How many copies did Darksiders sell? — 2024 statistics

The Darksiders series sold over 5 million copies.

(Sources: VG Chartz, VG Insights)

• The original Darksiders sold 3.47 million copies.
• Darksiders II sold 1.4 million copies.
• Darksiders III sold 364,000 copies on Steam.
• Darksiders Genesis sold 316,000 copies on Steam.

Alright, so the total sales stats for the Darksiders series is not as magnificent as you might expect, as some games reach 5 million sales within their first month, but that does not detract from the sheer quality of the series and everything you can get out of it. We can see that the original Darksiders is the most popular of all the games.

The Darksiders series has grossed over $65 million on Steam.

(Source: VG Insights)

• Darksiders grossed $20.1 million on Steam.
• Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition grossed $23.4 million on Steam.
• Darksiders III grossed $15.2 million on Steam.
• Darksiders Genesis grossed $6.7 million on Steam.

Despite Darksiders I being the most popular game in terms of downloads, the game with the most revenue is Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition. We’re not quite sure why this might be the case, but it can be due to there being two editions of the game and how people just like the edgy nature of Death.

Darksiders II struggled to break even on its development costs.

(Sources: Games Industry, GameSpot)

• The game had a budget of $50 million.
• The CEO criticized this budget because he deemed it to be far too expensive, citing Darksiders as being much cheaper to make.
• Many of the IPs that Noric Games owned at the time only generated $50,000 a year.
• Lars Wingefors, the CEO of Nordic said that the THQ deal was the best thing to ever happen to Nordic.
• Darksiders II was a struggling title for THQ.

This was the point in the series where you could never be sure if the games would flop or meet expectations. Since Darksiders I, the games never really achieved the blockbuster sales required to make a profit, but the people that bought the games were surely satisfied.

Darksiders III was beaten by Farming Simulator 19 in sales.

(Sources: eTeknix, GameReactor)

• This was one of the most unexpected sales comparisons of 2019.
• Darksiders III debuted in 32nd place in the UK in its first week.
• It sold 70,000 copies in the UK in its first week.
• This was a 70% drop in sales compared to Darksiders I.

This is just an example of the types of games that beat Darksiders III in sales when it debuted in 2018, which perfectly describes the state of the franchise at that point. While Darksiders Genesis’ sales exceeded expectations, it was not enough to keep people talking about the games today.

Darksiders III was the most successful game of the series on Twitch with 2.5 million hours watched.

(Source: SullyGnome)

• The game had 52,456 broadcasting hours.
• It had 286 viewers on average.
• It had a viewer ratio of 47.8.
• Its peak viewer count was 77,310.
• 7,316 broadcasters were streaming the game.
• Darksiders had 458,553 hours watched in 2018.
• Darksiders II had 391,239 hours watched in 2018.
• Darksiders Genesis had 634,885 hours watched in 2019.

Despite its relatively poor performance, Darksiders III was still the most popular of the Darksiders games on Twitch, with 2.5 million broadcasting hours. This was most likely because of the graphics of the third game as well as it being a fresh hack-and-slash game for fans of the genre to enjoy.

Details about Darksiders 4 were allegedly leaked.

(Source: Tech 4 Gamers)

• An alpha tester leaked some details about Darksiders 4 on 4chan.
• The game is supposedly titled Darksiders: Exodus.
• The fourth game should be a multiplayer looter brawler with 4-player co-op.
• All horsemen for the previous games will be available to play.
• The game should be set right after the events of the original Darksiders.

This line of stats should be taken with a bucket of salt, not just a grain. 4chan is hardly a place to find credible information, but previous leaks have proven to be true so you never know what can happen. In essence, the fourth Darksiders game should have a similar loot system to Darksiders Genesis, which was quite similar to Diablo III, but it should adopt the gameplay style of the previous games. We’ll just have to wait and see, but as we said, don’t get your hopes up too much.

THQ purchased Riptide Games in 2019.

(Source: PlayDiaries)

• The fee that THQ had to pay to acquire Riptide Games, and by extension, Darksiders III, was undisclosed.
• The studio also came with the talent that worked on Darksiders and Darksiders II.
• THQ Nordic said that they expected the acquisition cost to be recouped within four years of the acquisition.
• Riptide was taken in another acquisition wave, something THQ is famous for.

This was one of the major purchases of studios that lead to the Darksiders series switching hands multiple times. There isn’t much more to say than that.

The Darksiders series was sold to Nordic in 2013.

(Source: Eurogamer)

• Nordic acquired Darksiders for $4.9 million.
• Aside from that series, they also got Red Faction, MX vs ATV, Destroy All Humans! and many more.

Nordic acquired THQ in 2013 by purchasing some leftover assets from the latter for about $5 million, acquiring over 150 individual titles as well as some legendary series, such as the Darksiders franchise. Nordic changed its name to THQ Nordic in 2016. This company acts as a subsidiary of Embracer Group.

Darksiders Genesis went in a different direction compared to the other games in the series.

(Sources: Polygon, Game Revolution)

• The first three Darksiders games are third-person action RPG-style hack-and-slash games, while Genesis is more reminiscent of Diablo.
• The game features fast-paced dungeon crawling.
• Strife and War are the main horsemen in the game.
• The sales threshold of Darksiders III for Darksiders Genesis to be developed was 100,000.
• Strife was originally not supposed to be in the fourth installment.

This is apparent to any fans of the original series, but we’ll just mention it so there is no confusion. There isn’t a fourth game in the Darksiders series that has the same gameplay style as the first three games, as Genesis was supposed to deviate from the mold and create a fresh experience. However, many fans of the series thought it was a disappointment that Genesis did not continue the story from the third game, but was instead set somewhere among the events of the previous games.

To sum up

Alright, that would be all we have to say about the Darksiders series. As you can see, there hasn’t been much news about the series other than a Darksiders Genesis PC port and some details about an alleged fifth installment being leaked, but that does not mean that the series is not something everyone should try out if they’re itching for a fantastic hack-and-slash experience. We sincerely hope that you have enjoyed what we’ve had to say here and that your curiosity has been satisfied!