Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a co-op shooter that was released in 2022 for PC and Xbox. After a rocky start, the developers polished the action game over months and years. Now, players say that it is finally in a good state – and it is currently heavily discounted on Steam.
What kind of game is this?
- Darktide corresponds in terms of gameplay to Warhammer Endtimes: Vermintide – or Left 4 Dead, if that zombie game rings a bell for you.
- You will be sent on missions in a dystopian sci-fi world with a team of 4 players of different classes where you will complete tasks and defend yourselves against hordes of Chaos-corrupted humans.
- Shortly after release, Darktide had over 107,000 players just on Steam. This number quickly decreased over the months, but now the numbers are back up to what they haven’t seen since January.
What’s new: On August 25, the new free update “Unlocked and Loaded” was released, surprisingly 2 days ahead of the planned release. The update overhauls one of the key aspects of the genre, loot.
Since its release, players have complained about being quite limited in weapon selection. The progress that can be achieved is tied to random buffs and is often interrupted when new weapons are found. That is all different now:
- You now gain experience by using or sacrificing weapons to increase your “mastery”. Along the way, you will unlock various things: Blessing Points, “Marks” and Perks.
- Blessing Points grant you different levels of Blessings, essentially buffs for your weapon. Blessings are no longer consumed, but you can apply them as often as you like to various weapons – similar to the Codex in Diablo 4.
- “Marks” are different versions or quality levels of the respective weapon type.
- perks are characteristics of the weapon that you can enhance while leveling.
Instead of always using new weapons, you can now simply bring weapons to their maximum potential through the upgrade system. This is intended to prevent you from having to give up your favorite weapon just because you find something better.
After the developers already introduced real skill trees for all classes in 2023, items were the next major point of criticism. Additionally, “Unlocked and Loaded” includes:
- The Party Finder as a new feature
- Operations as a new mission type and “Rolling Steel” as a new mission
- A new in-game event
- New penalties
- More weapon choices for Veterans, Zealots, and Psykers
- Various quality improvements; you can find the complete (and really long) patch notes on the official website or on page 2 here in the article
To celebrate the update, Darktide is currently 50% off on Steam and costs only 20 euros. Alternatively, it is included in the Game Pass.
“Finally in Release Condition”
The updates over the years have contributed to Darktide being rated significantly better. On Steam, the reviews have risen to 78% positive ratings and are thus “mostly positive”.
Users praise: With all the improvements, Darktide is finally the game it should have been at release. Every patch makes the game better and it is a great co-op shooter. In particular, the gameplay itself is said to be excellent.
Even players who got into Warhammer 40,000 through Space Marine 2 are now trying Darktide and are thrilled. Criticism remains for the still missing content, such as bot games and the resulting multiplayer compulsion, as well as the limited variety of weapons with too much grind.
The general consensus is: the game is quite recommendable while on sale. In the long run, however, it has received significant competition from Space Marine 2. If it continues to receive such good updates as it is currently doing, Darktide could soon be surpassed: Space Marine 2 brings a new feature that players have urgently demanded – perfect if you don’t want to play with strangers
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