Return to Mortis Trials, Darktide’s roguelike wave-based mode, now with a new arena, fresh weaponry and a new enemy.
This free update adds a new arena, new buff families and new Memory Echoes to Mortis Trials, Darktide’s roguelike and wave-based mode. The update also brings a new weapon family, two new weapon marks, a new enemy, talent tree updates, a time-limited Special Event, and more!
Bound By Duty will be available for free to all Darktide players across all platforms on September 23, 2025.
New Mortis Trials arena, Theatre of Rectitude: Re-enter the visions summoned by the ship’s Psyker, Sefoni, in an all-new arena inspired by the Clandestium Gloriana mission and its frozen Adeptus Mechanicus Foundryplex.
Two new Indulgences archetypes: offering additional buffs expanding the breadth of combat styles within Mortis Trials.
Emperor Favored: Grants increase to critical chance and critical damage, plus effects that trigger on critical hits. These buffs stack: early gains may seem modest, but they compound to support powerful crit-focused builds later in a run.
Goliath: Centers on mobility and resilience rather than damage reduction: immunity to Suppression and Stagger, stamina boosts, and crowd-control options. One notable buff staggers enemies when you sprint, letting you plow through hordes even when cornered.
New Memory Echoes: Several new chapters that expand NPC backstories and reveal more of the Mourningstar’s past through Sefoni’s visions between waves.
New Enemy, Scab Plasma Gunner: A dangerous new Elite enemy joins Darktide’s roster. The Scab Plasma Gunner wields a powerful plasma weapon, forcing players to adapt their tactics and brace for intense, high-damage attacks. Expect to feel the heat in any mission where this adversary appears.
New Veteran weapon, the Power Falchion: A single-edged, one‑handed power weapon that plays as a counterpart to the Power Sword. Its Special action works like the Zealot’s Relic Blade: activating the Special action empowers the Falchion until its heat bar fills, at which point it overheats and the Special is locked until the bar empties. This weapon family comes with two marks.
New Bolt Pistol and Boltgun marks: Bolt Pistol Mk VI Godwyn‑Branx and Boltgun Mk III Locke. Both marks emphasize explosive effects: larger explosions and significantly more explosive damage on hit or kill compared with other marks in their families.
Talent Reworks and Class balances: increased flexibility and player agency around the Veteran, Zealot and Psyker trees by providing a more open layout. The overarching goal was to bring better balance, more build diversity, and more meaningful choices across all classes. The Ogryn and Arbites talents also got a light touch-up!
Special Event, Smuggled Munitions: Forces of the Traitorous 6th have raided local plasma weapon caches. Players will have to out these dangerous squads and dispatch them. A flashlight will not go amiss as this event will always be attached to low visibility conditions such as Ventilation Purge, Lights Out or Power Supply Interruption.
New Havoc Modifier, Contaminated Stimms: Darktide’s endgame mode will have a new modifier joining the existing roster. Face challenging tides of enemies using stimms to reinforce themselves. In addition, the previously run Special event Rotten Armor will return once again as a modifier for Havoc.
Quality of Life changes: a few improvements will be coming to Darktide, including a dodge counter, a new on-screen indicator showing remaining dodges. This is to ensure players always know when they can evade and when they’re out of effective dodges. Players will also be able to replay missions from the Battle for Tertium campaign.
New Bolt Pistol and Boltgun marks: Bolt Pistol Mk VI Godwyn‑Branx and Boltgun Mk III Locke. Both marks emphasize explosive effects: larger explosions and significantly more explosive damage on hit or kill compared with other marks in their families.
Enemy Elite HP buffs in Heresy+, e.g. Auric Crusher HP will be MORE THAN 6000 (from discord thanks hank)
I would like to point out that bolt weapons already had hair thin breakpoints making their bullets weaker is not great. and buffing crushers is a nerf to under performing weapons IE ironhelm
Yay, the one reason everybody runs meta weapons in end game content is getting even more buffed so we have to run the meta weapons even more. Fatshark really don’t play their game
If those ‘touch ups’ are nerfs…look, last time they proposed nerfing crutches like the dueling sword the steam reviews dived and a horde of players ran in to post about how they deserved to have a crutch weapon forever.
I don’t want to play more mortis trials, I don’t want to get crossmap insta sniped by plasma. No one asked for a melee weapon or nerfed bolt weapon variants, they asked for heavy stubber for veteran, and for the base power sword to be reworked.
No one wanted their havok ranks reset again. Literally who enjoys having their rank removed?
I don’t know how many people play Mortis, do you? I think there’s potential in the mode, but I don’t love it yet and welcome improvements (as long as they come like the these, and the Havoc changes, alongside other content for everyone).
They look solid. Zealot’s looks chunky near the end, but they look like they’ve trimmed the trees of most of the tax nodes, so depending on stats we may see some extremely busted builds.
All of them seem to have sampled from the Arbites ‘reach anything to freely mix’ approach to varying degrees.
Everyone who cares to preserve Darktide’s gameplay is worried about power creep. All I’m hoping is that now at least every class will be on the same level of power with lots of build options.
If anything turns out too powerful or weak, I hope Fatshark can balance it within a matter of weeks, not 6 months or even years.
