Warhammer 40K: Darktide

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

"Rejects Will Rise"

– The game's tagline

Darktide is a co-op first-person shooter made by Vermintide developer Fatshark. The game has an updated core gameplay loop from Vermintide, this time in space and facing Chaos cults in an Underhive and a heavier emphasis on the balance between melee and ranged combat. The game is currently enjoying mixed reviews due to crashy performance, generally bug riddled launch and microtransactions in the form of paid cosmetics. The in mission gameplay is generally lauded as fantastic, while literally everything else before and after the missions has been scrutinized and criticized (justifiably or not) to hell and back.

Story

Writing Brought to you by motherfucking Dan Abnett, with help from your favorite Spiritual Liege, Matthew Ward (It's all outside-of-game though, so there's that...)

The game takes place on the Hive World of Atoma Prime, where a group of Nurgle worshipping assholes called The Admonition are plotting to take over the planet from the hive city of Tertium with the extensive use of pox gases, converting the infected to their side as Poxwalkers. Thankfully (or not), one Inquisitor Grendyl has come to cleanse the heretical arsehole. Instead of doing the mercy killing, or calling 911, the inquisitor believes the situation is still somewhat salvageable. Scooping out the convicts they've collected (not for the first time), giving them weapons and throwing them to the meat grinder, hopefully they could find out what the hell is going on while purging some fucking heretics.

According to the devblog, the true antagonist is a concept known as the Darktide (roll credits!), a boogeyman threat that must be kept at bay, or so the people of Atoma Prime believe. In fact, it is a collective term referring to the brutal horrors of the Warhammer 40,000 universe: mutants, xenos, and worse - who want nothing more than to extinguish the fluttering flame of human civilization. The young people recruited to regiments like the Moebian Sixth have no idea where they’re being sent, or what they will face. They are as ignorant of the "Darktide" as any other regular citizen, for they were all citizens themselves. Out on the death worlds of the Fringe, the lasmen are thrown into the meat grinder and come face to face with unimaginable danger. Their world-view changes. They learn the nature of the Darktide and fight it tooth and nail. Sometimes, they learn too much. Long tours result in trauma, both physical and psychological. Some are broken by the experience. Some are made bitter and resentful that the grueling combat they experience is generally unrecognized back home, because the Imperial Administratum tends to keep all details of the ongoing conflict quiet so as not to generate public alarm. There might be a few news broadcasts about "great victories", but the rest of the turmoil is screened by propaganda. Some troopers, of course, serve brilliantly and bravely, and remain loyal despite everything they experience. But others fall prey to the insidious touch of the Darktide. They encounter the malevolent effect of the Warp, and it changes them. They become - literally, in some cases - the very thing they are fighting against.

In summary, the Darktide is basically Nurgle's way of weaponizing PTSD, throwing Imperial troops into a meat grinder to break their spirits and then brainwashing them to become one with the grinder themselves. It is no wonder why Adeptus Astartes were not sent. One can see some rather unnerving parallels with what happened to the Iron Warriors and how the their endless campaigns of grueling siege warfare caused them to snap and turn to Chaos. Or maybe the Astartes were just busy elsewhere, some chapters have gone through worse without flipping sides and the Age of the Dark Imperium has no shortage of threats that demand their attention.

And that's where our heroes, the convicts come in. They are invaluable yet expendable. Your player character's sorry ass is caught in the middle of a heretic attack on their cell. With the chance to go free, they instead go back and choose to fight for the Imperium. Whether they're Ogryns, guard veterans, fanatics of the Imperial Creed, or Psykers, they are the hardest meat the Imperium could send en masse, ready to purge the enemies of the Imperium with their remarkable abilities.

The Rejects Will Rise!

...unfortunately, for the game's actual narrative such as it is right now, well, the best we can say about it is that it doesn't look poorly on whoever actually wrote it because they were clearly told something to the extent of "There is no time or budget for anything more substantial, please write down the in-game narrative on this side of this napkin that was folded in half twice. DO NOT WRITE ON ANY OTHER SIDE ON PAIN OF DEATH." The in-game cutscenes consist of recruiting your reject after you and Zola escape the prison ship you were on getting attacked by the Moebian Sixth, introducing the various NPCs who all tell you to get back to fucking work on missions you layabout, getting told there's a traitor aboard who's leaking information, and then Rannick summoning you and thanking you for your part in the warband after publically killing the traitor. That's literally it. Yeah neither of the Vermintide games didn't have too much of a narrative either, but it was still more than that. Hopefully, more writing will come out of the game in time as more content releases much like Vermintide 2, but as it is right now, do not expect to care much for the game's narrative right now unless you're the sort that's addicted to coming up with stuff for Your Dudes.

Gameplay

The game excitingly is one of the very few 40k video games to feature the Guardsmen and other squishy humans (plus Ogryn) in the starring role and not the Space Marines, and will play just as similar to Vermintide, only leaning more towards the shooty parts of the game. Playable classes are to be a Zealot, an Ogryn, a Veteran, and a Psyker, The classes are also apparently very customizable, both visually and gameplay-wise with lots of interchangeable weapons for classes. Also, you can play as four Ogryns. Each character can choose between three different voices with their own unique responses, for it seems Fatshark has been pulling their weight and emptying coin pouch on this game with many different VA.

Enemies start with lowly Poxwalkers and graduate to traitor Guardsmen and Ogryns, Pox Hounds, Infested Elites and worst of all the monsters: Plague Ogryns (similar to Vermintide's Rat Ogres), Beasts of Nurgle and Daemonhosts (which are basically L4D2 witches: Highly suggested to leave them alone, will lock on to the poor fool that angered them then kill 2 of your party max before fucking off to somewhere else).

Darktide was featured on Edge magazine with a 15-page article stating that there will be some form of character creator, a backstory in that you start as a newly conscripted prisoner snatched off a transport ship by the Inquisition, ability leaks, and a shield system like Payday 2.

For new introduced features unlike in Vermintide or L4D, certain enemies now "corrupt" players, reducing their maximum health represented by a purple bar (just like in Vermintide where the players are cursed for carrying grimoire). Be aware the effects can stack, so players better stick together and be ready kill any specials in order to prevent further health reduction. The corruption cannot be healed by normal means (normal health pack are health sprays that can group heal btw), but it can be treated by healing stations that appear at certain points of the run, fully healing any players that use it. However, the healing station has a usage limit of 4, so spend its uses wisely. There are no more infinite ammo boxes like in Vermintide, so players have to think more strategically on their ammo usage lest they get pinned down due to an open area mostly being the only thing between them and a heretical firing line. However, there will always be at least 3 stacks of ammo waiting at healing stations.

A new mechanic called "cohesion" gives bonuses to players if they stick together, discouraging them from trying to wander off on their own to get killed. Another mechanic called "toughness" acts as a temporary damage soak, ensuring that players won't get stunlocked to death the moment they get shot at. It also works as a strange damage reduction: You get 100% protection from all ranged attacks except snipers so long as you have toughness, but for melee you start gaining more damage as you lose toughness. You can gain it back by killing enemies in melee or staying in coherency with your allies (stacking up to four with everyone together) There is also "suppression", where simply being shot at, whether you're hit or not, makes your accuracy sky dive. This works for both you and your enemies, and can make the heretics stop shooting and take cover even if you don't kill them, allowing you some breathing room or a chance to run up and greet them up close and personal.

The soundtrack was done by the venerable Jesper Kyd, and it seriously might be his masterpiece.

