Hi fellow rejects,
I’m Cuures, a huge Tide fan since VT2. I’m the type of player that reads balance updates with equal enthusiasm as content updates, but I am not an Excel warrior though, and I wanted to share my impressions of the game as a late adopter after 250 hours. I originally wanted to buy Darktide on Day 1, but pushed back my purchase after hearing about the lackluster performance at release back in 2022. Now, over 3 years later, I expected a polished game, and since I’m a sucker for AdMech, I finally jumped in with the release of the Skitarii.
Context of My Opinion
I started playing Darktide after an almost 2-year hiatus from VT2. In VT2, I played for ~380 hours, primarily Legend, cleared every mission with every class, and tried to complete every achievement while finding every secret—mostly with a buddy and bots, often picking up Tomes and Grims just for fun—though I never really got into Cataclysm. In Darktide, I run Auric Maelstrom regularly and have earned the Auric Storm Survivor title along the way, so I’m well-familiar with Auric-level missions, though I’m not particularly interested in progressing into Havoc at the moment. My preferred classes are Zealot, followed by Ogryn and Veteran, with Psyker taking last place.
By now, I have maxed out every character and weapon mastery. I have not purchased any DLC classes yet, as I wanted to experience the base classes first.
The Campaign
Impressions:
My very first mission was total chaos. I tried to block bullets, got torn apart by lasguns, and my team wiped at the first boss. I felt right back at home.
However, throughout the leveling process, the cinematic cutscenes on the Mourningstar felt nice but a bit sparse. I have to admit that I never truly felt like a traitor was actually on board until the final cutscene. The cutscenes featuring Wolfer that played from time to time seemed out of place, as if they were inserted randomly just because. Additionally, the campaign overview is not as easily accessible as I’d like; the small “Special Assignments” button never registered to me as a proper campaign overview menu.
It also felt rather unsatisfying that there was no real buildup toward a final boss fight. VT2 did a much better job in this regard, making the campaign feel like a true journey with meaningful milestones.
Hopes & Ideas:
It would have felt much more fitting to have Sefoni investigate our main antagonist and then play those scenes as psychic transmissions from her after she uncovers details about Wolfer.
A redesign of the mission board to make campaigns clearly visible and easily accessible would be much appreciated.
Gameplay
Impressions:
Subjectively, the gameplay is worlds ahead of and far superior to VT2. I honestly don’t even know where to start—dodging, sprinting, sliding, that new shield, and spillthrough mechanics… it’s all just chef’s kiss.
Hopes & Ideas:
Keep doing what you are doing. I love the gameplay/combat.
Mission Design & Content
Impressions:
Please bear with me, this one might be a bit biased/negative. Darktide has, as far as my wiki search goes, 23 missions, while Vermintide 2 features 33 (prologue and event-missions for VT2 not included).
Darktide relies more heavily on a „same biome“ philosophy than Vermintide. That’s not inherently bad, but it makes the subjective pool of maps feel way smaller. There are just a handful of maps that stuck with me, like the trenches, the train, and the snow map with the mobian steel and maybe 2 or 3 other missions. The other missions do not feel and look distinct enough. I also miss some unique mission objectives, like the lorry in „Hunger in the Dark“ from VT2. The special conditions feel fine, though more diversity and impact to the mission feel would be nice.
Regarding the other game modes besides the mission board: Mortis Trials feels fun from time to time, but Havoc is not a game mode—it’s just another difficulty with modifiers. Furthermore, Expeditions feel like they break the game flow, and I have no desire to play them.
Another big point is the lack of proper bosses, with the Karnak Twins being practically the only exception—the Scab Captain „boss“ in the first mission does not count in my opinion. When I started playing Darktide, I expected more missions and unique boss encounters, especially after years of post-launch updates. I don’t want to sound too harsh, but it’s disappointing that there are hardly any dedicated bosses outside of the twins—who additionally get recycled as mini-bosses in Havoc mode afaik.
Hopes & Ideas:
It would be great if every biome had a small milestone that had to be achieved, like the purification of the water supply for the Hab Zone biome with a cinematic demon boss fight. Going forward, I hope to see more distinct map layouts, a larger overall pool of missions, interesting mechanics in the missions, and truly unique boss encounters rather than recycled mini-bosses. Regarding Expeditions, maybe they could be something cool if they get reworked—something more like Chaos Wastes would be nice, but that’s wishful thinking I guess. Additionally, for special conditions like Lights Out or Ventilation Purge, it would be fantastic if players were unable to ping “hidden” enemies, as this would greatly enhance the atmospheric tension and tactical challenge.
Crafting & Gear
Impressions:
I only realized that the mastery system unlocks perks and blessings after my first max-level character. The presentation is, in my opinion, not very intuitive regarding what is actually happening behind the scenes. I initially thought this was meant to be a system for passive stat buffs.
