Warhammer 40,000: Darktide

Review

Darktide is a first-person co-op shooter developed by Fatshark and set in the universe of Warhammer 40K. The game takes place during the 41st millennium in the hive-city of Tertium, which is being invaded by the army of Chaos. You start the game by creating your own Reject, choosing the class, backstory, talents and building your unique look through a very detailed character editor that includes gender, voice, hair, tattoos and more. After escaping from prison, you join the Emperor and its army in defending the city of Tertium. Within the first minutes, the story feels already flat and forgettable, with few meaningful cutscenes. The lore of Warhammer 40K is everywhere though, so you will find a lot of references throughout the game.

Combat sees you often switching between ranged and melee, the latter also allowing you to dodge, block and push enemies. Depending on the class, you might also have access to throwable items (such as grenades) or unique abilities. The arsenal of weapons includes shotguns, laser guns, flamethrowers etc. and all of them offer a decent gunplay, but I found melee combat to be smoother and more satisfying. For some reason, there are only four classes available and no sub-classes like in Vermintide 2. These are: Sharpshooter, Psykinetic, Preacher and Skullbreaker, each one having their own differences, such as special weapons, abilities and passive perks. I’m sure more classes will be added in the future, but this isn’t really a great start for a multiplayer game. Plus, classes don’t share experience, currency or items between them, so if you change character you need to start from zero and grind all the way back, which can be a chore. As always, teamwork is extremely important in games like this. Being close to your teammates will slowly recharge your toughness (armor), while staying away from them can be very risky, as you might encounter dangerous foes who can beat and capture you in a few seconds. After being captured, you must wait for the team to rescue you, assuming they survive down the path. Health can only be regenerated through med packs and medical stations, but some enemies are able to deal Corruption damage, which reduces the maximum amount of health until you heal at a medical station.

You explore the main hub in third person, which is a good thing for those who love admiring their outfits, and from there you can access the briefing table to select a mission or join one that already started. Missions have 5 difficulty settings and can take max 30 minutes to complete. They also include secondary objectives, such as finding holy scriptures or grimoires, that grant additional experience and currency if completed (but they are very repetitive). Levels are the same every time and pretty much linear, aside from some more open areas where you fight hordes of enemies coming from all sides. If you find a good team that doesn’t rush and makes a good use of verticality, missions can be quite fun and engaging, but eventually you will get tired of playing the same levels multiple times. From the main hub you can also access multiple vendors, yet for some reason you can’t try a newly purchased weapon without joining a mission, which is really annoying.

One thing that completely ruins the game progression is the monetization scheme. Simply said, the customization options without paying real money are pretty barebones, often consisting in small variations of the same outfit. Premium outfits, on the contrary, look well-made, but also very pricey.

Graphics are great and the sci-fi/industrial-gothic atmosphere is really intriguing, but technically the game is quite a mess and probably needed more developing time. There is a high number of bugs, glitches (body parts missing or floating characters), slow loading times, frequent stuttering, frame drops, as well a few annoying crashes and disconnections. Sometimes enemies also spawn on your exact location (literally above your head), which can be annoying if you don’t have the rest of the team nearby.

Overall, I would suggest to not go in expecting Vermintide 2. The good things about the gameplay loop (which at its core is still fun) are penalized by a forgettable story, disappointing customization, awful monetization scheme, poor performance and a high number of bugs and glitches that make the whole experience not very enjoyable. I think that Darktide is miles away from Vermintide 2 and probably will never be like it; perhaps with some patches and changes it can still catch up, but for now I would only recommend it to die-hard Warhammer 40K fans who are brave enough to face the aforementioned problems.

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Steam Store Page