Days of Darkness - Day 1

We take you on a history tour of The Darkness, exploring its comic book origins and how it turned into a videogame.

There’s something to be said for giant tentacles that can rip a man’s heart out. Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl, the creators of The Darkness comic book series, apparently agree – you practically can’t move for all the tentacles they’ve stuffed into their work.


The first comic appeared in 1996, and has since sold over a million copies worldwide. It centers on an evil power known as – surprise! - The Darkness, which is passed down a specific family line from father to son. The comics focused mainly on the latest unlucky individual to inherit this power – one Jackie Estacado, a fairly junior member of the Franchetti Family mob. During a heist that’s gone wrong, Jackie is betrayed and left for dead – but before that can happen, The Darkness manifests itself inside of him. What follows is a tale of revenge that also makes up the plot of the videogame.

The nature of The Darkness is what makes the comics – and ideally the upcoming game – interesting. It’s essentially an ageless power that is far older than humanity. Whoever becomes the host of this evil can create anything they desire, from organic weapons to sentient beings. Unfortunately, anything made will crumble to dust if it encounters too much light, forcing users to lurk in the shadows. According to Christoph Hartmann at 2K Games, "The dark and dynamic comic book storyline will translate perfectly into first-person action that fans will love."


The possibilities inherent in the powers of The Darkness is what makes us excited about its videogame adaptation, promising to turn a standard first person shooter into something a bit more original and refreshing. The game is being developed by a company called Starbreeze. Their pedigree is short but impressive: basically, they’re the folk behind the highly enjoyable Chronicles of Riddick game, which was arguably better than the movies it was based on. They have since been working hard on heavily modifying the Riddick engine to provide the basis for The Darkness, so besides anything else, at least we know that the shadows will look pretty damn awesome.