Classes

Unlike the Ubersreik Five (or Four, doesn't matter), your characters each have a customizable backstory that lets you choose their homeworld, what they did in their earlier lives, and how they ended up in prison (this being the Imperium it's often something incredibly petty, like complaining about the taste of the rations or not getting out of a magistrate's way fast enough for his liking). As a result, it's perfectly possible to form a team consisting entirely of one class (though in practice it'll probably be a good idea to have some variety). Each class has several different personalities representing the various criminal lunatics serving in the campaign. Not only do different personalities have different voicelines and reactions, your backstory will also add other reactions based on their pasts. Highlights include the aggressively German male Psyker, a Northern English Ogryn, the magnificently hammy Preachers (all of them, male and female, it's great), the Cadia-exclusive Veteran (male and female), the male Psyker who argues with the subtitles, the male and female Pskyers that appear to have a hotline to Big E himself (or something claiming to be Big E), the Irish female Psyker who is probably the biggest source of skub as people either hate her voice or love her poisonous snark and the French female Psyker voiced by Repanse de Lyonesse who alternates between psychotic and kind. She's amazingly the SANEST psyker with a shockingly well-developed moral compass for the 42nd Millennium, which says a lot. Sure she's just as much of a remorseless killer as the rest of them, and might SEEM an oblivious hypocrite for professing love for the citizens and horror at the Inquisition's regular MO even while gleefully popping skulls and ripping through hordes of enemies with her sword. But look at the types of abominations she's killing; they more than deserve it!

• Veteran: A member of the Imperial Guard dishonorably discharged for one reason or another. They're still killing heretics, so not much of a change in career. Their focus is ranged damage, though they do have more toughness and health than the Psyker. By default, they wield a Lasgun, a Chainsword and Frag Grenades. For other weapons, they have a Lucius patterned combat shotgun (aka your favourite shotgun from L4D is back!!!),a Stub Revolver, a Plasma Gun, a Power Sword, an Autogun, and a Combat Blade. Confirmed that they will be making Forge-World variation for Basic weapons such as Lasguns and Autoguns for now. Their personalities can lean towards being a relatively agreeable Professional, a cynical Cutthroat who survived the loss of their unit, or a Loose Cannon who killed a guard just to get some extra drink. If you come from Cadia, you get the option of a special personality fitting a grizzled veteran who witnessed the death of the only home they've ever known. The planet broke before the Guard did...
  • Sharpshooter: A subclass of Veteran geared towards long-ranged combat and scoring headshots, with their passive granting them a larger ammo capacity and more damage against enemy weak points. While in cohesion, they have a chance not to use up ammo when shooting, and they regain ammo for every elite killed. Their active ability is "Volley Fire", which slows them down in exchange for boosting their accuracy, damage against enemy weak points, and weapon handling; it also makes non-Ogryn elites and special enemies easier to identify from afar so you can snipe them better. By default the weapons they can wield are a Kantrael Mk Ia Lasgun, a shovel (Krieg fanon-lovers rejoice!), and frag grenades.

• Zealot: Your happy go purging Ministorum Priest. Since player characters are all convicts for a reason, the Zealots was probably excommunicated for certain reasons, but let's hope it is not something too severe. Depending on your build, they may sometimes say "Blood for the God Emperor! Skulls for the Golden Throne!". Doesn't bode too well. By default, they wield an Autogun, a combat axe, and stun grenades, and have also been seen using a Flamer and a Chain Axe. They can be either be a hot-blooded Fanatic, a self-righteous Judge (the male one delivers so much ham that he could probably be directly transplanted into Dawn of War) or an insane Agitator who burned down an entire hab block for suspected heresy.
  • Preacher: A subclass of Zealot that functions similarly to the Zealot from Vermintide 2: they have fast melee attacks, deal bonus damage when their health is low, and can avoid dying after taking a fatal attack, gaining temporary invincibility in the process (albeit with a long cooldown). They take reduced toughness damage while in cohesion. Their active ability "Chastise the Wicked" is a charging attack that locks enemies into melee, regenerates their Toughness, increases their base melee damage and guarantees their next melee attack will be a critical hit. By default they wield an Autopistol, Combat Axe, and Stun grenades.

• Psyker: A wizard type character with the exact some play style and mechanics as Sienna from vermintide, but no fire (at least, not physical fire). So I guess we know that the Inquisitor sending the Convicts out is a Radical. As mentioned previously in Vermintide, this type of character has unlimited ammo, but will explode if they overuse their powers (here referred to by Perils). Unlike Sienna, they also have the option of wielding guns in their ranged slot instead of a staff, but that's boring. They no longer suffer damage when trying to cooldown from overheating by "reloading" as Sienna did, bless the Emperor. As for other new features, the Psyker can get new spell powers in their grenade slot (which every class now gets their own unique grenades) to smite the enemies for the Emprah! One of the many demonstrated spell is the Brain Burst spell that deal massive damage to a single enemies' head, to the point of crushing their skull, killing them instantly. When blocking, they are able to conjure a psychic shield that not only blocks ranged fire, but also stagger enemies when they try to hit it, and it works on even the hardest hitting elites like the Crushers or the Maulers. Other powers include pushing away a horde of enemies in a burst of psychic wind (melee special attacks), and imbuing the powers of the warp into their blades and to deal lethal damage in one swing. Their unique ability allows them to instantly erase any overcharge they had. By default, they wield a Force Sword, a Force Staff (aka the conflagration staff from vermintide) and the aforementioned head busting power (speculated to be able to switched for other psyker powers in future updates). Their personalities can either be a Savant simply trying to do the right thing even when everybody hates them, a batshit insane Seer who is so incredibly joined to the Warp that they hear voice from a "Beloved" who may or may not be the God-Emperor of Mankind or possibly a daemon, and a very resentful Loner twisted by all the abuse and distrust Psykers get simply by existing. Humorously, at least one voice for the Psyker has lines arguing with the subtitles. “I see in the future foreshortened li- no, no, I said FOUR shortened…!”
  • Psykinetic: The most combat-focused subtype of the Psyker, their blitz is a Brain Burst that deals huge single target damage and gains a warp charge on kill, increasing the Psyker's damage. This works especially well against elite foes, not only because of its high damage, but because they gain increased damage against elites while in cohesion. While building up charges can help mitigate the risks of perils, they can also live on the edge like the Unchained from last game, enhancing their attack power and gaining other benefits at high peril levels. Their active ability is pure utility though: They send out a force wave that knocks everyone around them back and even down to the ground, while expelling a huge amount of warp peril. This allows them to balance spamming their abilities to get power at high peril and then "vent" it if things get too hairy. By default, they wield a combat sword and laspistol.

• Ogryn: Taller than the other characters (said to be the height of three Bardins tall) and can send smaller enemies flying back with his attacks. Has the same charging move as Foot Knight Kruber in Vermintide 2, which pushes enemies away and gives them a boost to their movement and attack speed to finish them off faster. By default, they wield a ripper gun (which has an alt-firing move that allows it to go full auto), a combat knife, and their own unique Ogryn patterned grenades (a cluster bomb that scatters and explodes in a large area, randomly). Due to how tall and big the Ogryn is and since this is a sci-fi game where majority of the enemies and characters use guns, the Ogryn will have to do the heavy lifting, acting as a distraction/cover for his teammates. But that's fine since he's big and strong, and being tall allows him to score headshots in melee with relative accuracy and ease. You should play a strike team of four of them. Sadly, there's no female Ogryn option yet, so no Badass Fatass SSBBW Space-Ogress option (feelsbadman). They can either be a Bodyguard who held the line alongside his fellow Ogryns when all the little humies ran away and yet was still disgraced, a Bully who revels in how strong he is over everyone else and a Brawler who sounds a LOT like Bardin (but doesn't have his VA), a simple childlike soul that lost his last master and just wants to be better next time. Something else to note about player Ogryns: They're smarter than average. The Brawler and Bully have Bonehead implants, and all of them are seen counting to FIVE in loading screens. Note that the smartest and most famous Ogryn who ever lived, Nork Deddog, can only count up to FOUR. Smarts like these are probably worth throwing in the brig for on its own, for fear of what such genius specimens could do if left on their own...
  • Skullbreaker: It breaks skulls. This chonker is a big ol' brute in the classical Ogryn image who takes less damage, staggers enemies harder and protects da lil' unz by continuously reviving allies even while taking damage. Their active ability makes them charge straight ahead, scattering anything lighter than them with a ridiculous burst of speed. Their default weapons are a break-action single-shot shotgun, a huge metal club and a box of grenades. No, they don't toss a box of grenades with some sort of igniter attached to it to set them all off in quick succession (though there is a feat that can be taken with such a functionality, turning it into a cluster bomb if it hits a strong enough enemy), they just toss a whole-ass box of grenades at someone's face to instantly murder them with the blunt force trauma (it can also bounce and hit another nearby enemy for ultra Lulz). This is apparently more potentially-lethal to a single person than actual shotguns, and does bonus damage to heavily armored enemies for good measure. Can also lethally pimp slap people with some melee weapons' special attack.

