Warhammer 40k: Darktide – What Works, What Doesn’t

Developer Fatshark has released Warhammer 40k: Darktide to a decidedly mixed critical and community response. While long-time fans of the Warhammer IP are happy to have another FPS game set in the 40k universe, the issues surrounding this game’s over-monetization, lack of content, and poorly balanced gameplay has confused and upset those same fans. In this article, we’ll review some of the pros and cons 40K fans — and new players — should consider before purchasing.

First Impressions & Character Creation

Pros

The opening cinematic introduces the world of Warhammer 40k to the player: The grim darkness of the future is no host for hope or happiness, only war. The overall tone of the game is a significant plus, as Games Workshop has intentionally weaponized the bleak feeling of the 40k universe. Dartkide succeeds in showing the life of average people in the 41st millennium, by making your character feel like an ant in an uncaring galaxy. The game starts with character creation, and it’s one of the most in-depth character creators in recent memory as far as backstory is concerned. You’ll give your character a home planet, childhood details, occupation, and criminal history, among other things. 

From a narrative standpoint, choosing the backstory of your character creates a sense of depth. Many games with character creation add style to your unique character, but no personality. No matter how much you change hair, facial features, or eye color, it’s the same character. Darktide, by contrast, gives the player the choice to forge their own story and form a more in-depth relationship with your character  – no two Darktide characters are ever exactly the same. 

These choices will bleed into the three personality types you can choose from: some personalities depend on your home planet, such as the veteran class’s unique personality type only being available with the “Cadia” planet of origin. Each personality type will influence how you react to situations, with many dialogue and voice lines during missions., Darktide successfully sells the idea of you making your own character with their unique story, by making your choices in character creation have actual impact. 

Finally, you’ll choose one of 4 class types: Zealot, Ogryn, Veteran, and Pysker. The individual personalities of these classes are charming, and how they react to situations, tasks, and each other is especially entertaining — a lot of effort was put into the voice work, and it shows. . 

Cons

Even with a computer well above the recommended requirements, the game’s initial loading screen freezes multiple times. Fatshark has addressed this bug, and it should be patched soon, but nonetheless it leaves a bad taste early on. Performance issues are prevalent, and loading screens take forever even with a powerful GPU. While later game bugs are rare, the few big ones in the early game may dissuade players from continuing. 

In recent times, games have too often been released in rough states and with minimal content. Fatshark had already delayed Darktide a few times, and likely felt pressured to release it. Understandable, but they should’ve delayed the game until it was ready. Many games have been delayed far past the initial launch date, and benefited from the extra development time.

Gameplay & Leveling

Pros

Combat is the bread and butter of any action game, essential to the overall experience. Darktide’s success in its storytelling is matched by its fun and engaging gameplay. The game is essentially a looter-shooter, with different mission types adding some variety. The combat itself is fairly simplistic: you’ve got Primary and Secondary weapons, and a grenade slot for abilities like the Veteran’s hand grenade or the Psyker’s head pop. All of these work together to make a fun and satisfying gameplay loop. 

This loop contains a healthy amount of enemy variety, with the different enemy types requiring different ways to handle them. Each class serves a role on any team, and they synergize with each other: Psykers are meant to stay in the backline dealing damage, while Ogryns are the team’s tanks, and so on. The leveling system is straightforward, with each new level adding more weapons and abilities to your arsenal. The more the Imperium trusts you, the more toys you get to purge heretics.

Cons

While the combat itself is initially fun, it gets boring pretty quickly. The game modes all feel the same, regardless of type or difficulty. Also, before reaching a certain progression threshold, your equipment is weak, feeling like a wet paper towel against the enemy hordes of heretics. Getting past that point ends up being a chore — the arsenal has too many numbers at once, and most loot ends up being the same weapon but with slightly different stats. 

The “consecration” system is used to upgrade the quality of the weapons, but this makes for yet more sensory overload and numbers galore. Consecrating a weapon allows the player to raise the status and stats of the weapon, adding perks called “Blessings”. However, it is possible to consecrate a weapon and then find the common version of that weapon with similar stats a few minutes later. 

Additionally, while the four classes are unique and fun individually, only having four at launch was disappointing for fans, since Vermintide had twice the number. We can expect more classes later, but the lack of options currently makes the issues with the repetitive gameplay loop all the more glaring.

Monetization

Pros

Unlike many other gaming studios, Fatshark hasn’t added a battle pass to their latest title yet, nor is the game pay-to-win – all the weapons necessary to progress through the game can be purchased with in-game currency. The outfits obtained through leveling up are stellar, with plenty of visual details; the level of characterization each class gets with their outfits is impressive. Grinding for in-game currency to purchase weapons is easy, with mid-level missions giving sufficient currency per completion.

Cons

Fatshark has continued the current FOMO microtransaction trend in Darktide’s shop, with cycling cosmetics that change after a timer ends. The  real-money store skins are overpriced, costing nearly $20, and the designs are bare-bones. Meanwhile, the common skins purchasable with in-game currency are re-colors of the starting outfit, and there aren’t very many to choose from. Fatshark needs to add more outfits, for premium currency or otherwise. 

Looking Forward

So far, Warhammer 40k: Darktide is a fun and creative — but over-monetized – mess. It’s a pleasure to play, but the general lack of content seriously hurts replayability. Whether the game ultimately has staying power will depend on Fatshark – adding more classes, and improving weapon variety, would improve the game a lot. While it’s not the best that Fatshark has put out, it works, and definitely has room to grow and improve as time goes on.