Despite a shakey start, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has become one of the best Warhammer on the market, and much of that success is due to the dedication of its community and the resilience of its developers.
Singleplayer.
Co-op Multiplayer.
After Warhammer: Vermintide 1 and 2 suffered from a slew of issues at launch, it should have been no surprise to anyone that Fatshark ‘s most ambitious title to date would face the same issues and that these issues would be exacerbated by its launching day one on PC and Xbox Game Pass.
While this issue was slightly mitigated by delaying the console launch by 11 months, the first year of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide‘s life was almost as grim as the universe in which it is set.
However, luckily for fans of the game, Fatshark is very good at turning around a struggling title, having been forced to do so before, with Vermitide having suffered prolonged periods of less-than-stellar performance and community sentiment.
While it took almost a year to release on console (and Xbox Game Pass) and another six months to set Warhammer 40,000: Darktide firmly on a trajectory to success, they have succeeded, and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is finally the game that the developers envisioned and the community deserved.
I am really pleased with Warhammer 40,000: Darktide ‘s current state, but there is still room for improvement.
While Warhammer 40,000: Darktide ‘s release on PlayStation 5 was a welcome development, the lack of cross-progression is disappointing; as of December 2024, only Xbox and Xbox app (PC) users have access to cross-progression, while users on all other platforms lack this feature, which is a real shame.
As someone who owns and uses multiple gaming systems, I need to be able to take my progression with me no matter which platform I am playing on.
Online games that do not offer this option do not hold my attention as long as they otherwise would have, as I do not have the time, desire, or ability to play on every console I own each day.
As a result, I spend less time on multiplayer games in which progression is locked to a single platform than those I can access everywhere.
A perfect example of this is Deceive Inc, a title I enjoy but rarely play, as I am unable to access my unlocked agents and gadgets on every platform in which I own the game, while Skull and Bones ( which offers full cross progression) is one of my most played games of the year on both Ps5 and Xbox Series X.
I would love to see the developers add robust cross-progression to Darktide. It would elevate it beyond its current excellent state to something even greater.
Some games wow players with sleek and graceful combat that somehow manages to make carnage look like an elegant dance, with combatants almost appearing to be partners in a deadly dance of death.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is not one of those games. Instead, players will bash things in the head with shovels, axes, knives, and whatever else they can get their hand on to conserve ammo, which is best used to blast things from range.
While some may have wanted a greater focus on ranged combat, I must admit melee is where Warhammer 40,000: Darktide shines, with the developer’s near decade of experience with Vermintide being evident in how balanced and refined the melee combat is.
While gunplay is perfectly serviceable, after playing a considerable amount of established FPS franchises, I found the gunplay in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide to be middling at best.
It’s still really fun to fight enemies with ranged weapons. Considering how challenging some encounters are, I will gladly take any weapon I can get my hands on. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is one of the most challenging cooperative PvE games I have ever played, with many encounters on par with mid-late game Call of Duty zombie rounds and boss battles being substantially more channelling than normal encounters.
I have witnessed an entire squad (myself included) being defeated by a miniboss, which frankly wiped the floor with us, making eventual victory all the sweeter.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide‘s progression system is just about perfect for a game of this type, with players being rewarded for every run (win or lose) in accordance with their performance.
While this system is not unique to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, it is a great system that allows players to grind resources to overcome more difficult missions while ensuring that players feel well compensated for doing their best.
I would love to see this system widely adopted as the norm in the future, as it ensures that players of all skill levels can enjoy the game while ensuring that players who are more than doing their part feel like their contribution was fairly rewarded.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is not a pretty game; the characters, in particular, are rather hideous. However, this is not the type of game where things look pretty, new, and shiny; it is greasy, grimy, wartorn, and horrible, which is exactly the vibe you want for a Warhammer 40k game, where even the good guys are grey at best.
With very few exceptions, everything and everyone looks like they have seen better days.
Graphically, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a nice-looking game. While I have seen better, all things considered, no one can deny that Warhammer 40,000: Darktide looks great and, at long last, runs well on all platforms.
For those on PC or Xbox Series X|S, at the time of writing this review, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is part of PC and Xbox Game Pass, which is a great way to try a game before committing to a purchase.
Unfortunately, this option is not available on PlayStation, where Sony automatically refuses refunds for any title that players download, with very few (Cyberpunk 2077) exceptions.
In that case, I suggest watching YouTube videos to get a feel for the game or waiting until it is added to PS Plus.
While nothing has been indicated yet, it is the perfect game for subscription services, and it will likely be added to the service in some capacity in 2025.
