Warhammer 40,000: Darktide – Review

The Warhammer 40,000 universe is getting its fair share of videogame adaptations, be it the wacky Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef, or the grim ARPG Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Ultimate Edition, there is more than enough to get your 40,000 fix. This time, we’re taking a look at Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, which is somewhat the futuristic version of the Vermintide series. We were curious to see if it could live up to the hype of the Vermintide games, or if it was just a grim serving of Warhammer 40,000 content. For the most part, we enjoyed our experience with the game, but it should have perhaps received a few extra layers of polish before its full release.

Story

The story in Darktide is quite simple. You start the game as a convicted felon who will be executed but due to an attack on the prison transport, you are freed. During your escape, you help one of the Explicators and you both make it out alive. Thanks to your noble action, you are spared and are now tasked with fighting the forces of Chaos. While there is a bit more depth to the story, that’s basically the gist of it.

Graphics

Graphically the game looks quite good. The enemy designs are very detailed and slashing enemies to bits results in a satisfying gory mess. The game conveys a proper dark and depressing atmosphere, and the different environments are varied enough to ensure playing through the missions doesn’t get dull too quickly. We found certain aspects of the character creation a bit too basic, and the game would have been a lot more fun if there was a decent armor system in place to create more unique characters. Currently, all armors are cosmetic upgrades, making it so that most player characters look a bit bland.

During our playthrough, we did encounter quite a few graphical bugs, ranging from texture popping and odd flickering objects to actual buggy renderings where player characters wouldn’t spawn properly.

Sound

The sound design of Darktide is superbly handled. Not only does the music have a certain sense of urgency but the voice acting is also great. During missions, the characters will communicate with each other, and depending on the personality of your created characters, the dialogues will vary. Even though some lines were repeated now and then, we did encounter a huge variety of spoken lines. The cinematics are also fully voiced, which is another huge plus.

Gameplay

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a squad-based online FPS. The game will have you play through fairly short missions in order to gain experience, unlock new skills and weapons, and of course, drive back the Chaos infestation. The game is pretty straightforward, as you simply pick a class of your choosing, and then you start completing missions. These missions can have specific requirements to beat, and you can up the difficulty level if you want to get more experience for clearing missions. The overall controls of the game are quite good and combat is generally satisfying.

As stated above, the overall experience is quite straightforward. You pick a mission and either choose to play privately with friends or bots, or you can also join a public game. Communication is key in the game, and if you have friends who also play the game, you’ll have the most fun here. We did notice that progress is fairly slow, and there is not that much to look forward to. The overall skills are limited, but you can unlock some weapons and upgrade options as you level up your character(s). The armor in this game consists solely of cosmetic upgrades, which is a shame. If a proper armor system with passive bonuses was added to the mix, you’d be able to create more interesting endgame builds. You currently are able to equip a few trinkets as you level up, but these also feel too limited and basic.

While the overall gameplay loop of the game is still quite enjoyable, we couldn’t help but feel this game should have been in Early Access in its current state. On top of the general impression the game is not finished yet, we have encountered numerous game crashes, extremely long loading times, graphical glitches, and Scriptures not spawning. These so-called Scriptures are collectible books during missions that will consume your item slot, but you’ll get a lot more experience if you find them all. Darktide currently lacks its crafting feature, yet the developer includes a hefty amount of cosmetics you can purchase for actual money. Things like this leave a sour aftertaste, as the game should be finished first before adding paid cosmetics to look ‘snazzy’ in-game.

Conclusion

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has the key ingredients to provide gamers with an absolute blast within the dark and gloomy 40,000 universe. We did enjoy playing through the different missions with the four different classes, even though the content does get quite repetitive after a while. The game is best enjoyed in short bursts and preferably with a full party of friends, as communication is very important. Sadly, the game feels rough around the edges and feels as if it should be in Early Access instead. If you can overlook the aforementioned bugs, then you’ll still have a lot of fun with this one, but we recommend waiting for a few patches and content updates first.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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