In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war but, in the meantime, it’s best to keep the 40K universe fiction as I would not want to be the one-stepping foot on Tertium while the followers of the chaos god Nurgle lurk. With the recent Battleforce box announcements from GamesWorkshop, my love for Warhammer 40k is on another level so to get my fix I knew I must pick up Darktide as the plastic menses that is collectable minis wasn’t going to soothe this itch this time. Warhammer 40K has been a huge hobby of mine even more so with 9th edition as this brought me deeper into the lore and diving into the stories and universe that aren’t necessarily played out on a tabletop. I remember playing Dawn of War in the past and loving them but when I played Necromunda: Hired Gun it made me want more first-person shooters set in the 40k universe. Which is another reason I was heavily drawn to Darktide.
Warhammer 40k: Darktide is a first-person action game set in the 40k universe. It is similar to Left for Dead or Warhammer: Vermintide 2 in which four players cooperate to defeat periodic hordes of A-I-controlled enemies. Your character is a prisoner aboard the Tancred Bastion, during transport, the Bastion is overrun by swarms of Nurgle followers. You manage to escape and save Explicator Zola and get safely off the ship. Zola agrees to spare you the death sentence and signs you up to the Inquisition where you will try and suppress the Nurgle infestation and cults on Tertium.
You start out as level 1 and have to level up your character to unlock new weapons, gear and upgrade. While you level up you will meet milestones in the story and be given certain missions to go on to kill cult leaders and suppress the infection. There are different difficulty missions available in the hub that will earn more rewards if you manage to complete them. I found it a lot easier to stick to the easier missions until you have found your feet and levelled up enough. I did attempt a few max-difficulty missions and failed most of the time. It also depends on how much of a team player your co-op team wants to be, if you all stick together and work the objected then missions are fun and easily manageable but if you get stuck with people who want to run and gun or leave you behind then the enjoyment quickly disappears as you find yourself having to fend off hordes on your own and to be honest ammo isn’t easier to come by.
Thanks to the different variations of mission types it does help keep the game feeling fresh, you will have to repeat the odd mission here and there when it cycles back into the playlist but by that point, you will either have a different load out or a different team which makes taking on this mission a whole different kettle of fish. As mentioned briefly above ammo is very hard to come by so prepare for a lot of melee combat which in Darktide can get ugly, even more so when face-to-face with Nurgle Pox Walkers and Nurgle beasts. This game does an amazing job at making you feel outnumbered at times but when you come out victorious there isn’t a more rewarding feeling. You can come across medic stations while out on missions which help heal you or find medic supplies while looting chests. Make sure to save these for tricky segments of missions as you’ll need all the health you can get. When you get downed you can be revived by your team mates but if they don’t get to you quick enough you will be captured by the cult/Nugle spawn and need to be rescued, if all your team gets killed then you fail the mission, so make sure to stay together and not leave a team mate behind.
The four character classes that are playable in Darktide can cater to a lot of playstyles that suit you or gives you the chance to swap between classes if you like more than one. I like that the character customisation has some level of detail to it so that your character stands out from everyone else. I also like how your character gets dialogue as I don’t think I’d like to have been playing the silent hero this time around, I prefer my Scottish, sarcastic Human Zealot. The four classes on offer in Darktide are Human Veteran, Human Zealot (my main), Ogryn and Human Psyker. Each class has their own playstyle and perks, part of the fun in Darktide is finding out which one you like. Want to wield the powers of the warp pick a Psyker, want to bash people with massive clubs or gun them down with massive machine guns pick Ogryn the choice is yours. Complete missions to gain money to buy and upgrade gear to prepare yourself for the harder missions and if you are lucky while doing missions you can find upgrade materials and side missions items which again grant more rewards. Even though the game is linear it doesn’t feel it, at times I did get lost roaming around in certain missions but that’s only because I was taken aback by how fantastic the game looks. They did a brilliant job at capturing the true grit and horrors in the 40k universe. A neat little feature that I did enjoy was the ability to see other players aboard the Mourningstar this made you feel like there was a community in the game.
It was nice seeing the Hive City of Terium on Atoma Prime come to life. Visually it ticked all the boxes to how I would have imagined a Hive City to look. Visually the game was stunning even though at times it pushed my PC to its limits. I did experience quite a few frame rate issues when there were hordes of Pox Walkers on the screen but nothing that resolved itself after I kill a few. Voice acting in the game is average as some of the dialogue is random at times. The animations feel smooth, and I love the gunplay and melee combat. It’s so stratifying using the Warhammer 40k weaponry and some of the melee takedowns are super bloody. It’s so awesome to purge the heretics in the name of the god emperor.
Darktide has a lot of replay potential, you can create multiple characters and levelling them up takes time. The missions are randomly available which allows you to not replay the same mission all the time. There are times when you will replay missions but if you go into it with a different team, loadout or character it plays out completely differently which helps keeps the game feeling fresh. My favourite class to run is the Human Zealot but I do love using the Human Psykers every now and then because who doesn’t want to harness the powers of the warp? You can go into a mission with randoms or friends and it’s just so chaotic, I love the four-player co-op element to the game and I think it was a fantastic game choice as I don’t think I would be able to handle all these Nurgle demons and cultist on my own.
Conclusion
Darktide continues the streak of Warhammer 40k games that have impressed me as a hobbyist. Its face paced, chaotic four-player co-op reminds me of the Left for Dead days back on the Xbox 360. Throw in a healthy amount of Warhammer lore, weapons and Nurgle then you’re onto a winner. The only problems I really came across with Darktide were the loading times between missions, frame rate drop when large amounts of enemies were on screen and that after a while the mission do feel a little bit samey but all in all I had a fantastic time playing this game and can honestly recommend it to Warhammer fans as well as the average gamer. Who knows this might be your entry point into the grim dark future. I can’t seem to put my controller down when playing Darktide and it is a game which I can see myself playing long into the future or until the new Space Marine games come out then it will be onto the next Warhammer title but until then you’ll find me fighting heretics down in the Hive City of Terium and for that reason, I’m giving Warhammer 40k: Darktide a well-deserved score of 8 out of 10.
Grab your copy here https://store.steampowered.com/app/1361210/Warhammer_40000_Darktide/
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