This is just wishful thinking on my part but if there would ever be another faction outside of the Moebians and Admonition, I’d love it if Water Cartel survivors could be encountered and fought against - Even better if it would be possible to have the Cartel Gangers be hostile to both the Heretics and us so players can choose to either get stuck into an ongoing fight in one area and embrace the chaos or to let the two parties bleed each other out and pick off the stragglers.
I’m fully aware that it’s not likely, especially since such a faction wouldn’t really have an appropriate equivalent of Poxer/Groaner hordes which is somewhat anti-thetical to what Darktide is, to say nothing about the kind of work that’d have to be put in for a faction that’s actively hostile to the other ones. Either way I still have a little hope that we can see something like that materialize. After all the Water Cartel and other Ganger activity on Atoma is so intrinsically linked to the uprising and subsequent hellscape we’re currently dealing with, it’d be a missed opportunity to not have that reflected in someway with gameplay - Whether that be a Water Cartel faction we’re clearing out on behalf of Zola or maybe even a Water Cartel/Hive Ganger class later down the line. Lord knows the latter’s potential for inter-character banter is even better now that we have Arbitrators around.
Yeah, they attack in very varied and varied hordes; there can be normal humans, mutants, purestrain Genestealers, all kinds of soldiers, and the Patriarch. If you want to see it in more detail, you can watch the ‘Blood Angels’ series on Warhammer+.
I think they’re going to be in the second Hive City on Atoma that Morrow doesn’t like to talk about. Him and Brunt were killing Genestealers not long before the current events, and according to the Mortis Trial secrets, they’re unsure if they actually finished the job. Plus, the newest cosmetic bundle for Zealot, The Death Cult Assassin, says he swore to kill 1,000 different xenos in the description.
*Sidenote, Eldar are being teased into joining the story. My bet is they are the new DLC class, which will use many of Kerillian’s assets from VT2
Fatshark developed the tech to have 2 separate factions fight each other. They said exactly that when they announced the Necromancer in VT2, and said they were excited to see what they could do with it in the future
Can be anything really, lore is of no concern here, the goal is to just make a fun game, they can bend lore whatever they want to achieve this (as they’ve already done).
They could easily expand operation scope beyond the hive city, adding new biomes/maps for forgotten derelict ruins lying outside of it, or wasteland, or some vast underground cave system. Or some previously unknown subterranean lower levels of the Hive that have been locked tight for centuries and only now you’ve got a passage there.
And you can inhabit those places with whatever faction you like. Could be GSC, or orcs, or Dark Eldars, or Necrons, doesn’t matter. As long as it’s more or less plausible and fun.
Yeah, there are so many buried webway gates, necron tombs or warp gates, lost feral ork tribes, ork roks, accidental ambull colonies, etc. scattered all over the place that suddenly another faction popping up in a WH40k game is usually a when, not an if in most of them. It’s certainly not the lore constraining them, but the scope they want to cover and their writing ability.
Helldivers 2 were released 1.5 years ago, also with two factions - and they already had 3rd faction added not so while ago, with community speculating about possible addition of 4th.
And, frankly speaking, HD2’s factions are really different. Like, completely utterly different, you are effectively moving from one battlefield to a new one, with its own rules, and need to learn the ropes again, when still learning the game. It’s really cool how they managed to make them so unique.
And in DT, let’s be honest, those mobs are just reskins, with some numbers shuffled under the hood. They act and fight almost exactly the same, regardless of faction. So, we have just one big faction, so far. That doesn’t help replayability and long-term player retention in a slightest, exacerbated by static maps and missions which are not even expanded in months.
A whole faction isn’t as valuable to replayability as new missions and individual special enemies that shake up gameplay. The only beastmeme units in Vermintide 2 that qualified for that last point were the archers (which suck) and banner users.
Well, it is - if it’s not just another reskin, but comes with completely new, unique foes and a few new biomes (what assumes new maps/missions) created just for them. New and different to such extent it requires you to shuffle your meta builds and come up with new squad compositions and tactics.
Everyone asking about a new faction should remember that what is happening on Atoma iis a small, almost local, conflict that doesn’t attracts much attention as full-scale wars imperium wages. Furthermore - imperial side is kinda winning this war(Remembering our successes in campaign).
If we add new faction such as genestealers - it will massively escalate the conflict and will be way out of darktide scale.
Given the account of times we heard talk about the battle being at a stalemate, Morrow/Zola saying they need more soldiers, or new information about the Invasion of Tertium being uncovered, or the fact that the latest mission of the campaign involved putting a stop to a chaos ritual that aimed to bring about a prophecy and Wolfer seemly being at risk of losing favour with Admonition would suggest that either side is winning the war. It should also be noted that the Moebian Domain had become isolated from the rest of the Imperium by a warp storm so attention let alone assistance from the rest of the Imperium is unlikely.
There are plenty of ways that new enemy factions could be added lorewise without escalating the conflict more than it should be to advance the plot, for example:
Gangers could be added by Rannick giving Zola/Zorin a free hand to use the rejects to deal with troublesome Atoma’s gangs.
Other chaos factions (Including beastmen) could be added though more Moebian regiments and militant militias being recalled to Atoma as part of a major push by Rannick to put an end to the invasion, but upon their arrival it is revealed that units among their ranks had turned to serve another chaos god.
