Darktide features an excellent representation of WH40K lore and aesthetic, realized in phenomenal detail. The game has very good gunplay, and continues Vermintide’s legacy of top tier melee combat.

Almost everything else in the game is poorly thought out, poorly intentioned, poorly realized, or wholly unfinished.

While Fatshark managed to have a functioning in game storefront featuring all the predatory fomo / currency obfuscation tactics we all know and despise from free-to-play and mobile titles (despite this being a $40 USD product) - they were evidently unable to actually finish out some of the core systems of the game - as evidenced by big “coming soon” banners across fully three quarters of the crafting interface.

And this unfinished state is after over a year’s delay. One shudders to think how unfinished it might have been if it had launched on the original date.

Performance is poor, but being worked on. Seems to affect certain hardware mixes moreso than others. Game is somewhat buggy - I’ve had many crash-to-desktops, and it’s certainly something in the game because 2-3 of us will drop simultaneously with some regularity.

For some reason Fatshark has invested very heavily on RNG factors for just about everything. Your chance to get any specific gear is RNG, as the kiosk (in game credits - not real money) where you pick them up has an hourly rotating inventory. The chance for that gear to be a weapon you want is RNG. The chance for any of the that weapon to roll good stats is RNG. The chance for gear with good stats to have to good perks is RNG.

The reality of this system is that - say you want to use the Zealot’s flamethrower - you’re level 30, and you haven’t even seen a flamethrower in the store since you were level 10 and it was a terribly rolled grey item with no perks whatsoever. I guess just… keep praying to the omnissiah? Because I sure as ♥♥♥♥ haven’t seen the damn thing show up in the last two weeks.

One would think playing the game to acquire your arsenal might be more entertaining than idling in the hub and checking the kiosk ever other hour.

Even the way you choose what mission and difficult to play is RNG - because the missions on offer, their difficulty, and the "conditions" (mutators) that affect that level are all random and rolling over every so often. You literally cannot choose the level you'd like to play and then adjust the difficulty and modifiers. That isn't a feature of the game. Absurd.

While Fatshark has said they’ve heard our concerns here, I can’t think it will be remedied any time in the near future given how integrated this lousy kiosk is into how the game currently works.

Crafting just… isn’t in the game yet. At the time of posting, > 2 weeks since launch, we can upgrade weapon tiers and I think just as of today upgrade the tiers of a single perk.

This still all means you need to find (again, under the current terrible RNG acquisition method) a weapon you want, with good base stats, and relevant perks - before you consider actually upgrading said tiers.

The four available classes seem interesting at first, but in practical terms kind of wind up being a little uninteresting. There are at this time no subclasses. There are 5 talent tiers, and each has 3 options. Most of them are very minor variations on a theme, with one option generally being the obvious best one. Rarely can you lean on these to really “put together a build”. Some talents work marginally better depending on your kit - but again, acquiring that kit is completely up to chance - so it’s mostly meaningless.

The level design is beautiful, but for the 14 or so missions, it feels like you’re spending all your time looking at subtly different parts of the same 3 areas. They really do all blend together. There’s grim dark factory / grim dark rich people part of town / and grim dark mad max desert factory. Again - gorgeous - but boring and samey in practice.

Character progression is uninteresting while levelling, and then stops entirely at 30. The game still tracks you “gaining a level” past 30, but nothing happens. You aren’t rewarded with gear or crafting materials. All forms of progress are per character, so spending time on a level 30 doesn’t help progress any of your other characters, even just via gear or crafting materials.

The "story" is laughably bad for the few cutscenes in which it exists at all. It's unclear to me what legendary Black Library author Dan Abnett actually contributed.

I could go on, but suffice to say the game has myriad issues at this time. Fatshark has demonstrated in the past a willingness to overhaul and fix up their games, and I anticipate this will be a pretty decent title in a year or two - but it very obviously wasn’t ready to launch - and what’s there right now is only worthwhile for 20-30 hours, and that's as a fan of both the IP and their previous titles. Maybe that’s enough of a value proposition for your time and money, but I’d anticipated far better. For some reason they’ve decided to reinvent the wheel for so many systems that people were already familiar with from past titles and enjoyed how those systems worked - largely because they were well thought out and finished, but also because they were dramatically more friendly to the player than what’s on offer in Darktide.

Hope they can improve on what’s here, and give the focus on recurrent monetization (again, on a $40 USD title) a break until things are in better shape.

