Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, is the newest mission-based squad-centric wave survival game by FatShark, the developers behind Warhammer Vermintide 2. For anyone unfamiliar with either of these games, other titles such as Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood, or even Deep Rock Galatic also work as a fair comparison.
In it, a squad of 4 players is dropped into a mission, told to get to the end of it, and must shoot or cut their way through hordes of enemies to do so. But, in particular, the comparisons between VT2 and Warhammer: Darktide are apt, given that they're both made by the same developers. And, while VT2 has 5+ years of update history over Darktide, here are just a few things this new entry seems to be improving upon already, as players already got a taste of from the release trailer.
7 Isolating Players From The Rest Of The Squad
First, let's talk about how Darktide is just fantastic at intentionally separating players from each other. In games like Darktide, a player being on their own, at least for a decent stretch of time, is usually a death sentence. Even the tankiest of characters are nothing when a Scab Trapper fires a net at them.
So, it's crucial to stick together, which is exactly why the game itself tries to separate people and where most of the difficulty of the game comes in. While Vermintide 2 also does a pretty good job of this, Darktide, at least so far, just does it more often and in more creative ways, such as:
- Scab Bombers use Incendiary Bombs to separate people in tight hallways or risk heavy damage walking through flames.
- Winding halls and corridors with multiple different doors, dead ends, and potential paths lead a lot of players to unintentionally separate themselves.
- The addition of enemies that fire guns almost forces some Operatives like the Psyker to bunker down and hide behind cover, which can easily separate them from their team.
- Pox Bursters coerce people into separating so that the explosion doesn't hurt everyone.
- Mutants quite literally grab allies and toss them in a random direction, which is sometimes right into a horde or right off the map.
Of course, Vermintide's Special Enemies did a lot of these things too, but because of Darktide's level design and enemy spawns, it happens more often in this newer title.
6 Using The "Coherency" Mechanic To Convince People To Stick Together
The Coherency System in Darktide is incredibly well-thought-out. At its core, it's basically just a system that rewards players with stacking Auras for sticking close to each other, which is very simplistic.
But, because there are literal gameplay benefits, many of the Talents include Coherency buffs, and Coherency by default buffs Toughness regeneration, public lobbies are so much more bearable. While it was always important to stay in formation in Vermintide, there weren't any actual in-game stat buffs associated with it, making it easier for new players (who will probably be experiencing the game through Xbox Game Pass) to ignore their ally's "stick close" advice.
5 Resource & Ammo Scarcity
With ranged combat being such a core mechanic of Darktide, especially in comparison to Vermintide 2, ammo scarcity has so much more impact. There were a good number of ranged classes in Vermintide 2 with Careers like Bounty Hunter, Ranger, and Huntsman. But, that game was designed around melee combat so ammo was either plentiful or not important. Additionally, ranged combat was incredibly strong for a while after VT2 came out, and has subsequently been nerfed multiple times.
In Darktide, players are constantly scrounging for any ammo packs at all, and Med Kits or Ammo Boxes are even more important. Plus, characters like Ogryn or the Veteran are almost always fiending for more grenade boxes. Overall, the scarcity and, by extension, happiness a squad feels finding a bunch of ammo in Darktide is amplified so much more than in VT2. And, that's not even including the painful resource management that comes from trying to pick up a Grimoire mid-mission.
4 The Impact Of Weapon Sound Effects
With the weapons, both melee and ranged, seen in Darktide leading up to its release on November 30th, 2022, the pure "oomph" that all of its weapons have in terms of their audio is absurd. That isn't to say that guns and weapons didn't have satisfying sound effects in VT2, but there's a hard limit to how many different ways FatShark can make the act of iron-hitting flesh sound.
In Darktide the technology is so advanced since this is Warhammer 40K, and there is a myriad of new ways to make satisfying sound effects with things like Chainswords, Ripper Guns, Bolters, Lasguns, and more. For example, Ogryn Skullbreaker's grenade-box throw, which is literally just him throwing a heavy metal box full of grenades, makes such an impactful "thump" when it flattens an elite enemy that players are using their grenades a bit haphazardly as a result.
3 The Cruelty Of Its World
This next one is both a compliment and a complaint, as the world of Darktide is so much meaner than Vermintide. In VT2, hordes were similar to something like the hordes of zombies in World War Z, just a gigantic wave of chaos and flesh coming at the player in one or two directions at most. In Darktide, hordes are still scary. But, what's truly scary is how many different directions they constantly come from all at once and how difficult that is to deal with, even from a co-op standpoint. Enemies don't just spawn from doorways or down hallways anymore. Rather, they'll drop suddenly from floors above, from the ceiling itself, or seemingly from nowhere at all.
Because of this, the world as a whole in Darktide seems to be so much more 'against' the player, which works tonally since 40K is one of the most grim-dark settings out there. But, from a gameplay standpoint, FatShark could stand to adjust enemy spawns so that things are a bit more consistent.
2 The Sheer Level Of Gratuitous Gore & Particle Effects
Now, this next aspect is a pretty small part of either game, at least in the grand scheme of things. But, when it comes to games all about slaying hundreds (maybe even thousands) of enemies per level, impactful levels of grime and gore matter.
And, for the most part, Vermintide 2 has plenty of fancy particle effects, blood, and guts. Still, Darktide is just on another level. The maggots that fly out from the Poxwalkers as the Zealot slams into them, the blood mist spraying out of enemies after the Sharpshooter empties a full Lasgun clip, or even the still-sputtering flaming neck stump that remains after a Psyker gets a Brain Burst kill on an Elite, it's all just too much in the best of ways.
1 The Mourningstar Vs Taal's Horn Keep
And lastly, it needs to be mentioned that the Hub Area of Darktide, AKA the Mourningstar ship, is fantastic in its design. The Gothic cathedral architectural style of it just screams "Imperium of Man" and the fact that it's always populated with a decent amount of other players that are also currently playing the game makes the hub feel alive.
That said, as far as functionality, Taal's Horn Keep in VT2 is so much better. Players can practice their skills, test damage, access all the shops in one small area, or just explore all the nooks and crannies of the castle all while waiting for the rest of their party to get ready. That said, with time, the Mourningstar could easily surpass the Keep if FatShark puts the work in.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is available now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox Game Pass.