NOT
Too Short
Once again, Darksiders 2 has found itself with a shorter-than-expected add-on campaign. Abyssal Forge can be played in a single sitting with a completion time of around an hour. If you find yourself stumped by the plethora of puzzles revolving around Soul Splitter, this time may increase a bit, but it definitely won’t extend past the two hour mark. This a bit upsetting for both paying parties. Either you believed in the content enough to lay down the money for the Season Pass and are left wanting much, much more or you’re paying $9.99 for 60 minutes of gameplay. For this reason, Abyssal Forge strikes as a bigger disappointment than Argul’s Tomb, primarily because the latter came included for free with all new copies. Games nowadays are expensive and they’ve become investments with all the episodic content, DLC, Season Passes, etc. Seeing content such as this that fails to deliver the experience being paid for is disheartening, especially when the main game is of such high quality. Not too mention that the second dungeon that THQ promised is a sad excuse of a dungeon, assuming it can even pass as one.
No Replay Value
Okay, so the content is short. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a reason to return, right? I wish. Unfortunately, once Abyssal Forge is over, it’s over. You’ll find no real reason to go back and run through it again (and why would you want to?). It’s a one-shot experience that comes to a close to soon and that’s it. Death’s time is better spent enjoying New Game+ or just starting over altogether.
Verdict
Darksiders 2’s Abyssal Forge DLC rights a couple wrongs from its predecessor, Argul’s Tomb, but that doesn’t make up for everything it does wrong. Whether you invested your money early with the Season Pass or are considering spending $9.99, the experience isn’t worth either price of admission. The journey is short and not as fleshed out as one would expect from a Darksiders tale. New creatures and new scenery can’t balance out the shallow storytelling, the short adventure and the lack of replayability. Maybe some people will be lured in by the promise of new weapons and more experience, but you’ll find yourself with a mediocre experience. Although Argul’s Tomb carried some of these issues, at least a majority of players got it for free, helping soften the blow of disappointment. Abyssal Forge has no such luck. Let Death skip this one. I’m sure he could use the break.
[Editor’s Note: Abyssal Forge was reviewed on the PlayStation 3 platform. The DLC was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