Darktide features an excellent representation of WH40K lore and aesthetic, realized in phenomenal detail. The game has very good gunplay, and continues Vermintide’s legacy of top tier melee combat. Almost everything else in the game is poorly thought out, poorly intentioned, poorly realized, or wholly unfinished. While Fatshark managed to have a functioning in game storefront featuring all the predatory fomo / currency obfuscation tactics we all know and despise from free-to-play and mobile titles (despite this being a $40 USD product) - they were evidently unable to actually finish out some of the core systems of the game - as evidenced by big “coming soon” banners across fully three quarters of the crafting interface. And this unfinished state is after over a year’s delay. One shudders to think how unfinished it might have been if it had launched on the original date. Performance is poor, but being worked on. Seems to affect certain hardware mixes moreso than others. Game is somewhat buggy - I’ve had many crash-to-desktops, and it’s certainly something in the game because 2-3 of us will drop simultaneously with some regularity. For some reason Fatshark has invested very heavily on RNG factors for just about everything. Your chance to get any specific gear is RNG, as the kiosk (in game credits - not real money) where you pick them up has an hourly rotating inventory. The chance for that gear to be a weapon you want is RNG. The chance for any of the that weapon to roll good stats is RNG. The chance for gear with good stats to have to good perks is RNG. The reality of this system is that - say you want to use the Zealot’s flamethrower - you’re level 30, and you haven’t even seen a flamethrower in the store since you were level 10 and it was a terribly rolled grey item with no perks whatsoever. I guess just… keep praying to the omnissiah? Because I sure as shit haven’t seen the damn thing show up in the last two weeks. One would think playing the game to acquire your arsenal might be more entertaining than idling in the hub and checking the kiosk ever other hour. Even the way you choose what mission and difficult to play is RNG - because the missions on offer, their difficulty, and the "conditions" (mutators) that affect that level are all random and rolling over every so often. You literally cannot choose the level you'd like to play and then adjust the difficulty and modifiers. That isn't a feature of the game. Absurd. While Fatshark has said they’ve heard our concerns here, I can’t think it will be remedied any time in the near future given how integrated this lousy kiosk is into how the game currently works. Crafting just… isn’t in the game yet. At the time of posting, > 2 weeks since launch, we can upgrade weapon tiers and I think just as of today upgrade the tiers of a single perk. This still all means you need to find (again, under the current terrible RNG acquisition method) a weapon you want, with good base stats, and relevant perks - before you consider actually upgrading said tiers. The four available classes seem interesting at first, but in practical terms kind of wind up being a little uninteresting. There are at this time no subclasses. There are 5 talent tiers, and each has 3 options. Most of them are very minor variations on a theme, with one option generally being the obvious best one. Rarely can you lean on these to really “put together a build”. Some talents work marginally better depending on your kit - but again, acquiring that kit is completely up to chance - so it’s mostly meaningless. The level design is beautiful, but for the 14 or so missions, it feels like you’re spending all your time looking at subtly different parts of the same 3 areas. They really do all blend together. There’s grim dark factory / grim dark rich people part of town / and grim dark mad max desert factory. Again - gorgeous - but boring and samey in practice. Character progression is uninteresting while levelling, and then stops entirely at 30. The game still tracks you “gaining a level” past 30, but nothing happens. You aren’t rewarded with gear or crafting materials. All forms of progress are per character, so spending time on a level 30 doesn’t help progress any of your other characters, even just via gear or crafting materials. The "story" is laughably bad for the few cutscenes in which it exists at all. It's unclear to me what legendary Black Library author Dan Abnett actually contributed. I could go on, but suffice to say the game has myriad issues at this time. Fatshark has demonstrated in the past a willingness to overhaul and fix up their games, and I anticipate this will be a pretty decent title in a year or two - but it very obviously wasn’t ready to launch - and what’s there right now is only worthwhile for 20-30 hours, and that's as a fan of both the IP and their previous titles. Maybe that’s enough of a value proposition for your time and money, but I’d anticipated far better. For some reason they’ve decided to reinvent the wheel for so many systems that people were already familiar with from past titles and enjoyed how those systems worked - largely because they were well thought out and finished, but also because they were dramatically more friendly to the player than what’s on offer in Darktide. Hope they can improve on what’s here, and give the focus on recurrent monetization (again, on a $40 USD title) a break until things are in better shape.