Darksiders Genesis was a welcome entry to THQ Nordic's spectacular action-adventure franchise about the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Despite making the series timeline even more convoluted, Genesis successfully adapts Darksiders into a top-down, isometric, hack and slash game without losing the puzzle design and visceral combat that fans have come to expect.
Genesis introduces RPG mechanics that take the form of a skill tree, which can be filled out with creature cores. These cores can be acquired by killing monsters and enemies, or purchased from the in-game shop with souls. Often to get the best abilities, players will need to harvest multiple cores from the same enemy, and some are more worth the effort than others.
Updated by Beau Low on September 25, 2021: THQ Nordic is celebrating its 10th anniversary, with a special sale. As well as the new Spongebob Squarepants: Battle For Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated, fans can also pick up the 4th installment in the Darksiders franchise, Darksiders: Genesis. Players can control either War or his brother Strife as they journey through mythical realms on a mission from Lucifer himself. Both Strife and War can acquire new buffs and power-ups by killing enemies and collecting their creature cores. To help players out, this article has been updated with more information on how to make the most of the best creatures cores in Darksiders Genesis.
How To Use Creature Cores In Darksiders Genesis
Creature cores come in three different types: Wrath, Attack, and Health. To equip cores, players must place in an open slot in their skill tree. The ability will only take effect if it can be connected back to the Key Core in the middle of the top row.
Players will want to consider where they place their cores as well as which ones they wish to use. Each slot in the skill tree corresponds to a specific type of core. Placing the right ability in its corresponding slot will offer an additional matching bonus as well as the original buff. All creature cores have three levels, which players can access by killing the same creature to collect a set number of cores.
15 Spectral Angel – More Bullets For Strife
Both War and Strife have their own unique attacks and special abilities. Strife, for instance, can wield a gun that fires magical bullets. These projectiles can be very useful for thinning the ranks of enemies before they can overwhelm the player.
The Spectral Angel core increases the damage of War's tremor gauntlet as well as increasing the number of bullets Strife can carry. Given how much he relies on his gun, this core is essential for anyone controlling Strife. It can be commonly found in chapters 11 and 12.
14 Nephilim Brute – Trade Health For Stronger Attacks
Often in games with fast-paced, hack and slash combat, it is sensible to prioritize aggression over defense. Darksiders Genesis is no exception, and it is often far better to focus on removing threats rather than trying to avoid them.
Players will start collecting Nephilim Brute cores around chapters 10-11. At level 3, this core will boost the player's attack damage by 15% in exchange for a 2.5% decrease in health. This trade-off is less favorable at lower levels, so it is worth grinding the necessary 10 cores to get the maximum benefit from this core.
13 Slag Flea — Ignore Explosions
Flea-type enemies are often encountered in the earlier chapters. Slag fleas and Acid fleas are some of the most dangerous due to their explosions which not only cause damage but can briefly stun the player providing an opportunity for other enemies to pile in and attack.
When fully leveled up, the Slag Flea core will prevent explosions from interrupting the players as well as offering a 20% reduction in damage from Fleamag explosions. While this core is useless on any level without Fleamag enemies, it can be invaluable for anyone who is struggling to get through the first few levels.
12 Blight Cannon & Legion Siegemaster – Strong Cores That Only Work On One Character
Players can choose to play as either War or Strife in Darksiders Genesis, and the game has an optional co-op mode in which each player takes on one of the characters. These two cores share joint 10th place as they are incredibly powerful, but each only works for one of the playable characters.
The Blight Cannon core increases War's parry window which when combined with the Angelic Beast core, allows players to chain parry enemies with ease. Meanwhile, the Legion Siegemaster core makes the caltrops dropped by Strife reduce enemy movement speed, allowing Strife to decimate enemy hordes before they can reach him. Both these cores are essential for their respective characters but are useless when applied to the other.
11 Fallen Hound – Deal More Damage Per Attack
The best stat players can boost is their attack damage. With so many enemies on screen, being able to tank damage is far less important than avoiding it altogether.
With the Fallen Hound core, the player can increase their attack by as much as 10% when upgraded to level three. To do this players will only need to collect ten cores. While this buff may seem insignificant, it is well worth the grind as it improves one of the most important stats in the game.
10 Void Magus – An Early Farming Core
At first glance, many players might be unwilling to use any core that reduces their health by 20%. The Void Magus core is a rare drop, but it is worth farming as it is useful for quickly leveling up in the early game.
This core removes a fifth of the player's health, but in return, increases the number of souls gained from enemies and chests. This may sound like an unfavorable trade, but the extra souls will enable players to buy other creature cores from Vulgrim. Once players have five of these cores, the health reduction is lowered to 5%. Players can use their excess souls to buy health shards if they need to.
