E3: THQ reveals Darksiders

THQ has uncovered a new game called Darksiders, which will be coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime next year.

It's being created by internal studio Vigil Games and dreamt-up by comic-book author Joe Madureira - best known for his work on Uncanny X-Men.

Darksiders is a third-person action adventure based around the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - a tale from that dusty old book The Bible. But taken with a hefty dose of salt.

You see Vigil's world began with a clever-clogs being creating the universe and the Nephilim to inhabit it. But they soon got too big for their boots, so Angels were introduced because they're easier to control. A massive war ensued. In the middle of this the Four Horsemen swapped sides and helped stamp out their own race, the Nephilim.

Clever-clogs being rewards the turncoats with the eternal duty of destroying worlds. Horsemen are chuffed. All goes well for a while until the quartet are tricked and locked away - leaving all the portals they opened, er, wide open, so demons can run riot in worlds unchecked.

It's a rather grand setting and we pick up the story as our main character War escapes his prison and seeks vengeance on those that put him there.

His abilities, especially in combat, instantly conjure up God of War comparisons; hacking and slashing like Charlie Dimmock in a bed of giant weeds. But there's also puzzles to solve and items to gather like in Zelda, and a set of 12 abilities to upgrade just like in Devil May Cry.

So you could say it is a medley of some of the best games around. Oh, and with a horse you can summon even if you're in the middle of bloodying someone's nose, or jumping through the air. Add all that to some corking graphics and a dramatic comic-book feel, and you've got us interested.

Head over to Eurogamer TV to see the trailer fresh from E3.