Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Reviews
Even as omnipresent as Darktide‘s technical woes are, it’s the exhilarating thrill of a mission run that shines most brightly in my mind when I think about my experience with it. Even on low graphics settings, shining your rifle’s underslung torch down a dark corridor, only to see a horde of Poxwalkers glaring back at you before your whole squad unloads on them, provides an utterly giddying rush.
Darktide is a game that has atmosphere seeping out of every orifice. Its design brings a crushingly depressing and oppressive aesthetic to life in new and exciting ways, transporting the player to the grimy underbelly of Tertium. The most shocking realisation is that you don't want to leave.
Darktide would have deserved a better score, because the game itself is good, real good. But poor optimization (not entirely justified by the game's looks), far too common game crashes, and a loot economy that cannot help but raise some eyebrows end up impacting the user experience. It's still a great 40k game, but you might want to wait for some patches if you're on the fence.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Fatshark has ruled the co-op horde game for years, but I find aspects of the game lacking or not as enjoyable as it should be. Darktide has a strong core to build upon, and so thankfully Fatshark has earned enough goodwill over the years that I trust this’ll only get better over time. Knowing Warhammer is not a requisite to enjoy what’s here, anyone will be able to play this and embrace the chaos. As it stands today, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has more than enough content in classes, weapons, and mission to enjoy, and it’s clear that the best is yet to come.
Warhammer 40,000 : Darktide offers a very pleasant and fun cooperative multiplayer experience. However, we hope that the bugs (especially on PC) will be solved as soon as possible.
Review in French | Read full review
Warhammer: 40,000: Darktide is one of the most enjoyable games of the year, but it's tremendously rough around the edges.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a solid horde shooter that is otherwise held back by technical issues and weak live-service elements.
Once you get down into the dilapidated yet impressive levels of the Hive and start swinging, Darktide is as great a swarm shooter experience as any, but it needs to improve much of the surrounding infrastructure to make that core combat experience feel rewarding and meaningful. Who knows? I may even come back in a year to re-review the game (which is something that should generally happen with more game reviews), but in the meantime it’s a simmering cauldron of potential that still feels a little raw.
As a "survival" game, Fat Shark games has absorbed a lot of successful experience from Vermintide. Darktide inherited the classic "cooperation + grinding" gameplay, it has shown good quality in the plot; game settings; and background music, but the annoying network, poor optimization, mistranslation and half-finished equipment system also dragged down the game experience of players. I hope that Fat Shark games can solve these problems in the future updates, so that I can continue the journey of "killing mice" nicely.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has a deeply satisfying core loop, with amazingly faithful art direction and audio. There's a wide variety of optimization and server problems right now however, so the technical side of the experience may vary wildly.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a true successor to Fatshark's previous Vermintide series. If you were afraid the jump from fantasy to 40K would ruin the experience, fear not, it's even better. Darktide feels less linear than the previous takes, the story takes place between cutscenes of missions. Levels are linear, but do a great job of hiding that fact. Loadouts are a great improvement, along with a wide array of weapons to specialize and unlock. The only unfortunate part is that Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is still best enjoyed with a full party.
One should expect more from the extremely rich Warhammer 40k lore. Darktide has some good ideas but commits the ultimate sin for a game: it becomes boring due to its extreme repetitiveness.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Despite its many flaws, Darktide's adrenaline-fueled gameplay and grimdark atmosphere are captivating enough to keep you playing for multiple hours on end.
[Warhammer 40K Darktide] is clearly 2022's best feel-good multiplayer group game with dark humour, carnage, and accents aplenty, evolving from Vermintide in all the right and satisfying ways.
Overall then, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has the makings of an incredible Warhammer 40k game – the gameplay loop is excellent, with the visual and sound design to match. Unfortunately, a lot of other aspects of the game do mar the experience somewhat, and it does feel unfinished in some areas. That being said, if Fatshark can build and improve upon the existing content, there is potentially a very special game here in future.
Though Warhammer 40K: Darktide needs more time to develop, its core gameplay is the best Fatshark has ever created.
Darktide is built on great foundations and I enjoy playing it a lot – especially with friends. There’s a brilliant game buried deep within this Hive World, filled with exciting combat and gruesome enemies in equal measure. However, to properly enjoy those glorious moments, you have to break through the pustular skin of Darktide’s pointless upgrade systems and wade through the poisoned viscera of dull progression. I just hope that the countless obstructions in the live service elements don’t turn too many players away from the game mired underneath.
Despite the growing pains, Darktide is a solid co-operative action game that’s great for a group of friends to play in spurts. At launch, the experience is limited in progression and variety, but the gameplay is challenging and viscerally satisfying enough to keep your attention. It doesn’t hurt that the soundtrack slaps and, performance issues aside, the graphics pack a punch. Since Fatshark is known for updating the Vermintide series over time with frequent content updates, Darktide is expected to improve as well. It may even deserve a higher score within the next six months, but I can only review what’s available now. So if you’re considering a purchase of the game, think of it as an investment that will likely pay off in a few years. It’s more than understandable, though, if you would rather wait for Darktide to meet your standards for a full release.
Warhammer 40,000 Darktide is a title that needs more content and some adjustments. Graphically it is excellent and the play of light and shadow, in particular, make some moments even memorable. However, the balance between the classes is to be reviewed, as well as the in-game economy and the cost of aesthetic elements.
Review in Italian | Read full review
In a month or five or twelve, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide may reach the state it should have launched in. In a month or five or twelve, it may become a co-op game that's easy to recommend. But while I undoubtedly had fun during the missions I completed over 40+ hours playing both the pre-order beta and full versions, it's clear that we're dealing with yet another title whose potential isn't allowed to fully shine through at launch.