After learning how it actually works, though, I really like being able to change perks and blessings. It’s a huge improvement from VT2.
Hopes & Ideas:
Keep the system as a foundation, but maybe make the onboarding or UI presentation clearer for players so it’s more obvious from the start what masteries actually unlock.
Performance & Stability
Impressions:
I may not be the best reference point for this topic, since I play on Linux (Proton), but I want to share my two cents regardless—even if these specific quirks might be platform-dependent. Running on a Ryzen 7 7700, RX 7900 XT, and 32GB of CL32 6000MHz RAM, I rarely experience disconnects or performance drops during actual gameplay; performance is solid for me, even without FSR or upscaling (not a huge fan of those technologies). However, the game occasionally requires multiple restarts just to get past the initial loading screen, and asset streaming can be a bit funky: textures sometimes fail to load properly, leaving weapons, doors, or random objects looking like something straight out of a PS1 game.
Hopes & Ideas:
It would be great to see continued stability improvements for Linux/Proton users, alongside fixes for the initial startup hangs and asset streaming issues so textures load reliably on the first try.
Balance
Impressions:
I don’t want to go into detail here, since there are way more involved people to discuss this topic. The following impressions are highly subjective and take my context (Auric Maelstrom) as a reference.
Some weapons feel really bad, like most of the ballistic autoguns. Melee weapons are a mixed bag. Regarding abilities, I really despise the Warframe-like „kill everything“ skills. I’ve watched Skitarii, Hive Scum, and Psyker players several times just deleting everything in sight within a split second. Additionally, players sometimes just rushed through the level solo, triggering multiple bosses that would then inexplicably despawn. I don’t think the AI director was able to handle those situations; my team just walked through an entirely empty level straight to the next safe room or airlock. This really killed my desire to play the game.
Regarding the classes, I can’t say very much since I didn’t get into buildcrafting deeply yet, but here is my unproductive opinion on them:
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Zealot: Feels nice, but Stealth and Fury of the Faithful feel like they try to do the same thing. I love the tome/chorus, though. I miss some flame-focused archetype; maybe make Fury of the Faithful create a fire field if it crits, and add a talent for the Zealot that debuffs burning enemies maybe even rework a capstone for a „purification through fire“ build.
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Ogryn: Feels great, but weapon choices are too limited and some feel weak.
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Veteran: Feels weird because I always end up picking the same nodes regardless of whether I want to go melee or ranged; having a focus on lasers as a separate node in the skill tree feels wrong.
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Psyker: The shield bubble feels necessary, and the flame staff feels OP as binary screech.
Hopes & Ideas:
I hope to see adjustments to screen-clearing abilities and pacing exploits so that splitting off and breaking the AI director’s intended challenge is minimized, alongside minor tuning passes to bring underperforming weapons and class trees into a better spot.
In-Game Store(s)
Impressions:
Commissary: I’m shocked that there are only 2 universal weapon skins. The basic armor skins for in-game currency are fine.
Commodore’s Vestures: The skins are nice most of the time, but the overview for armor and weapons seems lacking. Honestly, I would actually like to spend more money on the game, but the overall game currently feels far too small to motivate me to buy and max out another 3 or in the future possibly 4 classes and invest in different outfits if the game is too limited content-wise.
Hopes & Ideas:
Please add more weapon skins for Ordo Dockets. Furthermore, it would be great to relocate weapon skins in Commodore’s Vestures to a separate tab to improve the overview.
Thanks for taking the time to read through all of this! If you’re short on time, here is the short version:
TL;DR
Campaign & Story:
Great atmosphere, but sparse cutscenes, an awkwardly placed Wolfer storyline, and a hidden campaign overview that lack the epic journey and meaningful buildup of VT2.
Gameplay:
Absolute top-tier combat, movement, and mechanics that easily surpass VT2.
Mission Design & Content:
Too few maps with a repetitive “same biome” feel, lacking unique objectives and dedicated bosses outside of the Karnak Twins; special conditions like Lights Out and/or Ventilation Purge with ping restrictions on hidden enemies would be awesome (or maybe this restriciton should be always active).
Crafting & Gear:
Great system once understood, but the mastery system’s onboarding and UI presentation are not intuitive at all.
Performance & Stability:
Solid on Linux/Proton without upscaling, but hampered by occasional initial loading hangs and funky asset streaming.
Balance:
Incredible combat feel, but ruined by Warframe-style screen-clearing skills and solo-rush pacing exploits that break the AI director; some class trees and underperforming weapons need tuning.
In-Game Store(s):
Shockingly few universal weapon skins in the Commissary; Commodore’s Vestures suffers from a poor UI overview, and the limited overall content currently prevents me from wanting to max out and buy more classes and haper my desire to spend more money even tough I really want to support Darktide.