Most promisingly, however, the Darkness powers are limited in form only by the imagination of the bearer. Or so it goes for the comic book Jackie. Quite how Starbreeze can interpret that with the finite time and resources available remains to be seen, but in this case the lack of information is itself uplifting.
Those familiar with Butcher Bay's breathtaking environmental twist - the one that turned the game's tone completely, albeit briefly on its head - will testify to its creator's love of a good surprise.
Above: These guns are nothing compared to your supernatural abilities
The Darkness certainly isn't taking its subject lightly, and what's been seen of its characters suggests few for whom a tortured fate doesn't seem appropriate. But for all the heads that are sawn off and bodies urinated on by your familiars, it's their master who needs to feel the most pain for this adaptation to strike a chord.
To quote the comic book Jackie: "First thing I ever did on this world was to kill my dad, just by being born." In a genre packed with the sullen and the sore, illustrating a man suffering a genuine darkness of the soul will take more than what these first few levels have.
