Watch 12 minutes of Darksiders 3 'pre-alpha' gameplay

Darksiders 3 was first rumored, and then very quickly confirmed by THQ Nordic, earlier this week. It's a "hack-n-slash adventure" starring a whip-wielding mage named Fury, who's been charged by the Charred Council with hunting down the Seven Deadly Sins, who have taken up residence on an apocalypto'ed planet Earth. It's not expected to be ready for release until sometime in 2018, but thanks to the magic of "pre-alpha" gameplay footage on IGN, we can get a look at what's in store right now. 

The environments look fairly standard as far as the "ruined Earth" motif goes, but Fury whips it real good, using her glowing red strap o' demon leather to beat bad guys into submission, and also to swing between hard-to-reach locations. She's got some pretty good acrobatic moves too. 

The video culminates in a throw-down with Sloth, "Lord of the Flies," who is literally an infernal manifestation of "Don't make me get out of this chair." It doesn't go super-well at first, but Fury eventually finds her rhythm and delivers a beatdown of the apocalypse unto him. It looks and feels unfinished, yes, but that's presumably because it is unfinished—this is all pre-alpha footage, recall, so there's still a lot of work left to do. 

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.