The Darkness II

The recorded low makes this a timely opportunity to enter Jackie Estacado’s dark story: combat lets you fire two guns while wielding the Demon Arms. At ≈ $0.89 from Kinguin, it may especially appeal if you plan to try the campaign’s co-op for up to four players.

Before purchasing, make sure the stated platform and edition fit your plans. The Steam PC version lists seven interface languages, including English, and offers both single-player and co-op modes. At $2.99 from Kinguin, the currently recorded site low gives you a chance to play the four-player co-op campaign and its distinctive dual-weapon, Demon Arms combat.

Loading store offers

91%Steam Reviews8.3K reviews77Metacritic/100

Released: Feb 9, 2012

FPS · Action · Gore · Dark · Shooter

KinguinThe Darkness II PC Steam CD Key·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21~~~ $33.69~~-97%from~ $0.89(~ €0.79)ALL-TIME LOWSave $2.10 vs SteamBuy now

K4GThe Darkness II Steam CD Key·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21~~~ $33.69~~-97%from~ $0.99(~ €0.88)ALL-TIME LOWBuy now

EnebaThe Darkness II Steam Key GLOBAL·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21-96%from~ $1.11ALL-TIME LOWBuy now

GAMIVOThe Darkness II EN/DE/FR/IT/JA/RU/ES Global·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21-96%from~ $1.15(~ €1.02)ALL-TIME LOWBuy now

Steam·Platform:·United States Steam official price~~~ $29.99~~-90%~ $2.99Buy now

MacGameStoreThe Darkness II·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21~~~ $29.99~~-27%~ $21.99Buy now

WinGameStoreThe Darkness II·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21~~~ $29.99~~-27%~ $21.99Buy now

GameBilletThe Darkness II·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21~~~ $26.79~~-11%from~ $23.84(~ £17.79)Buy now

All-time low ~ $1.49across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low

Loading store offers

Related deals75%+ Off·Popular Deals·Featured Deals

Wishlist price

Set a target to receive an email when an eligible offer in your selected region is at or below that amount.

Price History

Past 36 months · Updated daily

Historical Low~ $0.462026-07Current Low Across Stores~ $23.85Kinguinvs. Historical Low+5085%

Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.

01About The Darkness II

A brutal attack on Jackie Estacado’s crime family awakens the supernatural Darkness once more. This first-person shooter combines gunplay with Demon Arms, letting you slash, grab, and throw enemies while using shadows to your advantage. Steam players rate the game 91%% positive from 8,258 reviews. The Steam PC version lists English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian as interface languages. Released February 9, 2012.

Credits

WRITER

Paul Jenkins

British comic book writer

NotablePrototype™ · The Darkness II

PRODUCER

Sheldon Carter

video game producer and developer

NotableThe Darkness II

Composer

Tim Wynn

Developer

Digital Extremes

Publisher

Steam player reviews

91%positiveVery Positive8,258 Steam reviews

Lowest recorded in 36 months

$0.462026-07-30 · KinguinBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.

Language support

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
English	Yes	Yes	Yes
French	Yes	Yes	Yes
German	Yes	Yes	Yes

Show 4 more languages

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Italian	Yes	Yes	Yes
Japanese	Yes	Yes	Yes
Spanish	Yes	Yes	Yes
Russian	Yes	Yes	Yes

Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-22

02Before you buy

Language and modes

The Steam PC listing includes seven interface languages, including English. English is fully voiced and subtitled; single-player and co-op are listed.

Co-op campaign

The campaign supports co-op for up to four players. Each of the four characters can wield weapons infused with Darkness powers.

03Frequently asked questions

What is the story about?

Jackie Estacado, head of a New York crime family, battles a mysterious organization with an ancient supernatural force.

What distinguishes the combat?

Demon Arms let you fire two weapons while grabbing, throwing, or slashing enemies and objects.

How does light affect combat?

The Darkness powers work only in shadows, while enemies can use light as a weapon.

What is the visual style?

Its presentation combines graphic-novel shading with dramatic film-noir lighting.

Popular Steam reviews

Native-language selection · 10 reviews

Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.

RecommendedSteam player

10/16/2024

Радость моя, ты мрачнее мрачного морока, темнее темного месяца, Радость моя, ты чернее чёрного ворона, Страшнее тяжкой депрессии. My dear, you're darker A gloomy mess, darker than a dark month, My dear, you are blacker than a black raven, Worse than severe depression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C89-2ca-pE0&list=RDC89-2ca-pE0&start_radio=1Show moreShow less

12 hours at review798 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

03/12/2023

Another generic, repetitive, and bullet spongy first person shooter with horrible level design. BROKEN MEDAL Follow My Curator Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40523765-Bearsonal/Show moreShow less

