I’m not sure… wouldn’t it be better to just do targeted Cleave nerfs where needed? Fatshark are known to unintentionally dumpster Weapons with sweeping balancing changes when they could’ve just looked at the specific Weapons that needed nerfs. Like, I’m not hating on your idea, but I don’t trust Fatshark to do their due diligence with it.
We are STILL waiting for Fatshark to buff the Weapons that were dumpstered by the sweeping Flak and Carapace buffs back in September 2025 with the “Bound by Duty” Update. Heck, the last time they’re known to have even LOOKED at Infantry Lasguns was back in October 2023 with Patch 14. And yes, I will continue to autistically bug them about them needing to buff Infantry Lasguns until they actually do it. I’ve been actively begging them to buff Infantry Lasguns since November 2024, and nothing’s come of that just yet.
But to add to the conversation in another way, I think Darktide could use more Enemies and Enemy “variants” to spice up gameplay in general.
I’d love to see some Human-sized Shield Enemies, as Darktide’s missing those. Of course, give them a limited Stamina pool, so they’re nowhere near as annoying to fight as the current iteration of Bulwarks. There’ll be more on Bulwarks later…
For a Melee Human-sized Shield Enemy you could have a Dreg Subjugator, a corrupted Enforcer who runs around with a Shock Baton and Assault Shield. Maybe they have the capability to smack their Shock Baton against their Assault Shield in a similar manner to how Arbitrators do with their Shock Maul and Suppression Shield, applying a debuff to the Player if they don’t look away or stop the Dreg Subjugator before it happens. I don’t know, there’s just a real delectable form of 40K-rich irony that comes from a Chaos Cult having to enforce ORDER over their subjects as a necessary measure to keep their power.
For a Ranged Human-sized Shield Enemy you could have a Scab Breacher, who functions as a rarer form of Shotgunner with a small, improvised Shield. Either you can choose to engage him more safely in Ranged or engage him in risky Melee where you can either bypass his Shield with precision strikes or outright smash it to get to him. I’d recommend waiting for him to start reloading or something before trying that, though. Wouldn’t it be satisfying to smash someone’s crappy little improvised Shield to bits like you could in Vermintide?
Then Fatshark should divide Bulwarks into two variants. The Brute Bulwark, and the Slab Bulwark. The Slab Bulwark would be the existing variant with its Slab Shield as you know and probably don’t love too much, while the Brute Bulwark would be a new variant with a Brute Shield. An Ogryn with a Buckler, basically. Their Brute Shield is much smaller, and they’re therefore significantly less protected. But they’d also be a lot more AGGRESSIVE and active in Melee compared to the Slab Bulwarks.
And so on. There are SO many options for Fatshark to explore regarding new Enemies and Enemy variants. Like Plaguebearers who could serve as Dreg Daemon equivalents to Scab Ogryns.
Dreg Maulers, who could be less tanky than Scab Maulers but are faster and give you Corruption when they hit you.
With some changes, Fatshark could even add Psyker Enemies to Darktide by reskinning and modifying Blightstormers and Lifeleeches from Vermintide 2. The Blightstormer analogue would be a Scab Battle Psyker, whilst the Lifeleech analogue would be a Dreg Rogue Psyker.
On top of all of this, I think CQB-focused Ranged Enemies, namely Shotgunners and Stalkers since they use Combat Shotguns and Braced Autoguns/Lascarbines respectively, should have the unique capability of shooting Players while said Players are sliding towards them, to give them a niche as a foil to the whole “dodge slide to avoid all Enemy Ranged Attacks” thingamajig. This would differentiate Stalkers from Shooters and then make Shotgunners an actual threat to Players as an Elite.
You could even add a Scab Squad Leader Elite who buffs and commands “Squads” of Scab Shooters and Scab Stalkers who has the same “can shoot Players if said Players are sliding towards them” capability, since they’d be using Heavy Laspistols and probably also Lascarbines. Give them a Sword of some kind, so they can be forced into Melee like Shotgunners and Stalkers, maybe even a Chainsword or Power Falchion.
Then rebuff Shooters to the level they were at for the “Secrets of the Machine God” Update back in June 2024. These changes were NOT significant enough to warrant the reversal they got, and actually made Ranged Veterans who put in an effort to countering them feel like a genuine contributor to the Strike Team again.