Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Review: Corruption Within

Coming fresh their success with their hoard-shooting Vermintide series, Fatshark swaps the grimy renaissance-inspired fantasy of their previous titles for techno-gothic dystopia with Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. The game offers a strong, satisfying gameplay loop that will satisfy your inner space-crusader. And with a bit of polish, this could be Fatshark’s best title yet. But something insidious lurks beneath the surface.

I have a confession to make, folks. While I love Warhammer 40k’s over-the-top gothic space fantasy insanity, I cannot stand its go-to mascot, the Space Marines. They’re overpowered and only seem to experience two emotions: Grim and Dour. What’s more is that no matter if it’s the tabletop, books, cartoons, or games, this franchise can’t seem to go two seconds without getting on all fours to polish their power-swords. So you can’t imagine my delight when I saw the trailer for Darktide. A Warhammer 40k game where regular humans get to do something other than die in droves and gawp in awe when the Space Marines arrive to save everybody? Be still my heart! And with the pedigree of Fatshark, I couldn’t help but be excited. Still, after extensive delays and a lot of radio silence I feared that the game would become yet another overly-delayed mess in the vein of Cyberpunk 2077. But I’m glad to say that the fine folks over at Fatshark proved me wrong.

The first thing that will catch your eye is the character creation. Unlike its predecessors, we won’t be playing with pre-made characters. I quite liked this element, as one of Warhammer’s greatest strengths has always been its customizability. But those looking for Vermintide’s dialogue-based piecemeal storytelling will be sorely disappointed. That being said, characters are far from lacking in personality. Part of character creation involves picking their personality and by extension, their voice actor. For example, your veteran sharpshooter might be a by-the-book sergeant who barks orders at his teammates, or maybe she’s an underhanded yet pragmatic cynic who ponders stealing anything not nailed down. This, paired with a robust character creation system that borrows from Warhammer’s tabletop role-playing legacy results in characters feeling distinctly yours.

But a Warhammer game is nothing without combat. And Darktide has got the flow of battle down to the sweetest of sciences. Fatshark’s signature love of melee is back and better than ever. Along old favorites like swords, daggers and clubs, players can look forward to wielding feudally-futuristic weapons like chainsaw blades and combat shovels. Landing blows with a melee weapon is intensely satisfying. The way the roaring teeth of a chain-sword reduce cultists to piles of crimson gore nearly brought a tear to my eye. But enough about swords! This is the far future we’re talking about! And you know what that means, kids?
GUNS! GUNS! GUNS!
Prior Fatshark titles didn’t shy away from firearms, but they’ve never looked or felt as good as they do in Darktide. Ranged combat lends itself well to the flow of missions. Enemy marksmen will take potshots at you from a distance, covering chaff units as they charge you down. Baddies equipped with toxic suicide bombs will charge you, forcing you to pick them off at a distance. And enemy snipers can force you to re-think any plans to charge into the fray, sword-a-swinging. These moments encourage players to intercut their melee brawls with intense firefights that give combat a distinct tempo. And speaking of tempo, there is no shortage of tools of warfare that players can use to weave ballistic symphonies that would make Tchaikovsky blush. The standard fare of shotguns, pistols and submachine guns are served alongside more sci-fi flavored firearms like laser rifles, plasma cannons and grenade-lobbing gauntlets. But all those pale in comparison to the Bolter, a weapon pulled straight from the tabletop that shoots rapid-fire explosive rounds that punch through armor, turning your foes into a gory paste. It’s a thing of beauty, really.

The classes each have their own unique feel to them. Whether you’re picking enemies off at range with a marksman, wading into melee with the fury of the zealot, shielding allies as the brutish but loveable ogryn or exploding enemy skulls as the high-risk-high-reward psyker, everyone has something to bring to the fight. And mastering the strengths and weaknesses of a class will be key to you and your squad’s continued survival.

In terms of presentation, the game is fantastic. You’ll wander the labyrinthine guts of corpse-clogged sewers, skirmish across the rickety railways of decaying factories and feel insignificant beneath the steepled rooves of churches to the Machine God. These vast and winding structures pair beautifully with the game’s soundtrack which blends a synth-heavy techno track that sounds at home in a John Carpenter horror flick with ominous cybernetic chanting. Each track leaves you feeling the thrill of combat as you spill the blood of the unholy in the name of your distant, cruel god.

However, putting aside the visceral gameplay and evocative art design, the game is far from perfect. The most obvious issue is poor optimization. Even with a new AMD Raydeon graphics card, I found the frame rate would occasionally drop, especially during skirmishes with large swarms of enemies. And I nearly had a heart attack when the game decided to crash just as the mission was ending. While crashes may happen on occasion, hopping back into a mission is dead simple. But I feel like that’s more treatment of the symptom than the cause.

Darktide also lacks a number of features from previous titles. Gone are the subclasses of Vermintide which provided different active and passive abilities. While wider flexibility for weapons makes up for this a bit, I found myself missing the way that slotting in a new subclass could mix up gameplay and make a class feel more varied and alive.

Sadly, the game suffers from a corruption far more insidious than the plagues of any dark god. A disease that claims online games with shocking regularity: predatory monetization. Players can pay real-world money for a premium currency called “Aquilas” which can be spent on premium cosmetics. Other cosmetics can still be earned doing certain tasks as different classes, but the progression is a nightmarish practice in grinding that drags its feet like the hoards of zombies you must mow down. What’s more, they rely on an underhanded tactic of selling this currency in set amounts to ensure you never have enough to buy one set you like simply. This is a common tactic for muddying the waters, making players uncertain of how much cash they have spent to get the items they want.

I would have hoped they would take the more ethical route of monetization, as illustrated by games like Deep Rock Galactic, which sells standalone cosmetic packs as DLC via the Steam store. But Fatshark seems content to try and charge players for a game with less content than its predecessors for more egregiously packaged fare. I understand that games as a service need to make money, but we have proven examples of it being done better and more ethically. Unless these policies change, I cannot in good conscience rate it any higher than a 3.5 out of 5.

Fatshark and other live service game devs need to know that these practices cannot, and should not be tolerated.

Overall, I would rate Warhammer 40,000: Darktide 3.5/5 stars.

Pros
Visceral, rewarding combat
Story is strong even with custom characters
Beautiful graphics
Excellent soundtrack

Cons
Poorly optimized
Progression relies on grinding
Occasional technical issues
Predatory monetization practices

Verdict: 3.5/5, above average.
Great gameplay and a strong presentation bogged down by technical issues, grinding progression, and predatory monetization.