4.7 hours at review51 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

03/26/2018

Thank you humble bundleShow moreShow less

19.6 hours at review603 people found this helpful

Received for free

Not recommendedSteam player

02/01/2014

I'll start by saying i really enjoyed the first Darkness game. The story was really well done and the game had an atmoshpere of darkness and despair that really matched it. While this sequel is a decent game it didn't quite live up to it's predecessor for me. First of all the game's cel-shaded looking visuals while not bad looking, just didn't seem to fit with this game. What should be quite a dark game ends up looking cartoony and it just isn't the right fit. It also makes the game feel a bit more arcadey instead of the visceral feel the gameplay of the first game had. The story while interesting didn't reall captivate me as much as in the first game either and Jackie is also less likeable (though you could argue this might be to reflect the effect of the experiences in the first game on him.) The gameplay and combat isn't too bad. There's a bit more variety with combat in this game and your darkling follower can be quite useful and adds a bit of comical relief. There's also more variety with enemies which require different strategies to deal with. Overall all it's a decent game but nowhere near as good as it's predecessor. If you enjoyed the first game i'd say maybe give this one a go if you can pick it up cheap but but be prepared for the fact that it's not as good. If you didn't like the first you probably won't like this either. It's a 6/10 for me.Show moreShow less

8 hours at review51 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

08/08/2013

While loving the first, The Darkness 2 felt like a disappointment. You are two years later, and are still very much feeling the aftermath. You're a Don now, leading a crime organisation that seems to feel smaller than implied. You go to a restaurant and get attacked by a bunch of janitors. Almost intently, they force you to survive by releasing the Darkness, which Jackie had locked up ever since last time. What follows is a path of revenge. First to retalliate, then avenge your Aunt, then recover a plot-vital artifact... you're basically on a railroad of motivations, which feels artificial. No surprise that the story really isn't engaging. But the surrounding side characters are a redeeming factor. NPC's are often in pairs and have some funny banter. And spamming talk to hear them out leads into a long strain of comments about their own backstory. They may be somewhat shallow characters, but there's a sense of personality to them. In particular, the Darkling seems to be filled with it. He slowly starts to play a big part in the story, and is generally a hoot to listen to. A major improvenemt over the first game. Gameplay wise, what's changed isn't per se for the better. You still have your whip, but it feels much shorter and riskier to use to whip out lights. It relies on your input to see what direction to swipe, which feels counter-intuitive. You can grab a car door or anything shield-like to carry in front of you as protection while you shoot. A great idea at first, but impractical over time, as eating hearts removes the shield and you can't use the whip. Not to mention that the smallest light drops it. Not much of a problem at first, until you start encountering the Brotherhood... Corpses still carry hearts to consume, but living ones serve a different purpose now as well. Instead of four awesome Darkness powers, your powers now largely revolve around stunning an enemy, then grasping him. Upon which you can then decide what to do with them. Mainly, they can serve as a quick health refill, an ammo refill (yep), a shield creator or a cooldown reducer. You also have two active cooldown-based abilities. One is swarm, which briefly blind/stuns your enemy, making them vulnerable. The other briefly infuses your guns with the Darkness, giving you infinite ammo and raised damage. But it's not really a lifesaver. All of this fancy stuff however has to be unlocked first, using points you earn in combat. The fancier the kill, the more points you get. In general, the upgrades are okay. They're nothing spectacular. Although the Darkness armor does look mighty nice. It seems based upon the armor from the comics. In the end, I felt like the Darkness was more of a crutch that slowed me down. I was constantly juggling with my Gunplay and my Darkness powers, annoyingly so. The Brotherhood, which past halfway will be your mainstay enemies, often carry light-beams, which will just annoy the hell out of you. Whenever you are in light now, your screen goes black and white and drop any non-weapon you are holding (such as shields). It's quite disruptive. Not to mention the Whip guys.... These guys will snatch whatever weapon you are holding. Or the shielders who knock you around, while requiring either swarm or multiple whip slashing to be knocked away. Or the Heavy guys that, for some reason, blink around the place whenever they are hurt. These guys get my vote as most-annoying ever. Thankfully you're done with the story in about eight hours. Vendettas seems to largely be a redeeming feature. You can pick one of four that each have one Darkness ability. This is a good thing, as the focus seems to be much more on the gunplay. You still get the annoying light effect, but you feel much less disabled. Quite frankly, I feel like I'm having a much better time in Vendettas. The Darkness 2 is like a bad sequel to a good movie. You cringe, but you can still see what you liked about the original. Get it while it's on sale, play the Single Player on Easy and try and make the best out of it...Show moreShow less

