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Warhammer 40000 Darktide: Superhit successor to Vermintide

Darktide is a spiritual successor to Fatshark’s previous game in the genre, Vermintide, as well as a Left 4 Dead-like. Moving the experience away from the main Warhammer universe and into the far-flung and grimdark future of Warhammer 40K requires a significant visual and technological overhaul. The most significant new feature is an armoury of armaments that have no place in the harsh fantasy of conventional Warhammer. Hand cannons, assault rifles, and electricity-infused missiles, on the other hand, not only fit perfectly in, but also radically alter the flow of battle by introducing more range-based concerns.

The official website states: “Take back the city of Tertium from hordes of bloodthirsty foes in this intense and brutal action shooter. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is the new co-op focused experience from the award-winning team behind the Vermintide series. As Tertium falls, Rejects Will Rise..”

It’s easy to see why playing as a Space Marine provides for a lot greater power fantasy, but Darktide, like Vermintide before it, isn’t about the setting’s most strong characters. That isn’t to say it doesn’t make you feel dominant, but it’s a calibrated type of strength. A handful of Space Marines could certainly liberate Tertium by lunchtime, but sadly, it’s up to you and your motley crew to save the colony; or what’s left of it.

This big shift is well-executed, since your opponents will match you blow after blow. When fighting from a distance, they’ll trade bullets and take cover, and if you—or they—can narrow the gap, they’ll immediately switch to melee warfare. When this occurs, Darktide reverts to the still-excellent crowd-control features initially seen in Vermintide, where both sophisticated swordfighting and mindless chopping and slashing are typically acceptable techniques—though on higher difficulties, the former naturally becomes more important.

Darktide is Fatshark’s most full incarnation of their co-op combat yet, with so many more variables in terms of ranged threats, unique adversaries, and the weapons you have to deal with them: quick and fluid as you travel point-to-point, threat-to-threat. Classes also seem like they have distinct capabilities, and the addition of bonuses and shield regen while you’re near to your squad is a good incentive for team-based play in matchmade tasks.

While the combat is unquestionably improved, the lack of a comprehensive crafting system at launch is a step back from Vermintide. You can presently upgrade weapons, so buildcrafting isn’t completely out of the question, but it hasn’t been the ideal method to highlight Darktide’s incredible armament. The UI, on the other hand, has been greatly improved since the pre-order beta, making it much easier to comprehend how weapons operate and what they’re useful for.

Completing quests and obstacles will earn you currency and components, which you can use to buy new weapons, even drastically changing your character build by switching to new weapon classes after all, you can only equip two weapons which works well in conjunction with the abilities and benefits you’ll unlock as you level up each character to level 30.

This also has an impact on the plot, since you’ll most likely play it out of sequence given how matchmaking appears unconcerned about your story progress—though you may circumvent this by selecting certain missions with potentially higher queue times. As a result, even if the game occasionally throws you into cutscenes, the plot feels like nothing more than background information.

Darktide captures the most important aspects of its genre and appears to be a smash hit.

Harry S

harry

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