14 DAY TRIAL // 
Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide was a very nice surprise when it launched eight years ago, but it was the sequel that made Fatshark a popular studio among Warhammer fans. With Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Fatshark refined the Dead Island-like formula and perfectly integrated it into a very different universe.
When the studio announced it’s working on a similar game but in the Warhammer 40K universe, we knew it would turn out to be a decent game. Despite the fact that Warhammer 40,000: Darktide meets many fans’ expectations, it’s still a hit and miss from Fatshark.
Just like it’s previous two games, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a co-op focused experience that puts players in the boots of one of the four classes pulled from the Warhammer lore: Psyker, Veteran Sharpshooter, Ogryn, and Zealot Preacher.
Each of these classes has been carefully designed to offer completely different playstyles. While the Psyker is your go-to class if you love spamming magic, the Ogryn is the perfect class for those who want to get their hands dirty. As the name suggests, the Veteran Sharpshooter is built to kill enemies from afar, and it’s also the best class in the game.
The most fun class to play though is definitely the Zealot Preacher. If you want to be in the middle of the action almost all the time, hacking and slashing enemies left and right, this class is perfectly suitable to deal with almost any enemy in the game if geared properly.
The game starts epically with a massive insurgence of Chaos-worshipping Poxwalker heretics. This sets up the entire story arc of the game, which includes a bit more than a dozen story missions. However, these are gated behind levels, so you’ll be getting a new piece of the story once you reach certain levels.
It takes more than 30 hours to reach the level cap and get all the story tidbits, but since this is a co-op action game, you’ll always find new challenges even when you hit level 30, but only if you’re looking to unlock some cosmetics. The good news is the core gameplay is very solid, but that’s unsurprising considering Fatshark’s pedigree.
Combat is brutal, visceral and addictive at the same time. Waiting times were almost non-existent even one month after the game’s release, but nowadays you often get grouped with 1-2 bots because there are not enough players.
Unfortunately, the way that progression is designed, the weapons, powers and the in-game store all reek of “unfinished.” Even the story, which was supposed to be written by Dan Abnett, the author of Eisenhorn series, is very light. On the bright side, the soundtrack is quite good, although there are times I think it doesn’t fits the scenario I’m playing.
All classes can use most weapons, although each has a few unique weapons restricted to them, but most of them are underwhelming. The game lacks a fully functional crafting system, something that was promised in prior to release. Because of that, you’re left with the weapons that you find in store, which can have good perks, but bad stats. While you can change a perk from a weapon, you’re stuck with the stats.
Weapons in the Armory refresh every hour, but they’re underpowered across the board. Although you might seem to find an upgrade from time to time, they are abysmally low. You’ll only notice the difference when you find a properly tuned weapon, but you’ll have to be very lucky.
As far as the class talents go, many are broken, poorly explained or not working as intended. On top of that, the classes aren’t very well balanced. If you want to do well on every map and in every scenario, simply pick Veteran Sharpshooter and you’re covered. Despite being advertised as a ranged class, Veteran Sharpshooter is basically an all-in-one class that can do just about everything. Meanwhile, the other classes are very underpowered in comparison.
Aesthetically, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide doesn’t look that good. The environments are unappealing, and the cosmetics don’t look that well either. Missions seem more of the same visually, so they become boring after a while.
One other thing that the game is sorely missing is a solid rewards system. Regardless of how difficult a map is, the rewards are never generous enough to justify the grind. In fact, the only reason you’ll want to hit level 30 is to unlock all talents for your class’s tree.
Not to mention that you’ll end up having lots of money and nothing to spend it on because you rarely find an upgrade in the Armory. It’s a strange situation that prevents players from engaging with the game for longer times, exactly the opposite to what developers would want.
I won’t be covering the in-game store, but I’ll say that having a fully functional microtransaction system at the expense of core features is unforgivable. It’s pretty clear that the microtransaction model in the game is predatory. The price for full outfits is $10 on average, which is quite a lot for a game that it’s not free.
Last but not least, the game had major technical issues at launch. I usually got disconnected or my game would crash to desktop once every 3-4 games, so stability didn’t seem to be one of Fatshark’s focus for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
The Good
- Solid core combat mechanics
- Decently captures the feel of Warhammer 40,000 universe
- Great original soundtrack and voice-acting
The Bad
- Lacks important features like crafting system, weapons
- Unbalanced classes, broken perks/abilities
- Major technical issues
- Reward system doesn’t justify the grind
Conclusion
With Fatshark’s pedigree, this could have been an amazing game, especially if everything that was promised prior to release would actually be in the game. It feels like developers planned to add many of the missing features after release, but it might already be too late. Players pool is already dwindling, so by the time the game is fixed, there might not be too many people to play it. That’s such a shame because Warhammer 40,000: Darktide had so much potential.
Review key was provided by the publisher.
