It has been almost a year since the game was released and only three content drops have been made as follows
2022 Dec - Zealot & Ogryn’s PowerMaul
2023 Mar - 10 New Weapon (Different Variants)
2023 May - 2 New Maps
I am new to this game, so I don’t know much about the developer, but isn’t this actually quite a small amount of content to be added in one year?
trhe only completely new weapon added is the PowerMall.
Will it be like this next year?
First and foremost yeah, that’s honestly pretty standard pace for Fatshark.
I do think your summary doesn’t paint the most accurate picture either though. A lot of time has also been spent releasing, then subsequently tweaking the crafting system, there’s been a fair bit of weapon, blessing, Melk, and currency balancing, and the addition of the Auric mission board was pretty huge for endgame replayability.
I do hope after the upcoming class talent tree rework there’ll be more focus on content, though adding effectively two extra subclasses for each character is definitely content in my eyes.
You’re making this thread half a month before the big Xbox release and talent tree content patch.
For the release year, where they have to fix a lot of the issues, it’s not that bad. Also there are also the mutations.
Here you go i fixed for ya…
While I appreciate what you wrote, I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t add an AI-image of a shark.
@Mayson, where is the content?!
Fatshark typically limps along after the initial PC release until they get their console release out the door - and then the pace of things pick up a bit.
Fatshark IS, unfortunately, just a slow developer period. Compared to other devs operating in the co-op shooter space (Deep Rock, Payday, etc) they struggle to push out content at a pace that’s brisk enough to keep people engaged. Other devs push out new content and by the time people are starting to get bored again, the next set of content is just around the corner. It keeps people hooked.
Fatsharks pace is 2-3 times slower than it should be to maintain momentum. Particularly before their Xbox releases.
I hope the pace of things really picks up, because there is still so much potential with this game.
What’s going to be released has no bearing on what has already been released. Which is meagre at best, given the circumstances.
My issue with Fatshark is that they don’t seem to understand that the current year is 2023, not 2003.
You can’t work on your game in a vacuum anymore because of the strong competition in the gaming market, especially now that they have an MTX store that is expected to bring in money beyond the first purchase.
The alternative is to do what Hello Games did with No Man’s Sky and release every update for free, with no MTX shop and relying solely on the first purchase, but that took years of Hello Games, “putting their heads down” - as Catfish said, and work like their life depended on turning No Man’s Sky around.
Darktide is a great game, that’s not the brunt of my issue.
My issue is that it has a lot of untapped potential that Fatshark don’t act on fast enough, but I am hopeful for the future!
Yeah but we already know that and know why it happened. Do we really need another thread on that?
The current year doesn’t matter too much, though.
If your product is unique enough or popular enough, you can get away with slow speeds.
Dota 2 for instance was just in a development limbo for a full year before the big 7.33 patch dropped.
Also here’s a slow server shark for you.
That is true!
Regarding Dota, Icefrog the mad-lad already had a large playerbase for his mod during the Warcraft 3 days.
We were a bunch of friends playing League of Legends while waiting for Dota 2!
I wish Fatshark the best since I adore the game, but many of the design decisions, whether decided by the sharks or not, such as the bandaid crafting system, appear to take time away from genuine development.
PS: Thank you for the shark, but it’s a little creepy!
I don’t know which generator you use, but it hasn’t progressed past that stage where everything it makes is horrifying.
Fatshark make Glaciers look fast.
Honestly they are so obscenely slow that I’m coming to the conclusion that most of the weird design decisions in this game is down to Fatshark’s development speed.
They started out with an amazing game design document, crafting that is actually good, randomly pathed levels, skill trees there on day one, a new upgraded engine, the overarching idea for the game is “player freedom” that’s why we have character creation.
They start developing. Come to the horrifying conclusion that they are not just slow, they are appallingly slow to the point that their projected completion date is multiple YEARS off the mark. They panic as they realise the company can’t sustain a 6 or 7 year development cycle.
Out comes the hatchet.
Chop goes randomly pathed levels, they are now static.
Chop goes weapon customisation.
Chop goes skill tree.
Chop goes craftin-- wait, sh*t, we still need this for launch! quickly! throw together some slapdash system and just get it out the door! We can fix it in post!
We got shadow Early Accessed because Fatshark misjudged their own dev speed.
They released with only 1/5 crafting features, so for all intents and purposes, yes, they did chop crafting.
Fortunately for me, I no longer interact with the crafting. 
If Fatshark ever introduces 100% stat weapons or new weapons that I find exciting, I shudder at the thought of having to befriend Hadron-shark 
again.
So far, so good!
Remember, they’ve been making the same mistakes and follow8ng the same development cycle for a decade.
Fatshark misjudged their own dev speed again.
I think this time they do know. They’ve never established any timelines. No Roadmap this time. Very few hard dates.
I think this time they’re very aware that they’re slow and can’t keep up with expectations - otherwise we’d probably have the equivalent of another VT2 roadmap fiasco.
I keep saying they actually have improved their communication, but people don’t believe me.
Things were so much more off-track in VT2 it wasn’t even funny.
This time we even had regular updates and blogposts for a few months.
The only thing they’ve improved is saying less, so that they have less potential to promise something they can’t deliver.
Comms for DT were okay for a bit when they were doing bi-weekly comm links. But that fell off a cliff and currently we’re hearing practically nothing first hand about what’s planned for the future.
Comms are terrible. Maybe they improved, but that’s like going from .05% to .1%. Still less than 1%.
Huh?
We know exactly where this ship is going. Every comm link had info on what would happen next and so did the last one. We are waiting for the october 4 xBox release. That will come with a sizable Talent update. It will also feature a Blessing update (we as a community figured that out).
And throughout launch until now the game had some serious content and support. Just not as much as the players hoped for. But it’s a far cry from how VT and VT2 were handled, which were practically given the Japanese Silent Company treatment.
I haven’t felt once that Darktide was abandoned as a project.
Meanwhile VT and VT2 I thought the games were a “release and move on” type of game.
If you read between the lines and are involved with modding you even know what type of new content will come next, there’s multiple hints.
I cannot agree with you here Mezmorki, the improvement in communication is from previous Fatshark projects is immense. They just need more accurate predictions next time, a much less rocky launch and keep the bi-weekly news thing going. Then it’d be stellar.
