Warhammer 40K: Darktide

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

Rejects Will Rise

Darktide is an upcoming co-op first-person shooter made by Vermintide developer Fatshark. The game will likely have the same gameplay as Vermintide, only in space and facing Chaos cults in an Underhive.

Story

Writing Brought to you by motherfucking Dan Abnett, with help form your favourite Spiritual Liege, Matthew Ward

The game takes place on the Hive World of Atoma Prime, where a group of Nurgle worshipping assholes called The Admonition are plotting to take over the planet from the hive city of Tertium with the extensive use of pox gases, converting the infected to their side. Thankfully (or not), one Inquisitor Grendyl has come to cleanse the heretical arsehole. Instead of doing the mercy killing, or calling 911, the inquisitor believes the situation is still somewhat salvageable. Scooping out the convicts they've collected (not for the first time), giving them weapons and throwing them to the meat grinder, hopefully they could find out what the hell is going on while purging some fucking heretics.

According to the devblog, the true antagonist is a concept known as the Darktide (roll credits!), a boogeyman threat that must be kept at bay, or so the people of Atoma Prime believe. In fact, it is a collective term referring to the brutal horrors of the Warhammer 40,000 universe: mutants, xenos, and worse - who want nothing more than to extinguish the fluttering flame of human civilization. The young people recruited to regiments like the Moebian Sixth have no idea where they’re being sent, or what they will face. They are as ignorant of the "Darktide" as any other regular citizen, for they were all citizens themselves. Out on the death worlds of the Fringe, the lasmen are thrown into the meat grinder and come face to face with unimaginable danger. Their world-view changes. They learn the nature of the Darktide and fight it tooth and nail. Sometimes, they learn too much. Long tours result in trauma, both physical and psychological. Some are broken by the experience. Some are made bitter and resentful that the grueling combat they experience is generally unrecognized back home, because the Imperial Administratum tends to keep all details of the ongoing conflict quiet so as not to generate public alarm. There might be a few news broadcasts about "great victories", but the rest of the turmoil is screened by propaganda. Some troopers, of course, serve brilliantly and bravely, and remain loyal despite everything they experience. But others fall prey to the insidious touch of the Darktide. They encounter the malevolent effect of the Warp, and it changes them. They become - literally, in some cases - the very thing they are fighting against.

In summary, the Darktide is basically Nurgle's way of weaponizing PTSD, throwing Imperial troops into a meat grinder to break their spirits and then brainwashing them to become one with the grinder themselves. It is no wonder why Adeptus Astartes were not sent. One can see some rather unnerving parallels with what happened to the Iron Warriors and how the their endless campaigns of gruelling siege warfare caused them to snap and turn to Chaos.

And that's where our heroes, the convicts come in. They are invaluable yet expendable. Whether they're Ogryns, guard veterans, fanatics of the Imperial Creed, or Psykers, they are the hardest meat the Imperium could send en masse, ready to purge the enemies of the Imperium with their remarkable abilities.

The Rejects Will Rise!

Gameplay

The game excitingly is one of the very few 40k video games to feature the Guardsmen in the starring role and not the Space Marines, and will play just as similar to Vermintide, only probably leaning more towards the shooty parts of the game. As such it will likely be much closer to the L4D2 style of play than Vermintide. The game will also feature a class style of character system like in Vermintide.

More will come as more info comes out, but Guardsmen fans rejoice as they are put in the spotlight for once.

As of the magazine spot, playable classes are to be a Zealot, an Ogryn, a Veteran, and a Psyker, The classes are also apparently very customizable, both visually and gameplay-wise with lots of interchangeable weapons for classes and while no weapons have been specifically mentioned, plasma weapons, hellguns, chainswords, ripper guns, and flamers have all been seen at one point or another. Also, you can play as four Ogryns. Each character can choose between three different voices with their own unique responses, for it seems Fatshark has been pulling their weight and emptying coin pouch on this game with many different VA.

The trailer also showed off Poxwalkers, traitor guardsmen, Hounds of Xaphan (actually pox hound), and fucking Plague Ogryns as enemy types so even though FW disconnected the Renegade and heretic line, they will hopefully live on in the game.

Darktide was featured on Edge magazine with a 15-page article stating that there will be some form of character creator and that you start as a newly conscripted prisoner snatched off a transport ship by the Inquisition, also ability leaks and a shield system like Payday 2.