As of 2024, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide‘s business model is similar to many live service games. Players can purchase a variety of premium cosmetics, a model that has proven popular and sustainable for many games.
However, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (by the same developer) has taken this a step further by allowing players to purchase addition careers (classes) for the playable character, which, while not pay to win (as all classes are pretty good), does allow players with money to spare a greater variety of build and class options than players who only have access to the core game.
While I am not opposed to the model in principle, I feel that after all the community has endured, and for the most part, the patience and grace they showed the developers (though not everyone acted in such a manner), introducing paid classes would not go down very well, and would needlessly upset the boat, in ways that additional cosmetic DLC or even a traditional expansion would not.
While Fatshark may not get everything right the first try, they know how to stick with a game long term, and even their biggest failures, for the most part, are still online, with titles such as Lead and Gold still being played by its minuscule community.
This leads me to my next point: while the developers have some haters, for the most part, Fatshark makes games that its core community loves and continues to play even after most of the player base moves onto newer titles.
A perfect example of this phenomenon is the continued community support around titles such as the original Vermintide and Lead and Gold, which are barely alive yet still have a tiny community that loves to play them and does their uttermost to keep the games alive by arranging matches and meetups via Steam forums and other methods.
When the original Vermintide had server issues in December 2024, the developers quickly addressed the issue while updating the community frequently throughout; despite the game having only a handful of active players remaining, Fatshark treated them as valued customers, which is why the community, for the most part, is willing to stand by them during troubled times, as the developer has proved their concern for the community time and time again.
If more people showed such mutual appreciation and concern for one another, it would be a much better world, and gaming, in particular, would benefit from more cordial relations between developers and publishers, something which would be much more likely to exist without the interference of YouTube grifters and content creators to grow rich by causing others hate developers and one another.
Read more about this very important issue: Woe unto the false gods of gaming!While some Christians dislike all things Warhammer and lump it in with everything else they do not like as dangerous, evil or demonic, I feel the total reverse is true.
While not every aspect of the Warhammer universe (40k in particular) is wholesome, it is a near-perfect representation of what a world would be like without God, or rather, a world where men created a God (the Emperor) for themselves in their own image instead of striving to live their lives in such a way that they reflect the heart and mind of God.
What is even more troubling is that this phenomenon is in no way unique to the Warhammer universe. A quick browse of Reddit or Twitter will show you what happens when people make a god in their image instead of the reverse.
I am sorry to say that Christians, in particular, have done this far too often. In the case of American Christians, it resulted in the election of a man who represents everything Jesus Christ opposed while having the audacity to claim that God chose this man and was comparable to Christ in any way.
In doing so, they twisted the teachings of Christ into a weapon to attack their enemies instead of allowing his teachings to change them and the world around them.
In much the same way that the Imperium of Man became a force for tyranny and oppression, any Christian that does not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ as they were written, but instead creates their own version of Jesus who happens to love everything they love and hate everyone they hate, are reasonable not only for the corruption of the Gospel but also every lost soul who is turned away from salvation in Jesus Christ due to how horrible many “Christians” act while claiming they are acting in accordance with the Word of God.
Jesus Christ is and was the Word of God. It is by imitating him that we best show our faith, not by electing dictators and destroying their witness as Christians by decrying every attempt to improve the lives of those around us in the name of “fighting against wokeness and socialism”.
I encourage everyone, no matter who you are or what you believe, to look at the teachings of Jesus Christ for yourself before deciding on who he is and what that reality means for you.
Judging Jesus Christ by those who claim to follow him (and who do a terrible job of it) is no way to live, especially when your eternal destiny depends on it.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a shooter video game developed and published by Fatshark, it was released on 30 November 2022 and retails for $39.99.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
As of December 2024, around 750,000 people play Warhammer 40,000: Darktide on a fairly regular basis.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is very active, meaning that very short matchmaking times and even instant matchmaking are possible in populated regions, while less popular regions enjoy stable but less instantaneous matchmaking.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide supports:
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide offers the following matchmaking options:
The Warhammer 40,000: Darktide in-game store sells:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is rated PEGI 18+ and contains:
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a fantastic game for fans of cooperative shooters or Warhammer lore. However, it is a Warhammer game, so it is not for everyone.
The grimdark nature of the Warhammer universe is obviously both very grim and rather dark, and for some gamers, this is an unpalatable combination.
If you know and love the Warhammer franchise and have played other games by the same developer (such as Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2), you will enjoy Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, as it is essentially more of the same in all the best ways.
