Shenmue Dojo

“Originally, Vigil wanted to do a four player co-op game. Realistically, though, we didn’t have much console experience and it was a whole new genre for us. So instead we went down the less risky route and focused on a single one of them. With the second game we thought of doing some form of co-op, but that was still very risky. Plus, people liked what we did with the first game and we didn’t want to take that away from them. I guess we’ll find out when [Darksiders 2] comes out whether they still like it [Laughs].” - lead designer Haydn Dalton

So...co-op was nixed from the first game, yanked from the second...but Vigil still likes the idea. I guess if Darksiders II does well enough, maybe this is a feature that could come in yet another installment.

“We want to stand out from the crowd. We want to make sure that if you see a Darksiders piece of artwork you feel it’s Darksiders. We want to own the style, we want to make a house style. That’s very important for us. We didn’t want to be just lost in the swathe of other projects out there.” - art director Han Randhawa
“The big key thing is that if someone sees a screenshot of our game, they automatically know it’s a Darksiders game. It doesn’t feel like a next-gen game but you can’t tell because it’s ‘next-gen grey’. Ours is much more vibrant. We’re happy to be different like that.” - Lead designer Haydn Dalton

This is probably why I've heard some industry people say that Darksiders II doesn't look all that great. They're not used to seeing interesting, detailed art design. They're used to browns, greys and tans.