For new introduced features unlike in Vermintide or L4D, certain enemies now "infect" players, reduce their maximum health by the purple bar (just like in vermintide where the players are cursed for carrying grimoire). Be aware the effects can stack so the players better stick together and be ready kill any specials in order to prevent further health reduce. The infections cannot not be heal by normal means however (normal health pack are health sprays that can group heal btw), but it can be treated by healing stations that appears at certain points of the run, fully healing any players that use it. Do note however that the heal station has a usage limit of 4, so spent its use wisely. Also, there are no more infinite ammo box like in vermintide, so the players should have some awareness about their range weapon usage, but there will always be at least 3 stacks of ammos waiting at the healing stations.

A new mechanic called "cohesion" gives bonuses to players if they stick together, discouraging them from trying to wander off on their own to get killed. Another mechanic called "toughness" acts as a temporary damage soak, ensuring that players won't just get stunlocked to death the moment they get shot at. Unlike regular health, it regenerates over time but does so faster if the team stays in cohesion.

Classes

Unlike the Ubersreik Five (or Four, doesn't matter), your characters each have a customizable backstory that lets you choose their homeworld, what they did in their earlier lives, and how they ended up in prison. As a result, it's perfectly possible to form a team consisting entirely of one class (though in practice it'll probably be a good idea to have some variety). Each class has several different personalities representing the various criminal lunatics serving in the campaign. Highlights include the aggressively German male Psyker, a Northern English Ogryn, the magnificently hammy Preachers (all of them, male and female, it's great) and the French female Psyker who alternates between psychotic and kind (amazingly, she is the SANEST Psyker, which is saying a lot, and has a shockingly well developed moral compass for the 42nd Millenium, though of course she is just as remorseless a killer as the rest and thus something of an oblivious hypocrite professing love for the citizens and horror at the Inquisition's regular MO even as she gleefully pops skulls and rips through hordes of enemies with her sword).

• Veteran: Has the ability to grant themself extra gun zooming range and increased headshot damage. By default, they wield a Lasgun, a Chainsword and Frag Grenades. For other weapons, they have a Lucius patterned combat shotgun (aka your favourite shotgun from L4D is back!!!),a Stub Revolver, a Plasma Gun, a Power Sword, an Autogun, and a Combat Blade. Confirmed that they will be making Forge-World variation for Basic weapons such as Lasguns and Autoguns for now.
  • Sharpshooter: A subclass of Veteran geared towards long-ranged combat and scoring headshots, with their passive granting them a larger ammo capacity and more damage against enemy weak points. While in cohesion, they have a chance not to use up ammo when shooting. Their active ability slows them down in exchange for boosting their accuracy, damage against enemy weak points, and weapon handling; it also makes non-Ogryn elites and special enemies easier to identify from afar so you can snipe them better. By default the weapons they can wield are a Kantrael Mk VII Lasgun, a shovel (Krieg fanon-lovers rejoice!), and frag grenades.

• Zealot: Your happy go purging Ministorum Priest. Since player characters are all convicts for a reason, the Zealots was probably excommunicated for certain reasons, but let's hope it is not something too severe. By default, they wield an Autogun, a Power Hammer and Incendiary grenades, and have also been seen using a Flamer and a Chain Axe.
  • Preacher: A subclass of Zealot that functions similarly to the Zealot from Vermintide 2: they have fast melee attacks, deal bonus damage when their health is low, and can avoid dying after taking a fatal attack (albeit with a long cooldown). They take reduced toughness damage while in cohesion. Their active ability is a charging attack that locks enemies into melee. By default they wield an Autopistol, Combat Axe, and stumm grenades.

