reduce the scores. Games like this don't seem to be made as often, was this a decision early on to make it solely SP?

A% Joe Madureira: Absolutely. We realised early on that we wouldnt be able to pull off the scope of game we wanted to, and have it be multiplayer. We were a new team building new tech, and a new IP. We had our work cut out for us. Vigil has a very strong all-or-nothing mentality, and if we're not confident we can pull it off, we're not doing it. So we focused on making the most kick-ass single-player game possible.

A% Super Moderating Hero: Eurogamer Darksiders reviewer Tom Bramwell asks - given what happens at the end of the game, would it be fair to say you guys envisage making a second instalment?

A% Joe Madureira: No spoilers!!! We would absolutely LOVE the opportunity to work on a sequel. But ultimately, gamers will decide. So go buy it, people!!!

A% Super Moderating Hero: What part will DLC play for Darksiders?

A% Joe Madureira: Sorry, we aren't currently planning any DLC content for Darksiders.

Q%rotmm%21663% You've not had the best of luck with game development, from your startup Tri-Lunar going out of business to Trade Wars becoming something else entirely. How did that affect you and Darksiders?

A% Joe Madureira: I can't really complain honestly. I've adopted the mentality that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes you learn more from your failures than you do from your successes, and those were certainly great learning experiences. More importantly I met the key people at those two companies that would make Darksiders possible. Alot of those people work at Vigil today. So it's funny how things work out sometimes.

Q%Oli%50547% We're always hearing about how risky it is for publishers to launch original IP. How did you persuade the bigwigs at THQ that it was worth taking the risk with Darksiders?

A% Joe Madureira: It wasn't too tough really. The timing was right. THQ was looking for a new IP, and they really loved Darksiders from the onset. It was a right place-right time-right property situation, so we were very fortunate. That wasn't the case years earlier with my first venture, where literally no one wanted to do original IP.

A% Super Moderating Hero: You're making a game based on The Bible and it has giant swords and brutal murders in. The Church can't have been happy - did you feel their Wrath of War?

A% Joe Madureira: Haha. Not yet. Though honestly, we tried really hard to stay away from any religious implications. Mainly because we wanted people to enjoy the game regardless of which religion they practiced or how familiar they were with Revelation. Plus, coming from a pretty religious catholic family, I just tried to ask myself, "Would my mom kill me for this?!" And so far mom's okay with it. So we should be good.

A% Super Moderating Hero: And are you actually mad? You do seem to like that moniker.

A% Joe Madureira: I am the type to laugh at the most inappropriate times. I try not to take things too seriously, which gets me in trouble sometimes. But you have to laugh at life! So yes I might be slightly insane. But it's fun.

A% Super Moderating Her: That's more or less all we've got time for. But how about one more - would you rather have lasers for eyes or be able to turn invisible? Actually, what super power would you have - because you're familiar with quite a few of them?

A% Joe Madureira: Invisibility. I'll leave it to your imagininations what sorts of things I would do with this tremendous power.