Warhammer 40,000 Darktide

TheAwakening
4 days ago
4 min read

Updated: 12 minutes ago

Overview

You are not a Space Marine. You are a warrior.

Armed to the teeth, you are about to face thousands of heretics that will kill you. You are not alone, however, as three other warriors will join you in the fight for Tertium. Warhammer 40K Darktide continues the Vermintide co-op experience, this time with firearms, Ogryns, and excellent teamwork. It is not for everyone, as its optimization is far from great, and the difficulty and other gameplay quirks leave so much to be desired. If none of those trouble you, it is still a decent experience.

Gameplay

You start with selecting your operative’s class. You can be the hard-toothed Veteran, specialized in ranged combat; the Zealot, a cleric of the Holy Imperium; the Psyker, a mind-crowd-controlling witcher; or the Ogryn, a brute behemoth capable of holding the line. DLC classes include the Arbitrator and the Hive Scum. Then you can choose your story background: Your origin planet, your starting life, your profession, and your heroic deeds. From there, character customization begins, followed by your voice pack selection and your imprisonment charges, which give you a colored rope. None of these options have an impact on the game or your selected class.

Darktide is a cooperative FPS that follows in the same footsteps as Vermintide. You start with a melee weapon and a ranged gun that varies per class, and some grenades. Your objective typically takes you to several areas filled with hordes of heretics. From the lesser ones to the armored and special variants, which will hunt your team down. If everyone on your team is incapacitated, killed in action, or captured, the mission is over. To complete the mission, your team has to complete several tasks before engaging the main target or objective.

Depending on your class, you have several abilities in combat. Your ranged weapon can dispatch any heretic as long as you have the ammo. Your melee weapon is your tool capable of handling any situation the game throws at you, as you can block, parry, and counter attacks with powerful hits. Your main ability empowers you briefly and, for example, in the case of the Veteran, will boost your gun and eliminate any suppressing fire for maximum accuracy. You can find in any mission deployables and consumables such as grenades, stim packs, or medical or ammo boxes, which will supply any teammate close by. Medical stations are also deployed across the level, which will fully heal you, but they have limited uses. Health acts as lives here: for every incapacitation when your health drops to zero, you lose a bar in your HUD, and if you lose all of them by the same method, you won't get back up. Toughness acts as your armor and will recharge slowly by itself or by killing enemies when you have unlocked certain talents in your class.

Your first assignment is to find and kill a heretic warlord. For that you must redirect the train he’s aboard and ambush him at the station. You are dropped far away from your objective, and your team must make it through a gauntlet of enemies first before reaching the first objective. Enemies are always numerous; some are glass cannons, while others are heavily armored. Special heretics have firearms, while others can incapacitate your teammates in several ways, making it a priority to take them down first. You always have the arsenal to face them, but ammo and grenades are limited; using your melee weapon against the easier foes is the best way to save your supplies.

Completing your first mission is not going to be easy. Taking down a boss with your starting gear is very difficult. You are locked with level one gear until you kill him or it kills your entire team. Once the mission is complete either way, you’ll have access to upgrade your gear, increasing your weapon stats, or exchange your weapon with other types and greatly change your gameplay. Earning experience will level you up and can be spent on unlocking talents with several upgrades. Playing with your favorite guns and melee weapons will grant you mastery points to unlock boosters that will appear randomly when finding a new weapon. Lastly, as you play and complete achievements in several ways, Penances will grant you trust points, which unlock even better gear, among other rewards for your hard work.

To play any mission, you can form a team squad or find other players of your level. There is no solo play with AI companions, unless you have fewer players in your team. Darktide is very difficult, but if you know what you are doing and you have proved your mettle to the Empire, you can play any mission in even harder difficulties once unlocked. Customizing your operator can be done by buying clothes in the emporium with real money or by playing the game and earning more rewards for free. There is always something to do here, and you will unlock even more features the more missions you complete.

Audio & Graphics

It could really use some serious optimization, as the graphics here are the best, but the game runs a bit poorly when facing lots of enemies in certain areas, with the frames at a very low score. This was played with an old AMD and every graphic setting at its lowest possible, but even on newer PCs I’ve read this game doesn’t even have optimization for those.

The music and audio nail the Warhammer 40K experience, so it’s a must if you like to try it yourself. The operators are always chatting with each other in every mission, and while this gives you even more backstory, I found it a bit too much.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Nice Left 4 Dead continuation of Vermintide in 40K.
Truthful lore to the Warhammer universe.
Varied classes and gunplay.

Cons

Poor optimization.
Very difficult at best. Locked at low-level gear until you beat the first mission.
Paid DLC classes, with the new one feeling useless.
Gets repetitive somewhat sooner.
No single player, always online. Bots only join if there are fewer players in the squad.

Rating: 6/10

Rock and Sto- oh wait wrong game. FOR THE EMPEROR!