Weapons

Being a 40k game, you have a wide plethora of weapons to shoot and beat heretics to death with, when the full game comes out, this might be of help of choosing your favored toy for killing.

Ranged Weapons

• Kantrael Pattern Lasgun: The humble flashlight lasgun, while often the butt of jokes, is arguably one of the best weapons in the game. With very little recoil, good damage (minus the light lasgun, we'll get to that later), an actual scope for good accuracy, and a humongous ammo pool both in magazine and reserves, there is very few scenarios the lasgun will serve you badly in - the only real waste of time and ammo for it is shooting at a carapace-armored Crusher, or hipfiring it at something more than three feet away. Available to all classes save the Ogryn, though it works best with the Veteran because his skills and passive traits reward precision headshots, which the lasgun is very good at. The special attack for all lasgun types is a twin-link toggle an under-slung flashlight, perfect for illuminating darkened corridors. Before you start complaining about the lasgun somehow having recoil, the devs did try to make fully recoilless lasguns, but it felt so off that they scrapped the idea.
  • Kantrael MG XII The slower firing but heavier hitting heavy lasgun. Ideal for killing special enemies and damaging enough that a veteran with volley fire active can one shot most mobs with a torso hit.
  • Kantrael MG Ia The medium lasgun balanced between damage and rate of fire. Good for all scenarios whether it be sniping or crowd control, but slightly more reliant at hitting headshots than the MG XII if you want to use it on higher difficulties.
  • Kantrael MG IV The light lasgun. There's no sugar coating it...it sucks. When guardsmen themselves call lasguns "flashlights", this thing is probably why; its rate of fire is good but that means fuck all when it barely tickles anything heavier than a dreg riflemen or poxwalker. Use the laspistol or recon lasgun instead if you want a rapid fire, low recoil laser weapon.
  • Note: All lasguns are all semi automatic. Buy a second mouse as it will break and be prepared for carpal tunnel syndrome.

• Accatran Recon Lasgun: A fully-automatic lasgun for those who wanted their lasgun to feel a bit more like a typical assault rifle but don't want to just use an autogun like some kind of casual. Burns through ammo fast and not likely to quickly stagger even basic enemies, but almost zero recoil (making it more lore-accurate than its semi-auto cousins) and a blistering fire-rate will kill most things it's pointed at. It has variants that deal more damage and a tiny bit more stagger but takes a second to wind up and start shooting. You'll want to mostly hip-fire these weapons, the muzzle flash will all but blind you if you try to use the iron sights. You can easily walk your shots into enemies even if your initial aim is off.

• Lucius Helbore Lasgun: Veteran only. The Krieger specialstandard for all of your Death Korps cosplay needs. A lower fire-rate and higher-damage lasgun with iron sights that has its use further complicated by a small charge-up time before it actually fires - the longer you charge, the harder it hits. Unlike other lasguns, this will do something against carapace armor if charged. Its special attack is, of course, a bayonet (slap yourself if you thought it could be anything else). The stabby bits comes in handy because like the bolter, the Lucius suffers from a long swap in animation. Save yourself some time by bayoneting weak isolated enemies instead of switching to your melee weapon. Pair if with a krieger gas mask head cosmetic for maximum cosplay points. Though considering the already penitent dogmatic doormat nature of any Krieger's upbringing, they would probably have offed themselves before being branded as a "convict" on top of their already unforgiving desire to self-sacrifice.

• Accatran Heavy Laspistol: Used to be inferior to lasguns in pretty much all situations, has since been buffed to be comparable to light Kantrael lasguns in fire rate and damage per shot. An innate +10% crit modifier makes it well suited for perks like Infernus which encourage crit fishing, and it also has massively increased weak spot damage (Read, absolutely pathetic with bodyshots, deals 3x as much damage with headshots). However, the laspistol's main draws are mobility and sustainability. You run faster, can shoot while sprinting, and can dodge farther and more often than usual. And unlike other high mobility ranged weapons like the stub revolver and autopistol, you can shoot damn near forever without needing to reload. Increased mobility and shining with good shooting skill and a little bit of luck? Truly a Ciaphas Cain special.
  • Its special action is usually the flashlight. Psykers have their own special attack when using this thing that is essentially a force push similar to the block push on the force sword. Use it to stagger and/or keep away enemies or get environmental kills by shoving enemies off cliffs. Due to the laspistol's fast switch speed, you can even be cheeky during close combat and use it to force push before switching back to your melee weapon and dealing with the now staggered enemies.

• Autogun: Depending on what you're going for, this weapon is either great or it sucks. Comes in automatic, burst fire, and semiautomatic variants. Some variants replace aim down sights with a recoil reducing bracing. All variants have better rates of fire than stock lasguns at the cost of worse recoil and ammo efficiency. Available to all non-Ogryn classes and notorious for clogging up the RNG when players are hoping to get a Psyker Staff or a Plasma Gun instead. Autoguns come from three different Forge Worlds and can have three different builds:
  • Agripinaa pattern Autoguns tend to fire slower but have more damage per round and can pierce multiple light targets. Columnus pattern Autoguns are in the other end and fire blisteringly fast, with the expected loss of accuracy and ammunition efficiency. In the middle we find the Graia pattern, which is somwhere in the middle of the two.
  • Autoguns come in Braced, Headhunter or Infantry styles: The Infantry Autoguns are regular, automatic assault rifles that will serve you decently well in most situations, Headhunter Autoguns are usually semi-automatic and deliver powerful bursts of long-range damage, and Braced Autoguns are the smaller cousin of Ork Sluggas that have no ironsight but can be braced at the hip to fire hails of iron downrange.
    • So for example, an Agripinaa Braced Autogun fires high damaging slugs very quickly, while a Columnus Headhunter Autogun fires accurately and fast bursts of fire at range.

• Shotgun: With 9 shots and a very good cone of damage, the shotgun is one of the better weapons for crowd control and is almost realistic in its accuracy, capable of hitting even distant targets reliably (though almost definitely not killing them in one hit at a distance) - suck it CoD players. It's also one of the few ways that the Veteran and Zealot can knock down and kill maulers, easily one of the more annoying enemies in the game with the amount of armor they have. Its special attack loads a single round with a horizontal duckbill spread that can scythe through numerous heads in one shot, though this special round is pretty much strictly inferior against anything that can be tagged. Oddly, aiming down sights will tighten spread, so don't fire from the hip at distant targets. Somewhat struggles on higher difficulties where it's low range makes it less than ideal for dealing with mobs of enemy shooters.
  • Agripinaa Pattern: A variant of the shotgun featuring lower damage, but a tighter pellet spread. Deals bonus weakpoint damage while aiming down sights. the Alt-Fire is a cover piercing slug that will take out pretty much everything short of an Ogryn or Mauler on a headshot, cementing the Agripinaa pattern combat Shotgun as a solid all range weapon.
  • Kantrael Pattern: The third combat shotgun variant goes all in on close range power, featuring a wider spread and higher damage to blow through hordes with a dragon's breath cartridge on alt-fire when you feel like a bit of Burn is called for. Make sure to queue up the DOOM music when using it.

