Darkwatch

Darkwatch features a reputation system that affects player's abilities in addition to the player character Jericho's starting, neutral vampiric powers of "Blood Shield" (a regenerating force field), "Vampire Jump" (a double jump that can be aborted at any moment) and "Blood Vision" (a system of thermal vision highlighting enemies and objects that also acts as a zoom). Through the game, Jericho is met with multiple choices of a good or evil variety, allowing the player to select morality awarding Jericho new powers, called "Brands", based on the choices he made. The good path powers are "Silver Bullet" (making the player's weapons cause more damage), "Fear" (confusing minor enemies), "Mystic Armor" (an extra shield system) and "Vindicator" (bolts of lightning destroying all nearby enemies). The evil powers are "Blood Frenzy" (granting an immunity to damage and extremely powerful melee attacks), "Turn" (turning undead enemies into allies), "Black Shroud" (stealing life force from nearby enemies) and "Soul Stealer" (destroying nearby enemies and stealing their souls).

The powers can be activated for a limited time when the HUD's blood bar, which is fueled through collecting souls of the slain enemies, is completely full. Jericho's health is also restored through collecting the souls.

The game's story (narrated by Peter Jason) follows the exploits of a former American Civil War veteran and wanted outlaw named Jericho Cross and his employment in an ancient vampire-hunting order known as the Darkwatch. After unwittingly releasing the Darkwatch's greatest enemy, a vampire lord named Lazarus Malkoth, Jericho is conscripted into the Darkwatch as an elite operative. Jericho, however, is slowly turning into a vampire himself, as a result of being bitten by Lazarus. The game outlines either Jericho's struggle for humanity or his descent into darkness, depending on the player's actions.

Darkwatch was an ancient organization established centuries ago by a Roman named Lazarus Malkoth to combat the dark forces that was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire. However, in pursuit for more powerful means to combat the dark forces, Lazarus tried to use the power of the dark forces against themselves, resulting him being possessed by a demon and thus turning him into a vampire lord.

The development of the game began in the summer of 2002, when Sammy Studios' first internal development team, informally called "Team 1", decided to "bring a refreshing theme to a genre riddled with the stereotypical sci-fi, fantasy, and military themes", an idea soon approved by the Sammy Corporation president Hajime Satomi. The original game concept was not very dark and the vampires "felt more like a cartoon property". In the early derivatives of the project, the game "looked more like something from Pixar" and its protagonist was supposed to be Chaz Bartlett, a "vaguely bumbling sort of comic relief character", described as an "Eastern dude who was a card cheat" similar to Bret Maverick.

The game's lead designer and writer Paul O'Connor said that the original 'high concept' for Darkwatch was "Blade meets Men in Black in the Old West", but "in the two years that the property has been in development, it has grown in other directions and taken on a life of its own. The game is quite a bit darker than Blade, and we've completely lost the tongue-in-cheek feeling of Men in Black". He added it "leans toward the Army of Darkness side of things, though without the slapstick", and "with the accessibility of Raiders of the Lost Ark". The turning point for setting a much darker and mature tone was the final iteration of Jericho's character design. Tala was originally intended to also be a player character, but the studio's marketing department "didn't think that would fly".

Upon its release, Darkwatch received generally favorable reviews from most gaming media. According to review aggregation site GameTab, the PlayStation 2 version scored an averaged rating of 82% from the gaming press with the Xbox version scoring 85%. It also won several art direction and visual design awards, including five Davey Awards and a Telly Award.

The game received the score of 7.9 ("Good") from both Bob Colayco of GameSpot ("If you're looking for an intense shooter experience, Darkwatch will not disappoint") and Jeremy Dunham of IGN ("Cowboys, vampires, and sexy dead girls are fun in parties, but not so much alone"). John Scalzo of Gaming Target wrote that "for anyone looking for something a little different out of their FPS experience, Darkwatch is that game". The reviewer in GamePro wrote that Darkwatch "mixes its western roots with gothic horror and steampunk aesthetics, and the results are uniquely engaging", adding that if some the game's "cooler" concepts "had been explored further, lengthening the game in the process, Darkwatch could've rivaled the best of the genre". Official Xbox Magazine called it "a solid and robust blaster that's tons of fun. Helped no end by the excellent Blood Powers and top multiplayer".

Darkwatch was supposed to be first of a series of games that would be set in different time periods, including Ancient Rome, the Crusades era and World War II. O'Connor said they wanted "to tell not only the story of Jericho Cross but of the Darkwatch as an organization, from its origins in Roman times to its ultimate fate in Earth's future". Darkwatch 2 was in development by High Moon Studios for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 between 2005 and 2007, and its technical demo gameplay footage (based on the original game) was shown at the Game Developers Conference 2006. After the game was canceled, the studio abandoned further attempts to create their own IP and instead concentrated on developing licensed games, such as Transformers and Deadpool.

In 2009, GamesRadar ranked Darkwatch as the 22nd top "game with untapped franchise potential", adding that a sequel could have improved the original game's supernatural powers and its "anemic" multiplayer mode and "make it shine". Classic Game Room's Mark Bussler expressed regret that so many bad games did receive sequels, while Darkwatch did not.