9 Inferno Angel — The Perfect Creature Core For Co-op
Darksiders Genesis can be played alone or with friends. In order to play split-screen with another person, players must find a summoning stone in the lower right-hand corner of the void.
Inferno Angel is an amazing core that allows both War and Strife to work better as a team. This creature core a 20% chance for Strife to gain ammo whenever damage is dealt with a melee attack at level 3. With this core, the player controlling War can wade into the hordes of enemies and provide plentiful amounts of ammo for their friend in the process.
8 Flea Hulk – Boosting The Chaos/ Anarchy Skill
Darksiders Genesis is a reasonably long game with new abilities and features unlocked throughout its 16 chapters. In Chapter 5, the player unlocks the chaos form for war or the anarchy form for Strife, both of which completely regenerate a character's health and transform them into a giant monster.
The chaos/anarchy skill is great for helping players escape difficult situations and any creature core that improves these abilities is worth using. The Flea Hulk core extends the length of both these abilities, which makes them even more useful for players who are about to be overwhelmed.
7 Phantom Guard – Ricocheting Bullets And Spinning Blades
Wrath abilities are some of the player's best attacks and creature cores that improve them are worth seeking out. Since Strife and War have different wrath abilities, creature cores such as Phantom Guard will have different effects depending on which character equips them.
For Strife, this core will make bullets fired by shadow clones ricochet off walls and, at later levels, pierce through enemies. On the other hand, War can equip this core to increase the radius of his blade geyser attack making it even more devastating than it already was.
6 Nephilim Vindicator — Cascading Void Explosions
Abilities and buffs gained from creature cores can stack allowing players to create incredibly powerful builds by experimenting with different combinations. The Nephilim Vindicator core grants a small chance for each hit against an enemy to create a void explosion.
While this power is useful for both characters, it is especially effective with Strife, whose static shot ability hits constantly and can arc to damage multiple enemies. The sheer number of hits generated by this attack will trigger explosions very often especially when this core is upgraded to level 3. This core is especially useful for defeating bosses like Stormcaller, who summon mobs of regular enemies to overwhelm the player.
5 Ashworm — A Stat Core For Attack Power And Wrath
Wrath can be accumulated by picking the yellow orbs dropped by most enemies and is essential for utilizing the most powerful abilities and killing late-game enemies.
The Ashworm Core can be purchased from Vulgrim and is worth the souls for all three levels as it provides a substantial bonus to both attack power and wrath power. This makes Ashworm one of the best stat buffing cores in the game and maxing it out will be very useful for players struggling to defeat the game's final boss Moloch.
4 Legion Shieldbearer — An Impenetrable Damage Shield
The combat in Darksiders Genesis is fast pace and often involves carving a path through hordes of enemies. Even skilled players will find it hard to avoid getting hit and having a strong defensive buff can often be the difference between life and death.
This creature core grants the player a shield that absorbs damage equal to a percentage of the player's max health. In the late game, when players have maxed out their health and upgraded Legion Shieldbearer to level 3, this shield can negate up to 400 hp for Strife and 600 hp for War.
3 Belial — Health Regen For Attacking Enemies
The Demon Lord Belial is one of the harder bosses to defeat in Darksiders Genesis and in order to max out his creature core players will have to beat him three times. Thankfully the core is good enough to make it more than worth the effort.
The Belial core allows players to regain HP by inflicting damage which when combined with the Ashworm core makes combat a viable way of healing. Excess health is stored in a character's overflow and can be converted into health potions if players have the correct upgrade. At level 3, players will recover 8% of all damage they inflict.
2 Angelic Beast — Improved Evades And Parries.
Some creature cores are only available from Vulgrim's shop and knowing which ones are worth buying will save a lot of grind. The Angelic Beast core is a must-have and players who have just started Darksiders Genesis (which is available on all consoles and as part of the Xbox game pass) will want to buy it as soon as they can.
This core increases the evade and parry windows for Strife and War respectively. Angelic Beast makes both characters much stronger as War can more easily deal counter damage and Strife can spawn more shadow clones.
1 Grinner — Even Better Wrath Abilities
The wrath powers in Darksiders Genesis are powerful and often spectacular abilities that can be used to escape tricky situations and destroy multiple enemies. War has his classic Blade Geyser ability from the first Darksiders game while Strife has the ability to drop caltrops and create shadow clones.
The grinner clone boosts both these abilities by allowing Strife to spawn multiple shadow clones and making War's blade geyser ability regenerate health for every point of damage inflicted. This core allows players to get the most out of these abilities and wreak as much devastation as they can upon the game's enemies.