Darkwatch

About

Darkwatch is a 2005 first-person shooter that crams Western grit, horror thrills, and steampunk trinkets into a single dusty hat. You play Jericho Cross, a vampire outlaw dragged into a secret order to hunt monsters he accidentally unleashed. The game mixes run-and-gun action with light role-playing choices that shift the story between redemption and total monsterhood. Single-player campaigns give way to split-screen co-op or competitive multiplayer, letting you team up or turn on each other while blasting undead foes and mechanical terrors. Combat feels punchy with a mix of revolvers, shotguns, and vampire-enhanced abilities that let you punch through walls or burn enemies in sunlight. What lingers is the game’s go-for-broke tone. It piles on cursed horses, cursed villains, and a cursed main character in a setting where every saloon seems to hide a trapdoor to hell. Despite a 2005 release date, its blend of goofy overacting and grimy atmosphere has aged better than most mid-2000s shooters. The co-op splitscreen mode remains a highlight for its chaotic charm, though the story’s soap opera twists might divide players. With roots in PlayStation 2 and Xbox, it’s a relic of an era when studios crammed as many genres into one game as possible, sometimes working, sometimes not.

Storyline

The game's story (narrated by Peter Jason) follows the exploits of Jericho Cross, an outlaw-turned-vampire, and his employment in an ancient vampire-hunting order known as the Darkwatch. After unwittingly releasing the Darkwatch's greatest enemy, a vampire lord named Lazarus Malkoth, Jericho is conscripted into the Darkwatch as an elite operative. Jericho, however, is slowly turning into a vampire himself, after being bitten by Lazarus. The game outlines either Jericho's struggle for humanity or his descent into darkness, depending on the player's actions. The game begins in Arizona Territory in 1876 with Jericho attempting to rob a Darkwatch train that is transporting the captured Lazarus Malkoth to the Darkwatch Citadel, a frequently mentioned and often visited location in the game, and in doing so releases Lazarus into the West. In a seeming bit of mercy, Lazarus bites Jericho and gives him the curse of the vampire, causing him to slowly turn into one. The game continues with the introduction of Cassidy as well as the appearance of Shadow, Jericho's undead horse. As the game progresses, Jericho finally makes his way to the Darkwatch Citadel, where he meets General Clay Cartwright, the current leader of the order. Cartwright puts him through Torture Maze, the Darkwatch initiation exercise which was designed as a test for Darkwatch Regulators, but Jericho gets a special version specially designed by Cartwright to kill him. When Jericho passes the test anyway, he begins to do missions for the Darkwatch. Missions include tasks ranging from fixing some of the damage he has caused to acquiring Darkwatch equipment, such as the Darklight Prism, a stone that allows vampires within its vicinity to use their powers and walk in sunlight.