• Psyker: A wizard type character with the exact some play style and mechanics as Sienna from vermintide, but no fire (because Psyker drawn their powers directly from the warp while human wizards in fantasy drawn theirs from one of the 8 winds of magic for safety reasons). So I guess we know that the Inquisitor sending the Convicts out is a Radical. As mentioned previously in Vermintide, this type of character has unlimited ammo, but will explode if they overuse their powers. They will also suffers damage when trying to cooldown from overheating by "reloading", but not for the Psyker in Darktide however, bless the Emperor. As for other new features, the Psyker can get new spell powers in their grenade slot (which every class now gets their own unique grenades) to smite the enemies for the Emprah! One of the many demonstrated spell is the headlock spell that deal massive damage to a single enemies' head, to the point of crushing their skull, killing them instantly. When blocking, they are able to conjure a psychic shield that not only blocks ranged fire, but also stagger enemies when they try to hit it, and it works on even the hardest hitting elites like the Crushers or the Maulers. Other powers include pushing away a horde of enemies in a burst of psychic wind (melee special attacks), and imbuing the powers of the warp into their blades and to deal lethal damage in one swing. Their unique ability allows them to instantly erase any overcharge they had. By default, they wield a Force Sword, a Force Staff (aka the conflagration staff from vermintide) and the aforementioned head busting power (speculated to be able to switched for other psyker powers in future updates). For other weapons, it was confirmed in a dev steam that they can exchange their force staff with a stub revolver or a Laspistol if they wish to save their overcharge for spamming their special melee attacks instead.

• Ogryn: Will be taller than the other characters (said to be the height of three Bardins tall) and can send smaller enemies flying back with his attacks. Has the same charging move as Foot Knight Kruber in Vermintide 2, which pushes enemies away. By default, they wield a ripper gun (which has an alt-firing move that allows it to go full auto), a combat knife and their own unique Ogryn patterned grenades (a cluster bomb that scatters and explodes in a large area, randomly). Due to how tall and big the Ogryn is and since this is a sci-fi game where majority of the enemies and characters use guns, the Ogryn will have to do the heavy lifting, acting as a distraction/cover for his teammates. But that's fine since he's big and strong, and being tall allows him to score headshots in melee with relative accuracy and ease. You should play a strike team of four of them.
  • Skullcracker: It cracks skulls. This chonker is a big ol' brute in the classical Ogryn image who takes less damage, staggers enemies harder and protec's da lil' unz by continuously reviving allies even while taking damage. Their default weapons are a break-action single-shot shotgun, a huge metal club and a box of grenades. No, they don't toss a box of grenades with some sort of igniter attached to it to set them all off in quick succession (though there is a feat that can be taken with such a functionality), they just toss a whole-ass box of grenades at someone's face to instantly murder them with the blunt force trauma. This is apparently more potentially-lethal to a single person than actual shotguns. Can also lethally pimp slap people with some melee weapons' special attack.

Other Characters

• Sergeant Major Morrow: Think of him as the Mission Control from Deep Rock Galactic or Lohner from vermintide. Now with the power of Vox technology(bless the Omnissiah!), he will constantly providing mission details for the players team in a sarcastic tone. Voiced by Kruber's VA. His original regiment is the Armageddon Steel Legion.
• Tech-priestess Harkon: sometimes does the briefing and is the one who warns you when the data-interrogator starts to fuck up and you have to fix it, filled to the brim with sass and been angry for nearly 333 Terran cycles or so, calls the player and the squad varlets and rightfully thinks the players are a bunch of idiots who may not be completely useless.
• The Valkyrie Pilot: The squads accuse her of cheating at cards and somehow even the tarot, with the more reckless characters constantly complaining about losing credits to her.

Enemies

• Poxwalkers: Civilians of Atoma Hive who were infected by Moebian Sixth's pox gas. They are the trash enemy of this game that comes in hordes, whose purpose is to tarpit the players. Befitting lore, they can be heard begging for help or crying over being forced to observe their body act completely outside of their control whilst out of combat.
  • Poxburster: Suicide bomber. Think of him as a boomer from left 4 dead. He not only deal massive damage with his explosion, he also inflict poison that decrease the player's HP. Kill him from afar as soon as possible. Can be detect by the beeping sounds from their bomb.