• Autopistol: Effectively a VZ61 Skorpion submachine gun with low damage but a very high rate of fire. Has surprisingly low recoil compared to equivalent weapons in other FPS games, so don't be afraid to use it at medium to longish range. That's right, 40K redeemed the Klobb! Just be warned that it's not the best against armor. Like most other guns, it has a flashlight for its special attack and it shares the laspistol's ability to fire while sprinting. Well suited for melee focused players who can spray a crowd of enemies to kill a few and suppress the rest while closing the distance. Psykinetics will also appreciate its massive fire rate allowing them to proc their random Brain Bursts with ease.

• Stub revolver: Available to the human classes. Is surprisingly accurate and does good damage, use it like a designated marksman rifle to snipe at long range and quickly burst down specials. Count your shots, the reload animation is painfully slow since it has your character manually pushing rounds into the chamber one at a time instead of using a speed loader, despite there being a visible speed loader mechanism when reloading. (the ability to take one doesn't magically tether one to the gun). On the flipside, partial reloads are accurate, your character will only empty the spent chambers, and you can interrupt reloading to fire or aim down the sights at any time so long as there's one round in it.

• Force staff: Psyker only. Doesn't use ammo, but does increase your perils meter, though just like when holding the Brain Burst, you can "reload" to quell the peril. Most versions come with a mediocre energy bolt primary attack and a wimpy special attack that has you physically prodding enemies with your magic stick which is like punching or slapping people, but less funny. The secondary attacks are the ones that really set them apart from each other.
  • Trauma Staff: Everyone's First Staff. A copy paste of Sienna's conflagration staff from vermintide that allows you to cause warpfire to geyser out of the ground but this time 'round you get to nuke whatever entity is at the center of your explosion on top of the AoE and DoT effects. Bit difficult and dangerous to use, it racks up perils of the warp like crazy. Generally abandoned for the other staves in higher difficulties in the early patches, though later patches made it viable again. Now it's one of the best general staves, especially for single target, with the ability to stagger nearly everything while dealing massive damage to the central target. It can also technically headshot, but good luck getting that to happen with the ground-circle reticule.
  • Surge Staff: The Stun Support Staff. Makes you into Emperor Palpatine with medium to short ranged force lightning that damages and stuns enemies. Has a hard cap of how many enemies it can target at a time, you'll need to wade into melee or rely on allies to help deal with hordes. The lightning is good for stunning special enemies and will hurl dreg tox bombers backwards so they won't blow up in your face. It also has deals more damage on heavier armor, meaning flak and carapace enemies will get shocked to death surprisingly quickly.
  • Voidstrike Staff: The Headshot Staff. Shoots explosive warp fireballs that deals great AOE damage and sends mobs reeling. Has a faster cast rate and more fire and forget capability than the trauma staff. Use quickcharged fireballs to kill faraway enemies, they have perfect accuracy as opposed to the primary attack that can have a significant RNG deviation from your reticle location. Also the best staff for headshotting. Line up a horde in front of you and you've got decapitation bowling, with the satisfying sound of their heads being popped by a psychic warp ball. Use the Transfer Peril blessing that reduces peril upon headshot and watch your peril never reach critical.
  • Purgation Staff: The Horde Clearing Staff. Psychic flamethrower stick for BBQing hordes in warp flames. Can also use it to farm warp tokens with a lvl 30 feat. This staff replaces the primary attack with another flamethrower attack, so make sure one of your teammates is specced to kill snipers. Or just use your Brain Burst. Like the flamer, the primary fire seems pretty underwhelming but it is useful at staggering elites and small groups of chaff, and is fairly peril efficient for it.

• Boltgun: A fucking powerful gun that obliterates anything it aimed at. Single shots will turn basic enemies into ludicrous gibs, it fucking explodes groups as bolter rounds logically would, and magdumping will have a similar effect on elites and bosses. Its drawbacks are slow reload speed, slow weapon swap time, massive recoil, only having 15 shots per magazine and fairly middling ammo economy. You can bypass the lengthy recoil animation by quickly toggling aim down sights off/on between shots. Shoots automatically when fired from the hip but only single-shot with sights, probably so your reject doesn't break their own nose with it. It might be the best vidya presentation of the weapon, more so than these games.

• Flamer: Zealot only. Good for causing trash mobs to panic and do the burny dance. Main drawbacks are a slow swap in speed and limited effectiveness against special enemies, especially mutants and poxbursters. This said, even the primary fire cough is good for causing individual elites to stagger, along with small groups. The weapon also actually has some pretty respectable boss damage since it causes stacks on additional damage-over-time to targets hit every time the weapon uses up ammo to fire. One notable glitch/exploit, using the zealot's chastise the wicked ability will cause flamer burn stacks to count as critical hits and ignore damage reduction from armor. Take advantage of it to quickly melt crushers and maulers that would otherwise only take chip damage from getting set on fire.

• Plasma Gun: Our lovely blaster cannon made for Veteran only. Suffers from a low ammo pool, an incredibly long reload time, and a heat gauge; On first impression it can feel a lot like a worse Boltgun, but in true Imperial Plasma Weapon fashion the Plasma Gun is a temperamental weapon that rewards skilled Heat management with ludicrous damage from Overcharged shots that makes short work of even the toughest enemies with the extra benefit of piercing through basically everything, be it enemies or cover. Reloading automatically cools the weapon to 0, and the special vents heat directly in to your face, draining a bit of toughness to reduce the heat. Attempting to fire normally at extremely high heat will automatically vent some heat first. Firing an Overcharged shot at 100% heat will cause the weapon to explode. Since release, plasma guns have been patched to ignore bulwark shields and pierce enemy limbs to strike them in the torso. You will want to pair it with a good chaff killing melee weapon because you are going to be using it a lot in your cooling downtime.

• Thumper Shotgun: Exclusive to the Ogryn, it's essentially a larger M79 that fires 20kg shotgun shells. It can only hold one round before reloading, but that one round is all you need to turn an entire mob into chunky salsa. Enemies that survive the blast are usually knocked on their back where you can easily crump em before they can get up. Has a pistol-whip secondary attack that sadly doesn't do much damage but can make for a substitute for pushing if your stamina is low and you're careful to kite away from melee attacks.
  • If you played the closed beta this is actual name of the Kickback shotgun, editors found the true name on playdarktide.com

• Ripper Gun: An Ogryn auto-shotgun. If you thought the Kickback turned crowds into paste, wait till you use this thing. Its standard fire is a three-round burst and holding right click turns it into a fully-automatic pellet hose that also tightens spread. Only bosses are going to survive a volley from this thing. However, it does run out of ammo fast if you try to shoot it as often as possible, so stick to saving it for vital situations (like when Ragers amongst a horde are oncoming) - maybe the Imperium was right about those burst limiters. Speaking of which, you can fire single shots with the MK5 variant by forward sprinting right after firing the first round of a three round burst. It takes practice, but allows you to better conserve ammo on higher difficulties. Lastly, ripper guns have a bayonet stab special attack which can reduce enemy armor on hit if you find one with the right RNG perk.

• Rumbler Grenade Launcher: Still just for Ogryns, instead fires grenades like the actual M79 break-action launcher tended to be used for. Good area-of-effect and dishes out some pain when impacting a target directly (unfortunate basic enemies will be gibbed like with the Thumper Shotgun), but has a timed fuse making it clearly better against large groups than high-value targets (it will still probably make a group of 5+ Crushers heading over to the team wobble, though). Has the same pistol-whip swings for its special attack as its shotgun brother. The grenade round itself smacking off of a special's face can often kill it alone before the round explodes, making this a hilarious weapon. Weirdly enough the orks also have a similarly-named and functioning weapon.

