Darksiders 2 dev: Wii U ‘on par with current generations’

We haven’t yet seen a good demonstration of the Wii U’s pixel-pushing prowess, but developers are having mixed results. Darksiders II developer Vigil Games has chimed in, saying DS2 is running about the same on Wii U as on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

March 26, 2012 12:00 PM11

We haven’t yet seen a good demonstration of the Wii U’s pixel-pushing prowess, and probably won’t until it’s been out for several years, but developers are having mixed results. Darksiders II developer Vigil Games, at least, is getting about the same performance out of Wii U as from current consoles, it’s said.

“We got the game running on their hardware pretty quickly,” game director Marvin Donald explained to Gamereactor. “Visually, for the most part, it’ll be pretty much the same. So far the hardware’s been on par with what we have with current generations.”

“Based on what I understand, the resolution and textures, polycounts and all that stuff, we’re not going to be doing anything to ‘up-res’ the game but we’ll take advantage of the controller for sure.”

Of course, as Develop points out, other developers have had different results, with some reporting the Wii U as being several times faster that the current fare. And until tools mature and developers get to know the lay of the land, we won’t really sure what it’s capable of; games like Uncharted 3 show some are still finding ways to wring more power out of the former next generation.

Darksiders II was one of the “hardcore” Wii U titles shown off when Nintendo revealed the console at E3 2011. It’s slated to be a Wii U launch title, but will hit PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 first, on June 26.