Darksiders 2 Deathinitive Edition’s Gen9 PC update makes the game worse

Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition’s new Gen9 PC beta update adds Shader Compilation Stutters to the game

Darksiders 2 Deathinitive Edition is now available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and alongside this new release, THQ Nordic has released a new beta PC update. This update gives PC gamers access to the new Gen9 version of Darksiders II. This new version is supposed to feature ray tracing and improved lighting. Sadly, most aspects of this beta update are negative, at least right now.

Darksiders 2’s new beta update moves the game to DirectX 12 and, as a result, has added Shader Compilation Stutters to the game’s PC version. On PC, Darksiders 2 already suffered from traversal stutters. Now PC gamers have a new kind of stutter to also contend with. Additionally, while the game has some visual enhancements, the game’s graphical options have no listed ray tracing options. Furthermore, players report that this update has not addressed many bugs from this game’s original Deathinitive Edition. Others have also reported difficulties playing this version of the game using a gamepad. In short, this update causes more problems than it fixes.

(Darksiders 2 Developers – Steam Community Post)

While this update is in beta, THQ Nordic has not clarified whether this game version will be updated or released outside its current beta form. As such, we do not know when to expect to see a fix for PC’s current-gen version of Darksiders 2. As of now, this updated version is worse than the version it’s supposed to replace. THQ needs to add a shader pre-compilation mechanism to this game and work to address the bugs that PC gamers are facing.

You can join the discussion on Darksiders 2’s next-gen PC update on the OC3D Forums.