10.7 hours at review46 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

01/10/2019

As a fan of the original, this game is overall a huge disappointment. The TL;DR of this review is solid 5/10, continue on for the reasons. Let's list some of the pros first though Pros: The game is so short, you won't lose any of your life playing it. Darkness powers are varied in a way, by adding nice neat little passive bonuses or effects that amp them up somewhat. Swarm joins the fray as a new power, and demon arm is no longer a proper power, rather just a flailing melee attack. The guns do not return, but are replaced by gun channeling. Gunplay is fairly solid, ammo will feel a bit tight at times if you aren't hitting your shots or using the darkness, though sometimes you'll question how a shot was a miss. The relics are pretty neat, great little bits of extra story and listening to the narration will reveal touchs of dialogue that aren't written on the description. Enemy variety is up, to present a challange not present in the original. Where as the original was almost entirely just shooty gun dudes, this game introduces Teleporting, Armored, and Shielded enemies, who can present just enough challange to make the combat interesting to a degree. Now for the cons Cons: The game is so short, you'll wonder why your wallet let you buy it While gunplay is solid, the guns themselves are not. The original had fewer guns overall but the guns felt varied, instead of just "Stronger version of previous gun" The powers were much more satisfying in the original game, the Dark Guns for example were a blast to use, and black hole was destructive without just being a 'End current skirmish' button. Possessing the head was fun, and I'm sad to see it hasn't returned in this game, the darkling is a close replacement but he can't climb on the walls (Why can darkling no longer climb walls?) Story is a little bland really, most interesting part was the horrible asylum parts. No real side missions like in the original (Harmonica guy's storyline while brief had Jackie's best line in the game). You learn a bit about the new guys in the game in what little inbetween time you had, though that is limited to the safe house, no roaming a small sect of areas as you please, exploring this and that. There is a little bit you can do (Shooting with Dolfo) which isn't so bad, but since you don't really spend any time getting to know anyone, it makes certain moments like the Sacrifical choice between Frank and Ed lackluster. I only felt anything regarding Aunt Sarah because I knew them from the first game. Enemy variety, while listed as a pro, is also a con, because with all of the new enemies, you can just whip your arm at them as you please until they die. The enemy variety was pretty stagnant in the first game, but since demon arm was a power, it had to recharge, so you couldn't just flail about and cross your fingers that they die, you had to actually hit the enemy. Hardly any collectibles unlike the original. No funny phone calls to make, no letters to mail that would net you some concept art or such (Some issues of the darkness comic book, for example). While the relics are as stated neat due to how indepth they are, they're just added to keep the game from being a bland shooter that would only stand out because you have powers. In the original, the collectibles weren't glowing and grabbable by the arms, so you had to actually find them by their faint shine and going out of your way to look for them. 'Boss fights' Were alright, though definately lacking what it felt fighting the giant beast or even the fight with the Darkness itself. Even killing the 'Final boss' felt pretty lackluster compared to when you kill Uncle Paulie. Dipped into the new co-op, which was alright, the characters are fairly unique, though with no real unique power of their own, just borrowing from Jackie, they did have unique weapons, which I liked a fair amount. The lack of the multiplayer that The Darkness had is a minor disappointment, the original multiplayer was fairly fun, especially switching between human and darkling form, making use of the darkling's exceptional mobility to ambush someone in your human form was execellent. I'm not holding this against the Darkness II, just lamenting that it isn't in the game. Anyway, overall, I wasn't too pleased with this game, and I don't expect to replay it anytime soon, compared to the original, which I've played through multiple times.Show moreShow less

4.6 hours at review39 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

12/09/2013

Do you like comics? Do you like atmosphere? Do you like having two demonic tentacle heads protruding from your back that allow you to whip, grab, dismember, and look bad ass? Welcome to The Darkness 2. The single player campaign is not too long depending on difficulty level and your level of expertise, but I found the story and atmosphere so refined that I thoroughly enjoyed my play through and recommended it. Also of note is the Vendettas campaign. There is a 4 player online co-op that intertwines with the single player story filling in some back story. Overall Vendettas is a fun diversion with friends but a little repetitive. You don't get to play as the main character Jackie, instead one of a set of four mercenaries that each have a personal weapon infused with Dark Essence. Now for the gameplay. The Darkness II finally disproves the theory that developers have to leave the main protagonist as hollow as possible in first person shooters so that the gamers can fully immerse themselves. This is just lazy storytelling and don't let anyone tell you differently. The Darkness is a game of two parts. Light and dark. Players experience the tender heart of Jackie when he is around Jenny and Aunt Sarah. But then players go out and start shooting guys and flinging fan blades at them with one demon arm while decapitating them with the other demon arm. In The Darkness II you quad-wield and your survival depends on it. At first it can seem a bit much to keep track of, grabbing things and throwing things and slashing and shooting all at once. But once you learn to multitask you will feel like a God. It's intoxicating. The Darkness becomes an extension of your will and soon you are slaying rooms full of enemies with gleeful abandon. There is an upgrade system to tailor the combat to your preferences and the point system that pays for your new abilities will encourage you to perform gruesome executions. The game is bloody. But due to a smart move on the developer's behalf, the cell-shaded comic style graphics make all the gore less disgusting. This time around the enemies have their own supernatural weapons at their disposal, a noted improvement over the last game. Inside all of us there's a violent beast that needs to be sated, lets it bleed over into our real lives. This game does just that. Incredibly violent, and intensely satisfying. My only wish is that it were longer. Great fun; A must have.Show moreShow less

8.4 hours at review302 people found this helpful

Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.