Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a cooperative horde shooter game similar to Left 4 Dead. A team of four players fights waves of enemies while accomplishing level goals. The game released November 30th, 2022 on Steam and Xbox’s PC Game Pass (console version not yet available at the time this review was written).
Darktide was developed by Swedish studio Fatshark, whose previous releases include both entries of Warhammer: Vermintide, which are very similar melee focused games. The main differences are that it takes place 40,000 years in the future and there are guns with limited ammo. So, your primary weapon is essentially your melee weapon.
Deep Lore, Shallow Exploration
Warhammer 40,000 is an incredibly deep universe made up of hundreds of books, graphic novels, and games based on the long-running miniatures tabletop game of the same name. As an extensive, complicated, lore rich IP, it’s simply too much for any game to dig too deep into. Darktide sidesteps this by simply adopting the setting and being very light on story. While it’s a daunting task, going with a nearly nonexistent story makes the game feel very hollow.
A basic outline of the plot is that you are an inmate conscripted to battle against the chaos caused by Nurgle, a God from the Void that causes a corruption that turns people into zombie-like abominations. There’s a superfluous subplot about a traitor in your midst, but it’s barely worth mentioning due to its limited scope. Cutscenes are short and infrequent and don’t give much context for the wider universe. For fans of Warhammer 40,000, this is not really a big deal, but anyone new to the franchise will probably feel confused about the setting and story.
Gothic Eye Candy
Fortunately, Darktide excels at ambiance and gorgeous graphics. Whether you know nothing about Warhammer 40,000 or are a longtime fan, it’s easy to appreciate the gorgeous gothic architecture and scary enemy character models. Unfortunately, unlike the Vermintide games, almost every level is dark and ominous and virtually indistinguishable from each other. Vermintide felt like it had a wider variety of level design that made many of them stand out significantly more.
Speaking of levels, Darktide features a limited number on which you’ll be doing different missions. There are many repeat enemy models that are barely noticeable in the flurry of weapon swings and splashes of viscera as numerous enemies dash towards you in hordes, some with melee weapons. Darktide’s limited variety of enemy models, even including mini bosses, is severely lacking. I can count the total enemy types on two hands. Some enemies, however, seem more intelligent and use rifles of different types. It can be challenging getting sniped while being surrounded by a horde.
Exceptional Combat
Gameplay is where Darktide excels. The gameplay is mostly rock-solid and plays pretty much exactly how you’d expect if you’re a fan of the Vermintide games. Weapons feel impactful and there’s a depth to dealing with enemy hordes, such as thinning herds with grenades or using the push-back block to put enemies off balance while following up with strikes that frequently decapitate enemies. With the rifle equipped enemies, you must be careful choosing where you make your stand against them. Some character classes have long distance weapons that can pick them off, but teamwork is important for this to occur. In my time with the game, I have not encountered a single player using in-game chat. Using the game’s built-in communication system is helpful. By holding the left bumper, you’re able to highlight locations, enemies, ammo, and health, as well as request assistance and thank your teammates.
Lackluster Progression
In games where you rank up for more powerful weapons, you really need to feel like you’re progressing via cool loot, but after unlocking each weapon type, you don’t feel like you’re doing anything except getting weapons with a higher power number. There weren’t any weapons that really blew me away. Instead, it felt like I was always trying to choose the better of overall inferior weapons. Darktide is already a dark game with low lighting, so using an assault rifle with a tinted scope that makes enemies harder to see is extremely frustrating. Other rifles have zero kick when hip firing but buck like a wild horse when zoomed in until you get ones with higher stability.
Impressive Audio
Darktide’s audio is great; enemies are easy to locate as you hear their approaching rumbles and yells. Your teammates have great dialogue, which matches up with the gameplay perfectly. I frequently laughed at the voice over interactions, which I feel bring the most amount of story and character to the game.
Early Access?
Despite great gameplay, it’s hard to ignore that Darktide has many flaws and feels like an incomplete and early access game masquerading as a full release (an early access game is a game released before it has reached 1.0, aka a “finished state”). The first month has been littered with performance issues, from low framerates and crashing (even on high-end Nvidia graphics cards), to not running at all on AMD cards.
Fellow Temple of Geek writer Myles Obenza has an AMD graphics card that matches the recommended requirements but has yet to be able to play the game properly. Even lowering the graphics to the lowest possible settings and using performance enhancing options like FSR 2.0, he’s experienced constant crashing and unplayable frame rates. Fortunately, Fatshark has been regularly updating the game, but it’s nowhere near what I’d call a 1.0 release yet. A quick google search for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide brings up numerous articles and threads on how to deal with these problems, but not many of these solutions work. It simply needs more optimization by the developer. While it is an attractive game, the graphics quality doesn’t seem to match how much it tests your system, which is a frequent occurrence with early access games and a sign a game needs optimization.
Additionally, I haven’t been able to change any controller settings besides aiming sensitivity. There is an option to change controller settings, but I can’t get it to do anything, such as an alternate control scheme. Changing mouse and keyboard settings seemed to work but because I have a disability, I require using a controller.
It’s Dark
That brings me to my biggest challenge with Darktide: accessibility. Being unable to change my controller assignments isn’t great, especially because in Darktide you are constantly swinging your weapon. Holding the melee button winds you up for a strong attack and, at least for me, took a physical toll. The game desperately needs an auto-swing option and the ability to assign the wind-up attacks to a different button.
As I mentioned earlier, Darktide is a visually dim game during most levels. I had my monitor turned up to maximum brightness (I have mild vision issues). I could not find any accessibility options for the visually impaired, so if you have any visual impairments, this is not the game for you. Sometimes, the game enemies can be highlighted. That would have been a simple and fantastic accessibility option to include. In the photo below, several enemies are shooting at me but they are incredibly challenging to see, and this is a frequent occurrence throughout the game with numerous enemy types.
If you are an AMD graphics card owner, I cannot recommend even trying the game on Steam, but if you are a PC Xbox Game Pass subscriber you can try and see if you get better luck than Myles experienced on an AMD graphics card. As for people running Nvidia cards, be prepared for some performance issues. I’d recommend having at least an RTX 20 series card so that you can use DLSS settings to enhance performance.
Good, but Needs More Time in the Oven
If I reviewed this game as a full release, it would be a low score due to it feeling incomplete and running poorly on good hardware. I’m going to be kind and score it as an early access game because it is on Game Pass and is included with the subscription. Due to so many issues at launch such as crashing, disappearing models, etc., I waited over a month to review this game to see what they could iron out. They have fixed a lot of issues, but there are a lot remaining. With that in mind, it makes sense that so many simple accessibility settings are missing, as unfortunately accessibility features seem to be added later. This is something prevalent in early access games.
The game’s combat, audio, graphics, and overall ambiance are all well done and can be fun to play, despite feeling limited in scope. Unfortunately, the performance issues and needs for updates are big issues that require addressing. I frequently play early access games and the concept is great but this feels like another of many games claiming to be 1.0 releases but lacking what makes up a 1.0 release.
7/10
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