• Grenadier Gauntlet: The lovechild of a breaching ram and a grenade launcher, which Ogryns can carry by simply strapping it to a forearm. Predictably, punches the crap out of enemies with its primary function button and can fire explosives after right-clicking, as well a special attack where the Ogryn punches someone and then fires a grenade into them at point blank range. Somewhat contrary to expectations and probably to differentiate it from Thumper grenades, the impact grenades it fires have a fairly poor blast radius making not terribly effective against groups of enemies (you'll only see it kill multiple enemies at once when fired into the really numerous ambush hordes) or enemies camping in cover and instead is more useful for burning down specials or elites. You can combo it with feats that give you toughness or bleed enemies on heavy attack since its punches count as heavy attacks.

• Heavy Stubber: Ogryn only, and the description for it declares that Ogryns love their Dakka as much as any elegan/tg/entleman. Has a magazine of over a hundred and still not very accurate at a distance as Ogryn weaponry tends to, but when you can fire over a hundred shots at a sniveller you'll get them eventually anyway. Fires fully-automatically (though it lets out three-round bursts with a single trigger pull like the Ripper Gun despite having two barrels, for some reason), a grip can be pulled out to brace the gun for fully-automatic fire just like the Ripper Gun, and can be swung (at a fairly slow rate, even Ogryns have limits) with the special attack button. In practice, it's basically a bigger-but-more-cumbersome Ripper Gun with a larger magazine for longer sustained fire but less DPS caused in a smaller sort of timeframe for burning down important Specials and Elites as quickly...but it'll kill many of those things in one magazine if the Ogryn has the space to do so. The model looks to be about half of the quad-heavy stubber configuration of the Sabre Weapons Battery.
  • Krourk Heavy Stubber: The balanced stubber and the first one on release. Best uptime due to its balance of magazine size and rate of fire.
  • Gorgonum Heavy Stubber: A Double Heavy Stubber. Its bullets deal more damage and it fires slower with a smaller mag. It does have more effective range and faster time to kill, so it's best used to clear killing shooter trash mobs, especially on higher difficulties.
  • Achlys Heavy Stubber: More like the veteran's autogun. Very long mag, but it burns it up the fastest. Best for monster slaying, as the buggers are too big to miss.

Melee Weapons

• Combat Blade: Its animations are heavily focused on quick stabs, so take it if you want a fast, high DPS, low range melee weapon like Kerillians dual daggers in Vermintide. Has a lunging heavy attack that can be charged while sprinting, which gives it significantly more mobility than other melee weapons. Its special attack is a staggering jab which causes the next attack to be basically an instant heavy (it does slightly less damage than a true heavy attack and also strangely replaces the damage caused by it to that even if you fully charge up the next attack like a true heavy, forcing you to cancel it with blocking if you don't want that). Comes with absolutely beautifully animated flourishes in first-person as your character returns the knife to the idle position, and they change depending on when you end your combo. Worth trying out for that alone. Will need a coherent blessing build for it to do anything against Crushers at higher difficulties, but it's possible.

• Combat Axe: It's an axe, what's there to say other than its heavy attack is easily one of the better ones and does a decent job of chopping though armor, though maulers are still a pain, especially when's there more than one. Not very good at cutting a crowd to pieces (seriously, it can cut through like two enemies at max...and those enemies won't be flak-armoured) but it does the job well enough when each headshot will kill one enemy in that crowd, and if you're aiming for single target heavy armor it does the job well. Its horizontal-slash push-attacks are an option to hit multiple enemies at once, and with the Brutal Momentum blessing it becomes one of the game's best weaponsa pre-nerf Power Sword if it had a bit worse cleave damage in exchange for much better dodging stats and didn't have to energize, just headshot some schmuck first.

• Tactical Axe: Axe, but tacticool. Ok, actually, this one attacks much faster than the combat axe but accordingly does less damage though still useful against armour. A bit of an in-between of the combat blade and the combat axe. Getting the Brutal Momentum Blessing for it turns it into a veritable horde clearer while also making it a fine single-target option, making it one of the best weapons in the game... If you can bless it right.

• Catachan Devil's Claw Sword: According to Catachans, it's a knife. According to everyone else, it's a bloody sword. As mentioned above its built for precision strikes aimed towards a heretic's neck, preferably decapitating them. Its special attack is a parry that... actually kind of sucks, countering attacks with a crappy slash. But hey, any damage reduction at all can be a blessing. Be aware that heavier attacks will cause parries to consume stamina and enemies like plague ogryns will do significant damage to you even if you successfully parry their attacks.

• Chainsword: Wouldn't be a 40k game without one. The light attacks aren't as good for clearing hordes as the shovel, but it's better for taking out bosses and special enemies (or just that one poxwalker which looked at you funny) with its revved up special attack which will do massive damage and stagger effectively as having a fucking chainsword saw through you should, but the time it takes for you standing there driving the chainsword through them leaves you vulnerable (so accordingly, you can also turn the high RPM mode off). Take note that headshots and heavy attacks cause more damage even for the revved up attacks (unless you're running it into a Mauler's head, avoid headshotting him with this).

• Chainaxe: Handles fairly similarly to the chainsword, except that it's slightly slower due to its light attacks sticking to enemies for a split second on hit to grind them for a bit of extra damage. Increasing attack speed is very noticeable with this weapon since this also causes the light attacks' sawing animation to complete faster.

• Shovel: Veteran exclusive and all veterans start with one as their stock melee weapon. Perfect for roleplaying as a Krieger, it has good damage and can smack multiple heretics at a time. Its light attacks use the blade for good single target kills, while the heavy attacks use massive sweeping blows from the flat that can stagger more enemies. It focuses more on cleaving though a horde than the Night Fang which rewards more precise head severing strikes. However, it's pretty close to useless against carapace armour without blessings.

• Power Sword: Veteran exclusive. Similar yet distinct to the chainsword, the key thing about it is that its special attack button will instead energize the blade and cause it to cut through anyone like butter as expected of a power weapon. Was overpowered at launch when it had infinite cleave and players could swing it an average of 3 times in a row before it lost its charge. Has since been nerfed so it can only be swung once per charge and is subject to cleave limits like any other melee weapon. Look for one with the tier 4 power cycler blessing, it'll increase the number of energized swings back to launch stats.

• Heavy Sword: Zealot Exclusive. Was mediocre at launch, has since been buffed to specialize in lawnmowering through hordes with light attack spam. It's still mediocre against armored targets (though its special attack does decent damage against them and is liable to stagger them), so pair it with something like the bolter to deal with crushers and maulers.

• Power Maul: Zealot Exclusive. When charged up, it'll hit the first target for a good amount of damage (not charged-Thunder-Hammer-tier of course, but still high) and cause a small amount of damage but also basically stagger everything else nearby the first target.

• Eviscerator Chainsword: Zealot Exclusive. Giant FUCK OFF chainsword with a revved up heavy strike, it provides less mobility compared to the chainsword or some shit but who gives a fuck about that when it can cut two foes in half with one swing with its crazy good cleave. The push attacks and the first attack of its heavy attack combo are both horizontal sweeps that you'll want to spam for crowd control. A must-have weapon for female Zealot to cosplay as Sisters Repentia.

• Thunder Hammer: Zealot Exclusive. Like the eviscerator, its heavy attacks are wide anti-horde sweeps, while its light attacks are head crushing overhead swings. The special attack powers up the hammer for a single high damage, high recovery energized strike that will completely wreck the shit of whoever it hits...especially that one poxwalker off to the side while you were aiming for something else because the special attack can only hit one target. Can delete crushers when combined with the guaranteed critical hit from chastise the wicked and even bosses if you take advantage of the level 30 perk that lets you use chastise the wicked twice. A fully-built Thunder Hammer basically makes a fighting Daemonhost a refreshing and short diversion from the rest of the mission.