• Moebian Sixth regiments These regiments were known for being the toughest out of all Moebian regiments. However, with a bit of war trauma and a bit of warp power shenanigans, it corrupts them into Nurgle worships, turning them against the Imperium. They now seek to "save" the citizens of Atoma and its sister worlds by giving them pox gas filled with papa Nurgle's "truth", freeing them from the corpse Emperor's lies... So that Papa Nurgle's can take their place. Also a major source of annoyance as the gas mask wearing shmucks choking on their own blood while dying gets grating on the ears after a while.
  • Traitor Guards: Your typical HERETICAL wall of guns. Smarter than Poxwalkers. Knows how to cover and knows how to shoot your ass. There are two types of them: One that can shoot, and one that hit yo ass with a stick. The former can spawn in groups of 10 or more at difficulty 3 and higher to light your ass up like it's a campfire, forcing you to cover-hump and switch from playing 40K Vermintide to play 40K Call of Duty for a time.
    • Admonition Cultists: Your bog standard Chaos Cultists dressed in ragged robes and gasmasks. They use low quality weapon like Auto Guns and Stubber. Their Scab Gunner use Heavy Stubber instead of Hotshot Volley Gun. Possibly only encountered in poorer part of the hive like the Underhive.
  • Scab Bomber: Think of them as the Spitter/Globadier of this game, but use firebomb to create puddles of flame to burn the player's arse. This raised a question as to why their Bomber didn't chose to use poison gas bomb if the Sixth were going for the pestilence theme army?
  • Dreg Tox Flamer: The Warpfire thrower of this game. Reasonable that the traitor being Nurgle cultist would chose Tox thrower instead of regular flamer, unlike their choice of Firebomb for their Scab Bomber. Their Tox thrower glow so bright, one could mistook them as some kind of Necron tech (as if any human were capable of wielding it, let alone some fucking low-born heretics. Only the inquisition knows how.)
  • Scab Trapper: The Packmaster of this game. Actually clever than the ratmen since the Trapper use a net gun to capture the players from a far instead of using a long-stick-with-a-hook (aka Man catcher) and isn't wearing a bunch of skulls to warn its targets about the incoming incapacitation.
  • Scab Gunner: The Rattling Gunner of this game, but shoots the players with Hotshot Volley Gun instead. accuracy be damned.
  • Scab Shot Gunner: The berserker/plague monks enemies equivalent of this game. Suicidal and deals a lot of damage at close range with their shotgun.
  • Scab Mauler: Literally Mauler from Vermintide 2, but fully armored, tough as nail like chaos warriors (probably more so since it fucking resists power weapon attacks!) and is armed with a two-handed chain-axe.
  • Scab Sniper: Does what it says judging by its name. Their Long-Las ignore player's range shield and dealt a shit ton of damage in one shot from a far against the player and really likes to fucking hide and run. He is the most dangerous when he has his pals to tarpit for him while he take his sweet ass time to downing the players' entire team. He can only be spotted by their laser sight. The best way to defend against him is to take cover behind a wall or a structure where he can't shoot, or have someone like a Preacher trap him in melee range where he is the most vulnerable so the players could take their everlasting revenge against that fucking heretic.

• Mutant: Mutants that were enhanced with cybernetics. Inspired by Charger from left 4 dead whose role is to charge at the player to separate them from their team, then give them a bit ground pounding, followed by throw them even further. It is a pretty big abomination, about the size of an Ogryn, and it is pretty fast and tanky. Hilarious, it copied Chaos Spawn's throwing animation from Vermintide 2. Liable to choose one target and then run past everyone else to get to it no matter how triggers everyone else are pressing while facing them, so these probably aren't the kind of Mutants to have a human intellect preserved in their heads.

• Pox Hound: A straightforward gutter runner, but not as agile nor stealthy since it likes to bark. It sometimes comes in a squad of 2 or 3 mixed in with hordes. It's bite contains powerful pox that decrease players' HP. It is very fast and tanky so like the PoxBurster, it should be another enemies to be taken out afar, as soon as possible. Just as likely to completely tunnel vision suicidally as the previously-mentioned Mutants.

• Chaos Ogryn: The Chaos Warriors of this game, but bigger considering Orgryn's abnormal body proportions. Their job is to attract the players' attention and tank as much as possible. These tough dumb bastards comes in three variants:
  • Crusher: The offensive variant that's armored and armed with great weapon. A classic reminiscent of the Chaos Warriors from vermintide 2.
  • Bulwark: The defensive variant that's armed with a chainsword and a big sturdy shield, but not armored, thankfully. Capable of charge towards the players.
  • Reaper: The range variant that will filled the players, the air and their allies full of leads with their big fucking Heavy Stubber. Think of it as a mobile, meatier version of the Scab Gunner.

• Plague Ogryn: The first revealed randomly encountered boss of this game. Just a big rotting mutated Ogryn that wants to eat you and stuff you inside its shitty rotten intestine.

• Enforcer: Shown in trailer with a plasma pistol. In game he serves as a boss you kill in assassinate missions, has a shield shockingly and will try to smack you around with what looks like either a hammer or chainsword, will call in poxwalkers and traitor guard for support. Has an absolutely fucking baller song playing while fighting them.