First-person shooters and survival horror games typically don’t mix too well, though that has not stopped attempts to make it happen. Take weird experiments like Resident Evil Survivor and Dead Aim, strange and kind of janky experiences that are now just retro games that were poorly executed. Survival horror games with a lot of gun-toting elements can work, as seen with Resident Evil 4, but they often lose the 'survival' aspect and have a lesser emphasis on horror over action.
Sometimes, though, a game can surprise you with how it fairly balances horror with such action. The Darkness is the main example of this. A game based on a rather obscure comic book by Garth Ennis, David Wohl, and Marc Silvestri, it was a strange mix of dark fantasy and supernatural, with a wise-guy, noir-like attitude that made it a minor success under the Image Comics label. The Darkness, the game, however, is one of those titles that may be more respected than actually good, coming out at the right time when experimentation was trying to bring something new to a fairly boilerplate FPS game.
You star as Jackie Estacado, a mafioso who, en route to see his uncle in New York City, gets trapped in a subway by the cops and his uncle’s hitmen. With your uncle putting a hit on Jackie and nearly finishing the deed, he has nowhere to really turn to, except for a demon who is looking to possess someone. The demon, known as the Darkness, promises you will survive so long as you help it get fed, giving Jackie a lot of extra power he never thought he needed.
The Darkness is a very straightforward game in terms of plot and execution. It is a typical mob-style revenge story, but with supernatural demon tentacles as a corrupting force. You have several over-the-top human villains, from your uncle to a corrupt police captain, and a romantic love interest with Jackie's girlfriend Jenny that serves as a plot device, and of course, the temptation of evil by the Darkness itself.
Yes, it's a clichéd storyline, but it is a well-told one, with predictable plot twists that are well executed. Jackie is a fairly fleshed-out character, caught in his darker desires with a literal demon on his shoulder telling him to embrace it, while showing genuine care for those he loves like Jenny. It is also little things in The Darkness that help this dichotomy stand out. A famous early scene in the game is a quiet moment with Jenny, in your apartment after the first action sequence, sitting on the couch, watching To Kill a Mockingbird. You can let the whole movie play, just lingering with Jenny next to you, her shoulder in your lap.
It is a moment of silence and normality that is organic, mostly because how long you watch the film is dictated by the one controlling Jackie. There are a couple of moments in The Darkness like this, but the use of To Kill a Mockingbird here is a master stroke in telling the player to pay attention and slow down.
While Jackie is a complex character, it takes a while to warm up to him, due to his tough-guy mafia persona in the early levels. It also doesn't help that you are dealing with mostly one-dimensional characters outside of Jackie. His uncle is paranoid, the corrupt cop is sadistic, and even the Darkness is just a nastier version of Venom if you consider its role in the game. It is there as a force vs a character. Jenny is also shallow, but mostly in the sense that we are told about her and told about our feelings for her, versus shown it more than we could be. The aforementioned To Kill a Mockingbird scene is perhaps the only time we get a sense of affection between the two in the whole game, outside of one other scene at the game's end.
The game's pacing is a bit all over the place as a consequence of some of this design. You have a quick action moment before we slow down completely, with The Darkness easing you into its mechanics. Gunplay is what you expect, and honestly nothing wholly remarkable. You have multiple guns and ammo types to collect and use, and it follows a more classic Wolfenstein 3D model of arcade-styled boomer shooter for its action. This was the days before the more filed-down gunplay of Call of Duty.
Gunplay, however, is also enhanced by the Darkness. You can find what are called Darkness guns throughout the game that act as more powerful weapons but consume Darkness energy. In The Darkness, Darkness energy is fueled by killing enemies and letting the Darkness consume their hearts. This mechanic is basically a large-scale version of a resource mechanic, one that is well executed for the most part. Your powers can do a lot of things, from enhancing your guns as mentioned, to summoning creatures called the "Darklings", to just using your tendrils to sneak around and climb walls.
The variety is decent, if a bit limited, but in almost any situation the Darkness powers are useful and more powerful, if you have the energy to use them. There is, of course, another catch: you need to be in complete darkness to manifest them, so any light source prevents Jackie from using the Darkness at all. This adds one more layer to combat, dealing with light and shadow. Jackie can shoot out most light sources in the game, offering a minor strategic element that makes the combat feel more kinetic.
If there is one issue with the powers, it is that they are so imbalanced in their favor that by the time we get to the later stages of the game, it is almost pointless to use regular guns for combat, unless you are forced to. The Darkness kind of suffers from poor A.I and pathfinding from your enemies and allies, so the game is really not much of a challenge, even on the harder difficulties.
One odd addition is a tacked-on side mission structure. The Darkness is heavily linear, to the point of re-using environments and levels, which is a bit limiting, considering you have all of New York City at your disposal. The side missions are mostly relegated to subway stations, and can be done fairly easily to be rewarded with a collectible in the form of a phone number. Using the number at an actual in-game phone unlocks some game media, from developer commentary, extra costumes for multiplayer play, to even in-game cheats.
Personally, this is a welcome addition, even if it rocks pacing with the game's overall structure. The side characters are mostly brief encounters with little to them, but they are an attempt at making the world feel more immersive, even if it fails at it due to the limited locations you can go. It is also a fairly meaningful unlock (save maybe multiplayer gear) that rewards curiosity over anything else, kind of serving as a bridge between the in-game narrative collectibles and game-ified rewards that were very common in the mid-2000s gaming sphere.
Multiplayer is included in The Darkness, but is such an afterthought it is understandable if you forget about it. It doesn't do much new, just your standard deathmatch, teams, and CTF affair. It also ran poorly and likely no one is going to play it anyway nowadays, so the less said the better.
The game is gorgeous, if bleak-looking by design. Using dynamic lighting effects and really crisp graphics for its time gives texture to the city landscape, making it feel like a monochromatic, concrete jungle. Everything has a fine detail to it, from the scraps of paper on the ground to the inky scales of the Darkness itself; it is clear that developer Starbreeze focused on making the game look good. Here they definitely succeeded. If there is one complaint, it is the lack of color in most areas, but this is a stylistic choice that definitely sets the tone of the game; the world is bleak-looking, something that the Darkness certainly relishes, providing a moody noir feel to the game's aesthetics.
Sound-wise, the game is more mixed. The actual sound effects, from guns blasting to the use of the Darkness growls, are pretty good, but the voice acting and music are fairly bland on most of the characters, which all seem wooden and forced. Jackie in particular sounds like a guy who has seen every Scorsese movie he could before taking on the role. There is a personality buried in him, but getting it to surface really hampers his likability at first. The Darkness is also a standout. Never an idle presence, it motivates Jackie to commit more gruesome acts, again serving as a precursor to the Sony Venom films years before they were ever conceived, with its wet, gravelly voice offering sadistic commentary to Jackie at a moment's notice.
Chips on the table, The Darkness is a mostly average FPS shooter with enough style and presentation to make it stand out. It has a lot of neat ideas that mostly work, a predictable but engaging story, and a main character that does go through some growth, albeit very slowly. The Darkness is at least a decent romp to rent out for a weekend. It is not exactly a horror game, but it has enough of the supernatural to keep gamers satisfied in that regard as well. So pick it up on the cheap, because it will give you a decent thrill for what it offers.