Starbreeze deliver a noir FPS where Jackie Estacado tumbles into the realm of the dead through achingly intimate flashbacks. The mafia writing hits home, Mike Patton's voice chills, and the lost love angle carries rare melancholy.
Your verdict
Category
First-Person Shooter1 player18+
Description
First-person shooter by Starbreeze Studios and 2K Games, June 2007. Jackie Estacado, a young mafioso, discovers he bears an ancient demonic force on his birthday nights. Darkness powers to manipulate darkness, demon tentacles and eels, semi-interactive cinematic narrative and romance with girlfriend Jenny. Adaptation of the Top Cow Productions cult comic book.
Darkness, The review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
MAX
Story
★★★★★
"Masterful"
On the night of his twenty-first birthday, a mob hitman feels a devouring demonic power awaken within him. Adapted from the comic, the tale blends revenge, horror and a romance of unexpected tenderness, up to a scene that became cult. Its sincere darkness raises this FPS far above a mere shooting gallery.
A Starbreeze first-person shooter drawn from the comic, where a possessed mobster unleashes shadow tentacles in a nocturnal New York carried by careful storytelling. Distributed in the West, its appeal lies in this successful atmospheric adaptation and an esteem cult rather than scarcity. A piece valued by fans of narrative shooting and dark comics.
A questionable morality
A mob hitman possessed by a demonic entity, you devour your victims' hearts to feed your powers and press on through the shadows. The story speaks of revenge and lost love, but the mechanics mostly reward an appetite for the grisliest executions. Tragic romance on one side, macabre feast on the other: the contrast has something irresistible about it.
Is Darkness, The still worth playing in 2026?
Released in 2007 on Xbox 360, Starbreeze's The Darkness adapts the comic into a shooter with a dark, adult atmosphere, driven by a demonic power that turns shadow into a weapon. Jackie Estacado, a mobster possessed by an ancestral entity, unleashes devouring tentacles and summons minions in original combat. The dark art direction and the melancholy writing, punctuated by moments of surprising intimacy, leave a lasting mark. The game structure shows its age in places. But the atmosphere stays unique. For fans of singular narrative shooters and dark tales, this overlooked title keeps a real force today.