• Dueling Sword: Psyker exclusive. Looks like a pirate cutlass with a moveset more like a rapier. Has great range + great speed, but limited armor piercing and a relatively narrow cleave arc. Its special attack is a quick thrusting jab. Take it if you want to dodge dance enemies and bosses, it has a dodge cooldown bonus that does not show up in the unit stats.
  • Mk2: The generalist sword, with upward swipes for its light attacks, and a thrust/swipe combo for its heavies. Not very good.
  • Mk4: The horde sword, with rapid downward swipes that can hit weakpoints for its lights, and precise thrusts for its heavies.
  • Mk5: The single target sword. Two swipes and a downward slash for its lights, and powerful downward slashes for the heavies. Makes you feel like slamming your sword down on enemy heads.

• Force Sword: Psyker Exclusive, a sword that can channel warp power. Spectacularly fast and lethal especially at high peril, and if you don't like that you can also quell peril while holding it just like with the Force Staff. Though the Power Hammer and the Ogryn's weapons hit harder with individual hits the Force Sword is probably the best overall melee weapon so far, the ludicrous speed allowing it to both butcher hordes and take down the big bastards. If the RNG smiles upon your perk rolls, it can even block ranged attacks with the Deflector blessing. The special attack costs a bunch of peril to imbue the blade with the warp and makes it headbang the next foe it hits, ignoring any defenses in the process (like the chainsword, headshotting and heavy attacking matters to improve the damage of the warp-charged attack) though it takes some time and leaves you vulnerable from other targets. It also replaces the generic weapon push with an increased AOE force push, while the push attack that follows increases peril in exchange for a single target stagger that can stun even the most heavily armored and resistant bastards (seriously, you will see Crushers lose their footing). You can also use this push attack to maintain high peril if you like using the feat that increases your attack power with peril.
  • Obscurus Mk2 Blaze Force Sword: The balanced Force Sword and the initial one on release. Workable, but far outclassed by the specialized Force Swords introduced in subsequent patches.
  • Deimos Mk4 Blaze Force Sword: The single target Force Sword, but still usable for crowds. Its thrust attacks do ludicrous damage, and its slash attacks can reasonably deal with crowds. Sadly, it makes the special attack redundant because you can deal more DPS against single enemies with it's light attack -> heavy attack 1-2 combo.
  • Illisi Mk5 Blaze Force Sword: The horde clearing Force Sword. Plays similarly to the Power Sword, but with the fun of peril management. You can only make one warp-charged force strike, but you can repeatedly charge your sword to stack up Peril. Stack up Peril-Based damage multipliers (blessings, Warp Unleashed etc.), rub that thing over and over and watch it cleave through the zombies even without the force charge. Get Slaughterer so mixed hordes will only take slow you down for a few seconds longer than basic hordes.

• Ogryn Cleaver: A knife scaled up to Ogryn size, but it would be akin to an Ork choppa in anyone else's hands, which is why it's exclusive to the big boys. Is the fastest Ogryn melee weapon and the best Ogryn melee weapon for blending through hordes. The special attack is a quick uppercut to stagger things which unfortunately does very little damage on higher difficulties, but can be invaluable for staggering elites or specials while your team has to a bit more time to kill them than is preferable.

• Ogryn Club: Slower than the knife, but better at staggering hordes since its heavy attacks are all horizontal sweeps. Its special attack is pimpslapping, mostly similar to pushing in effect though it doesn't cost stamina and does at least a small amount of damage.

• Ogryn Latrine Shovel: Normal shovels are for digging trenches, these are for digging TOILETS. Ew. Fit for an Ogryn because they could probably break a normal one by using them to pick their teeth or something. Like the club, it specializes in clearing mobs with horizontal sweep attacks, though the advantage of Ogryn might makes it cause more damage, especially against armor. Special attack is the Ogryn uppercut.

• Ogryn Power Maul: Bafflingly shown off in the Ogryn's class reveal trailer but not present at launch. Has a good mix of vertical light attacks for bashing in elite skulls and horizontal heavy swings to sweep hordes. Just like Warrior Priest's flail and shield back in VT2, continuing to spam light attacks after your first combo or a push attack will turn the Ogryn's combo into wild swings that are perfect for clearing hordes. The special attack powers up the maul similar to the thunder hammer except it makes all enemies in an AOE kiss the ground instead of disintegrating single targets - seriously, basically only bosses can't be staggered by this thing's special attack and it can force groups of Ragers to sit down while they get bonked to death one by one.

• Ogryn Slab Shield: Comes with a maul that's mostly used for sideways-aimed swings aside from its push attack that strikes downward. Can block gunfire unlike other melee weapons at the cost of some stamina (which is pretty handy since groups of lasmen at Malice difficulty and up will Rape even unprotected Ogryns caught out of cover). Emperor said you shall be the cover! The shield can also be used to bludgeon enemies to death with its heavy attacks or deployed with the special attack button so the Ogryn cannot move or turn while its active but also cannot lose stamina from blocking (stamina regeneration however will still be momentarily paused after blocking). About the only weapon that can save a teammate that blundered into the open with three snipers looking at them if an ally revives that teammate behind the Ogryn's shield. It is notably more apt at creating a "Tank" playstyle than any of the shield weapons were in VT2 but there is a lot of debate on how useful that is, as you can arguably just collect aggro by walking up to things and whacking them, best defense being a good offense and whatnot. Be prepared to face a lot of ridicule from metagamers if you want to be the "Tank".