Genestealers could be added as a relatively yet fully established minor cult that still requires a heightened response, this could even be tied into other Imperial organisation such as Ecclesiarchy or AdMech agreeing to provide some of their forces to assist with the warband efforts in dealing with this escalating threat (This take the the from of cosmetics, new class, and/or those new forces being added as NPCs on the Morningstar and in select missions).
Other Xeno factions could be added by Grendyl sending rejects to undertake similar missions that they conduct on Atoma in the Fringe Wars possibly as a ploy by him to gain the actual support of the ranking Imperial Guard officers of the region.
I think the most likely scenario for any new faction will be something in addition to the Dregs and Scabs that we already have. A third sub-faction rather than a faction really, which will also use the regular pox-walkers and groaners as their horde element but have their own unique roster of “standard guys”, elites, and specials. Hopefully something more varied than the simple palette swap the Dregs and Scabs have going on.
A lot of people seem to really like GSC for whatever reason but barring any exceptional circumstance they would not fight alongside the rest, and, although they have enough unit types to fill a roster of elites, specials, monsters, etc. they lack the horde component which is important in a horde shooter.
Furthermore, they would be interlopers in this setting. Just a 3rd contender popping in from left field. As the setting is written, there are two main options already written into the story, already present in the theater of operations, already in armed conflict with the Moebian Domain to choose from:
Daemons. Real easy and super obvious. Although they have well-defined statlines in most table-top depictions, in lore, their actual power level tends to vary rather drastically on various factors (strength of local daemonic rituals, number of dead/diseased nearby, weakness of the veil separating the warp from realspace, etc.). Heck, we already have some, they just need to be properly finished off. Unfortunately, they are so obvious that the fact that they have not made it into the game already strongly suggests that a new faction will not happen.
Noxians. Inhabitants of Nox Alpha. The eponymous Darktide against which the Domain has been fighting for 10,000ish years. They are currently using the opening afforded by their human quislings, the Moebian 6th, to counter attack and have cut-off or taken numerous worlds in a line drive towards Atoma’s system. Presumably, they are some chaos-tainted minor xenos race (Dan Abnett has done that a few times now, I guess). They would have the most potential as the devs could literally write them to suit the needs of the game and make something truly inhuman and horrific. They will also probably not happen because most people seem to hate the idea of a new faction not being their favorite TT army and seem to be deathly insulted by the notion of a home-brew alien race whenever I bring their existence up. But they’re out there and causing a whole lot of trouble.
Either of those would be able to simply fight alongside the factions and units already in-game with no lore difficulties.
As mentioned above, the only other real choice is other chaos cults pitching in as well. Although they typically despise one another, it is not unheard of for different gods’ followers to forge shaky alliances to fight a powerful enemy. They inevitably collapse into back-stabbing once the initial threat is dealt with but that would not concern us. For gameplay, it would be sufficient reason for Khorne, Slaanesh, or Tzeentch cultists to be seen fighting alongside the poxwalker hordes. But such factions have not been introduced or mentioned in the setting at all.
I mean, can you imagine how fun it would be to fight Orks, grots, squigs, etc in DT setting with such visceral first person mechanics? It would be insane. I’d never leave my desk and would die happy.
Hell, even nids would be fun in this setting but there’s something quite Orky about DT anyway so they’d fit into the vibe like cheese and wine.
#greentide instead of #darktide2 I hope at the very least. Bored out of my skull with Chaos in every 40k game.
Oh yeah, about that…..no one loved the beastmen, and they were broken AF at release, so that’s really not a great example. (WoM still sits on mostly negative reviews btw).
The heretics are the jolly joker “faction” to slaughter anyway in 40k as they can be virtually anyone. I’d like to see more weapons and maps rather.
Well, yeah, but not really. I believe Grendyl’s warbands needs more for crucial missions but not overall.
I mean, it’s a local uprising where imperium has:
At least 2 Imperial Guard regiments with tank and air support
Inqusitorial warband
Local PDF(I believe)
Adeptus Arbites forces
And they all are fighting 1 heretic imperial guard regiment and single cult consisting mostly from the hive gangers.
Situation it really seems to be under control. The only things that are out of the place are deamonhosts and BoN’s. Because it those would be lore-accurate daemonhosts… Even single one… I believe Atoma would be most likely doomed.
EDIT:
In case you are wondering what do i mean under “Lore-accurate” - here is the quick cheat sheet. Our rejects are fighting “Minima” and “Minoris” threats 99% of the time. Weakest daemonhosts(With most of their power restricted) are considered “Extermis”-level threat. Others - “Terminus”.
Not to sing praises for the beastmen, but there was a lot to critique about Winds of Magic besides the beastmen, such as:
New dificulty locked behind a paywall.
Weaves.
Dark Omen being a broken mess on release.
Forcing people to defeat the 4 lords on legend (even though people had done this tens if not hundreds of times already) before granting access to the cataclysm difficulty they had just bought.
Changes made to the base game regardless of you buying the DLC.
Increased max character level from 30 to 35. Which had the effect of making the game easier by giving everyone 50 extra character power and then telling people if they want a new harder difficulty they have to buy WoM and unlock cataclysm.
Moving the level 30 talent to level 35 without adding anything in its place (this was later reverted, but left a sour taste in a lot of players).
