The basic premise of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is pretty straightforward: thousands of cultists and dregs fall beneath the feet of four prisoners utilizing a devastating variety of guns, melee, and psychic powers, who will stop at nothing to accomplish their mission. It is also Stockholm developer Fatshark’s follow-up to its popular first-person horde action game Warhammer: Vermintide 2 and is its first attempt at tackling the 40K series.
Warhammer 40K: Darktide is light on narrative, but it opens with the player-created protagonist being hauled off to be executed for reasons determined in the character creator. The ship they are on is suddenly attacked, and with the help of Explicator Zora, players escape to a ship named the Mourningstar. The player’s sentence is put on hold with the intent to be conscripted in the Inquisition and investigate a Chaos infiltration on the city of Tertium.
After the prologue, cinematics are a rarity, with most of the story being told through banter between teammates and the people giving them orders. Whenever a new cutscene does appear, they do little to progress the story with few exceptions and mostly consist of the player character standing silently while other characters acknowledge their accomplishments.
What is available at launch is charming, with the banter showing decent chemistry between a squad of people from different walks of life who are consistently thrown into hellish situations and not expected to return. Since Warhammer 40,000 writing veteran Dan Abnett penned the story, the dialogue’s quality is of no surprise even if lines do repeat from time to time. Since the game is a live service with an evolving narrative, it remains to be seen if expansions will lean more heavily on a cinematic narrative or keep delivering the story during missions.
Regardless of how one may feel about a thin narrative, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's mission focus is made clear quickly: a squad of four players is spawned in a sector of Tertium with a specific goal and rip through thousands to achieve it. Each mission can take 20 to 40 minutes to complete depending on difficulty, and they leave few moments to let players catch their breath. As a horde shooter, enemies constantly attack the party with a few cinematic moments making the futility of the situation clear. The gameplay and cinematics work together to deliver an empowering, if doubtful sensation for players.
Like other comparable titles such as Fatshark’s own Vermintide and Valve’s Left 4 Dead games, the experience of playing it is exhilarating when every element of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide’s gameplay comes together. If someone enjoyed those games, then they are sure to enjoy this one. Ranged attacks and melee both feel satisfying, with the latter being especially gleeful when a chainsaw sword tears through a row of unfortunate opponents or a Dreg Gunner’s head meets the sharp end of an axe.
Most of this playthrough was done as Warhammer 40K: Darktide's Psyker class, an individual with psychic abilities who can use staves and burst enemies’ heads open with a charged blast, but three other classes are available on day one. They include the giant Ogryn who can use heavy weapons and tank hits, the quick Preacher who can also use flamethrowers, and the Veteran for those who want a more traditional FPS experience. Regardless of the chosen class, they provide a balanced experience for the game’s emphasis on playing aggressively and cooperatively. Still, there is a certain level of glee to be had when multiple Psykers with staves end up in the same party, and a constant stream of psychic blasts pick off elite enemies while charged explosions hold back the general horde.
In its simplest form, Warhammer 40K: Darktide is just absolute, chaotic fun regardless of the mission’s chosen difficulty. A power fantasy can be felt on lower difficulties when mowing down hordes with ease, while gut-busting tension can be felt when things crank up to the highest and second-highest tiers. The best moments kick in when massive hordes swarm the team, and everyone is forced to use their melee weapons, making the screen a cacophony of bodies and blood. Not to mention, the game's frenetic score mixing electronic and gothic vibes can really set the mood for these kinds of encounters.
Some issues do hold the game back from reaching its full potential, most of which stem from Warhammer 40K: Darktide's live service model. It, unfortunately, suffers from a lack of missions at launch, with only 13 being available on day one across five zones. While variety can range from collecting samples to assassinating a high-profile target, the low number of actual missions to play through can make repetition seep in quickly. An odd mini-boss might pop up for a neat surprise, but the environments do not randomize nailing in a feeling of doing the same thing over and over again. Features such as weapon refinement are also missing at launch, which is also not a significant issue but is puzzling.
Where the game could really lose people is in how it performs. Between constant framerate drops and issues with the game crashing back to the desktop on several occasions, it can become taxing to stick with Warhammer 40K: Darktide for more than a mission or two at a time due to its current state. The game is incredibly demanding for those who wish to max out all the graphical settings, but when the minimum PC specs call for a card as old as the GTX 970, it should not be running as poorly as it does on modern hardware.
Other technical issues such as texture pop-in are noticeable and bugs such as enemies clipping through environments can be painful, but they are not massive problems. Issues can also be had with the lack of weapons and unfinished implementation of upgrade systems, but when a hard crash boots someone back to the desktop near the end of a 30-minute mission, it makes it difficult to want to return to the game for a while, no matter how fun it can be when everything is functional.
That said, there is this constant draw to come back to the game for a few hours almost daily, and as more patches get released, performance will likely stabilize which will make that draw even stronger. Having the game launch with this lack of polish in the first place is frustrating, but that is because the core loop is a blast to play through. If it were not for the rough launch, it would be an easy recommendation for anyone familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 franchise or those who simply want a good horde shooter to sink their teeth into.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is out now for PC and coming later to Xbox Series X|S.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a cooperative-focused action shooter game from Fatshark. The game features deep character customization, brutal melee combat, a unique dystopian world to explore, challenging gameplay, and more.