Other Characters

• Inquisitor Grendyl: The big cheese in charge of the ship. Only appears to the player via a hologram that oscillates between various male/female voices and appearances. In theory, he/she's supposed to be the one you're reporting to while cleaning up the Hive.
• Shipmistress Brahms: A former Rogue Trader currently serving the Inquisition, she runs the Mourningstar. Notably narrates and appears in the intro cinematic. Seriously looks like Mom from Futurama if she was in 40K. Got mistaken for being the Inquisitor before the game released. Dialogue throughout the game indicates that she doesn't like her ship being used to house convicts and stage a defense of the planet, which is fair, considering you're floating right above a Nurglite Chaos invasion.
• Interrogator Rannick: One of Gryndel's Interrogators. Mostly just hands out missions sometimes and acts smart. Also narrator of the reveal trailer. Seems to be cosplaying Zorg from The Fifth Element. While in the lobby, you can actually see him on a balcony above the entrance if you look up, watching you and your fellow rejects, it’s safe to say he probably up there to enjoy the entertainment of rejects stampeding and causing a riot to get to the armory whenever the weapons change. To him, this is peak hour-by-hour entertainment.
• Sergeant Major Morrow: Think of him as the Mission Control from Deep Rock Galactic or Lohner from vermintide. Now with the power of Vox technology (bless the Omnissiah!), he will constantly be providing mission details for the players team in a sarcastic tone. Frequently assumed to be voiced by Kruber's VA, but actually Harry Myers voices Morrow. His original regiment is the Armageddon Steel Legion from the SECOND war for Armageddon. He was apparently the sole survivor of a warp accident and the Inquisitor rescued him. One of the veteran random dialogues states he served with Yarrick in Hades Hive, another that he fought in the Badab War. Zealot class also mentions that Morrow fought at the Battle of Macragge and is rewarded by Ortan Cassius, a full 250+ years before the events of the game - they even repeat rumors that he was the one who gave Old One-Eye the reason for its name. He's also probably survived fighting on a world just before it got Exterminatused during the "Xanatros Purgation" which also saw three Mordian regiments annihilated in the battle against Genestealers. The PCs debate whether he's been sent forward in time during a warp jump that got bad or he's just lucky enough to get the good rejuvenat treatments that give long life.
• Tech-Priestess Hadron Omega 7-7: Runs the Mourningstar's Fabrication Shrine, allowing you to upgrade and tweak your wargear using Plasteel and Diamantium found on missions. Sometimes does the briefing and is the one who warns you when the data-interrogator starts to fuck up and you have to fix it, filled to the brim with sass and been angry for nearly 392.1736 Terran cycles or so, calls the player and the squad varlets and rightfully thinks the players are a bunch of idiots who may not be completely useless. Far too many fans have expressed how they're totally into this.
• Flight Lieutenant Masozi: The Valkyrie pilot. A sassy black woman. The squads accuse her of cheating at cards and somehow even the Tarot, with the more reckless characters constantly complaining about losing credits to her, and others trying to be a better cheater than her (they never succeed). Sometimes briefs missions.
• Sefoni: The narrator for the tutorial. You can find her stuffed in a tube aboard the Mourningstar if you want to replay the tutorial or visit a simulated firing range. Noticeably friendlier towards psyker PCs than blunts, especially ogryns.
• Explicator Zola: The character who recruits the PC as an inquisitorial pawn after their prison ship is boarded in the prologue. She loses her squad in a firefight and nearly dies but the PC saves her, and she decides to let them serve the Emperor once again. An Atoma native, is in the short story “Loyalty’s Price” where a psyker is interrogating another psyker before executing the victim of said interrogation, though it was probably for the poor bastard's own good. Sometimes briefs missions like Omega and Morrow. Being a local, she serves as a guide for the rejects by providing commentary on the seedier parts of the Atoma hive where she grew up.
• Captain Wolfer: The traitor captain in the cell next to the PC in the prologue before his heretical buddies break him out. Probably will play a role in any actual story released in post launch updates.
• Sire Melk: Aka "Sir Darius Melk, Thrice Decorated for Bravery by Lord Dolmar Martialis, Holder of the Endless March, and Warden of the Crux Mortem." Long title? Deal with it. A former fighter that would very much like to get back to fighting but instead has to deal with you poor souls, he handles weekly missions, and will reward you with special markers that you can exchange for high rarity weapons. He changes his personality depending on class and personality: Likes Professional Vets and Savant Psykers because they know their place, does not like Judge Zealots for their arrogance, for example. Notably, voiced by Bardin's VA.
• "Commodore" Alice Hallowette: The NPC who runs the much maligned microtransactions shop. Note the quotations, there's no way in hell a flag officer of the Imperial Navy is going to be selling clothing to convicts on a rogue trader vessel. Constantly teases the player characters and everyone. Your PCs on the missions complain about her high prices, which is a very interesting complaint to make about a microtransaction-based cosmetics shop.
• Medicae Servitors: Responsible for healing you on a mission. Unlike the usual servitor lobotomized into a mindless husk, likely because they used to be criminals and convicts just like you, these poor bastards are VERY aware that they're nothing more than mutilated bodies attached to a medical station and beg for the sweet release of death, or on a sadder note, will ask you to be their friend or to take them with you. Interestingly, their male VA is Lohner's and their female VA is Olesya's from Vermintide.
• That Guy: The focus of the "plot" in the initial release, a traitor causing havoc in the Mourningstar. A random nameless NPC with no voice lines who's unceremoniously shot once you reach level 30. You can actually spot them in earlier cutscenes if you've got a keen eye.

Missions

There are currently 7 mission types in the game, each with different overall objectives:

• Strike: A more generic mission type with varying objectives, though you're generally clearing out a heretic force.
• Assasination: You're being sent out to off a Traitor Guard captain and anyone that gets in the way of that, as well as listen to the coolest musical track of the game.
• Raid: Channel your inner bloody magpie and steal something from the Nurglites. Protip: Bring an Ogryn since these more often than not involve carrying something.
• Disruption: Fuck with the enemy by sabotaging part of their operations.
• Espionage: Complete some task involving information - falsified or otherwise.
• Investigation: Gather data using Auspexes and a Servo-Skull and bolt before you get killed.
• Repair: Fix something before it fails catastrophically.

Stages

Strike

• Smelter Complex HL-17-36: This facility's smelting has been shut down by heretic scum occupying it, and it's your job to rectify that. Protip: you can push members of the final horde off the final area's main platform and into the molten metal below instead of wasting ammo fighting them - especially useful if you're trying to get a certain Psyker Psykinetic penance.
• Silo Cluser 18-66/a: The Traitors have tainted a water supply node using daemonic Corruptors. You're being sent in to purify it so the Hive's water is (relatively) safe to drink again.
• Enclavum Barross: An important strategic point known as Aegis Station has fallen into Nurglite hands. You're to clear it out and hold it for long enough for the elite forces to arrive and fully secure it.

Assasination

• Chasm Station HL-16-11: A Traitor Captain is traveling by train. Naturally, you're sent out to troll him by rerouting the train and offing him when he arrives at the nearby station you sent him to.
• Magistrati Oubliette TM8-707: A Traitor Captain is holed up in an Enforcer Station that has fallen to the enemy. You're doing a reverse-jailbreak to kill his ass.

Raid

• Consignment Yard HL-17-36: Capture and hold a heretic supply train so reinforcements can move in and seize its cargo.
• Chasm Logistratum: Grendyl's elite forces are running low on special ammunition, so your Reject is killing two birds with one stone by stealing it from the Nurglites.
• Excise Vault Spireside-13: The heretics have procured a new strain of Nurgle's Blessings, so you're snatching samples for analysis. Supposedly so a cure can be made, but since this is the Inquisition that might not be the case.
• Ascension Riser 31: Added in the Rejects Unite update after the completion of the community challenge. Following on from Archivum Sycorax, you find out that there's prismata crystal payment being handed over to the traitors and you go on to intercept. Notably, has two different stories and two sets of handlers; you're either going on an official mission by Morrow to retrieve the crystals to help the Inquisition and operated by your usual handlers, or Commodore Hallowette secretly sends you to get the crystals for her, and then gets joined by Melk after he finds out and blackmails her into sharing the profits.

Disruption

• Relay Station TRS-150: A heretical signal meant to corrupt those who tune in is being broadcast. Your job is to terminate it and have the station broadcast Imperial propaganda once more.
• Refinery Delta-17: Traitors are creating a corruptive pathogen using repurposed fuel refinery equipment. Sabotage the effort by bursting the vats.

Espionage

• Vigil Station Oblivium: Purposefully spread misinformation in the Nurglite ranks by planting false intel.
• Comms-Plex 154/2f: Send a warzone report out-of-system (presumably by contacting a nearby Astropath Choir to discretely relay the report) using a communication dish. Why can't they just use the Mourningstar's own astropathic choir? Well, you can thank the Traitor for that.
• Archivum Sycorax: Added in the "Rejects Unite" update. There are apparently heretic sympathizers among Tertium's populace, so you're sent into the Deep Archives of Archivum Sycorax in order to use a Scribe Servitor to find out. Has a mid-level event where you navigate a maze to another bangin' beat from Jesper Kyd.

Investigation

• Hab Dreyko: A new plague has been released in the Hive, so you're scanning its residue (and a giant tree of gross) to gather data on it. And then bolting before the traitors kill you for snooping. Notably has the longest evac sequence of any of the missions currently, meaning it's entirely possible for you to choke after completing the main objective. Be prepared to fight your way to the choppa.

Repair

• Power Matrix HL-17-36: A Leman Russ manufactorum has been sabotaged, so you're re-stabilizing its power source using coolant rods before it melts down.

Enemies

• Poxwalkers/Groaners: Civilians of Atoma Hive who were infected by Moebian Sixth's pox gas. They are the trash mob, Skavenslave/Common Infected equivalents, in that they come in hordes with the purpose of tarpitting the players. Befitting lore, they can be heard periodically begging for help or crying over being forced to observe their body act completely outside of their control whilst out of combat, not just that laughing like their brain has been reprogrammed to not be able to scream or cry, imagine you there reading this being trapped inside a body your unable to control well in an unholy amount of pain, all the while something inside your head is making your screams come out as laughter.
  • Poxburster: Suicide bomber. Kill him from afar as soon as possible since its explosion can also corrupt players. Can be detected by the beeping sounds from their bomb. An Ogryn charge or a Zealot rush can knock them down without blowing them up, useful if you're in the detonation radius and can't get away. Alternately, if you're ballsy, pushing them will stagger them even while they toss themselves at you and give you an opportunity to kill them at a safe range or just dodge away from their explosion...unless the direction you pushed them didn't provide enough space behind them. Be careful at all times of spawn doors, these guys can quietly spawn right next to you and detonate without warning.

• Admonition Cultists: AKA The Dregs. As if their name aren't already a big give away, they are bog-standard Chaos cultists that were mostly poor Atoma underhivers. They dressed in yellow ragged robes and salvaged gasmasks. Most of their fodder are armed with lower-quality ballistic weapons and lack proper defensive garments. To compensate for their inferiority, their specials and elites will spawn in large numbers, and more frequently than the Scabs'.
• Regular Dregs: The mooks of the group. By virtue of having some proper equipment they're slightly harder to kill than Poxwalkers.
  • • Dreg Stalker: The shooters. They start out raining down lead on you from afar with autoguns then switch to using shovels or other close combat weapons up close. Because they're infected way more than the soldiers they're harder to suppress, willing to stand out and try to shoot you more than the infected guardsmen. Despite being easy to kill, on higher difficulties they're some of the most dangerous enemies by virtue of how much damage you take from everything and the sheer numbers they spawn in.
    • Dreg Bruisers: The melee focused ones. Unarmored save for their flak helmets, so depending on your weapon and build it might be better NOT to aim for the head.
  • Dreg Shotgunner: The same as their Scab variant, except without Flak armor so they're even more suicidal.
  • Dreg Tox Flamer: A lanky bald girl in robes carrying a flamethrower that burns green. It's hard to say if she's wielding a Chem-Thrower or a Plague Belcher, or if the Nurglites jumped through a Warp rift to nick Warpfire Throwers from Clan Skryre. Whatever it is, it clearly has some chaos fuckery involved since the tox flamer does less friendly fire damage than scab bombers/flamers and deals more corruption damage to players. Loves opening up on players while they're being swarmed.
  • Dreg Rager: The berserker/plague monk equivalents. Pumped full of combat drugs, they charge into melee with dual close combat weapons and start berserker swinging (albeit reuses Norscan berserker's animations from vermintide 2). They have a nasty tendency to blend in with hordes, so keep an eye out for tall shirtless cultists with lines of green glass vials stuck all over their body. Fortunately, they're not armored and die quick when focused, but keep in mind that they get increased poise when they're chaining attacks together.
  • Dreg Gunner: Scab Gunner but armed with Heavy Stubber instead of a multilaser because they are poor.

• Moebian Sixth Regiments AKA The Scabs. Its literal definition being protective crust formed by the blood of body wounds or cuts, fitting name for a Nurgle regiments. These regiments were known for being the toughest out of all Moebian regiments. However, a good grimdark dose of war trauma and a bit of Warp shenanigans later, they turned in a bunch of Nurgle worshippers. They now seek to "save" the citizens of Atoma and its sister worlds by releasing gas blessed with papa Nurgle's "truth" in the hab blocks, freeing them from the corpse Emperor's lies... They almost all wear skull-like gasmasks, although not as much as the Death Korps'. Comparing to the Dregs, they are slightly tougher due to wearing flak armor, with some specials and elites even graduating to carapace.
  • Scab Shooters: Your HERETICAL wall of guns. Smarter than Poxwalkers. Knows how to use cover like most FPS enemies. Can spawn in groups of 10 or more at difficulty 3 and higher to light your ass up like a fireworks display, forcing you to cover-hump and switch from playing 40K Vermintide to playing 40K Call of Duty. Female voices can occasionally be heard from the shooting variants, so the Moebian Sixth was(is?) a mixed-gender regiment.
    • Scab Stalker: Subtype of the above that's supposed to be like an Ork Kommando, supposedly being melee focused, sneaking through the crowds and chopping you with an axe, while occasionally shooting you from afar. In theory. In practice, they're like more durable shooty Scabs who can melee better. Annoyingly, unlike the shooty guardsmen, they don't get highlighted from the Veteran Sharpshooter's special abilities.
  • Scab Bruisers: The melee focused ones, and the exact opposite of the Dreg Bruisers, everything BUT their heads are covered in Flak armor, so headshots are absolutely the way to go.
  • Scab Bomber: Think of them as the Globadier/Spitter of this game, but lobs firebombs to create puddles of area-denying fire. Raises the question as to why their quartermasters didn't issue them gas bombs if the Sixth was going for a pestilence themed army. For whatever reason, they don't cause as much friendly fire as the Vermintide globadiers, it's pretty common to see hordes sprinting through the flames without getting burnt to a crisp.
  • Scab Flamer: Uses conventional flamers to flush players out of cover instead of the green fire flamethrowers that their Dreg Tox colleagues use. Due to programming bugs everybody thinks this guy is an abominable monstrosity instead of just some guy with a flame thrower. If everybody treated you like shit, you probably would go to Grandpa Nurgle.
  • Scab Trapper: The Packmaster/Smoker of this game. More clever than her ratty or asthmatic counterparts since the Trapper uses an electrified net gun to disable players from a distance and abandons them to the mercy of her buddies right away to focus on another target. An important tip is to listen for them. Trappers announce their presence only when they spawn with a distinct laugh, but are silent when moving around. It's not as audible as mutant roaring and pox hound barking, but having advanced warning is extremely helpful to avoid getting netted - see if you can put terrain between you and the trapper as it tries to net you, or dodge to the side as she brings up the net gun to bear. Similar to the smoker in L4D, you will not be snared if you kill the trapper while her net is still in the air, so standing your ground with a heavy weapon like a bolter or ogryn grenadier gauntlet is a viable way to take her down. Can take down your entire team if you lose track of her in a chaotic enough moment, though it should be noted that freeing an ally from the net is nigh-instant, so if you're right by someone who just got netted, it's probably worth charging right in and freeing them to easily avoid damage for them.
  • Scab Gunner: The Ratling Gunner of this game, but armed with a Hotshot Volley Gun. They're not very accurate, but will suppress players and make it difficult, but not impossible to effectively shoot back at him. Notable for having their helmet fashioned after a certain armless failure's top knot pony tail.
  • Scab Shotgunner: Suicidally aggressive, they move into optimal shotgun range and start dumping rounds. They can stagger the player on hit, so either attack them while they're focused on another player or make sure you're ready to dodge or slide when approaching for melee. Notable for having their helmet fashioned after a certain armless failure's top knot pony tail.
  • Scab Rager: Dual wielding berserkers similar to dreg ragers except significantly more dangerous since they're dressed head to toe in flak armor. Keep an eye out for their pointier than usual helmets and armor.
  • Scab Mauler: They wear Carapace Armour from the neck up, flak armor from the neck down, are tough as nails, and wield a two-handed chain-axe. Similar to Maulers from Vermintide 2 in that the vast majority of weaponry is better off used for targeting anywhere aside from these guys' heads, though this isn't as visually obvious as in Vermintide 2 since Darktide's Maulers still look pretty well-armoured from the neck down.
  • Scab Sniper: This guy hangs out at a distance and blends in with vanilla traitor guardsmen until he turns on his targeting laser. His long-Las shots are very painful since they're strong enough to blast through toughness and deal HP damage with every shot. He is at his most dangerous when he has pals to tarpit players while he picks them off one by one. Take cover behind a wall or a structure if you see him scoping you out with his laser even if poxwalkers are presently about to crack your head open to get at your brains, because your teammates will be hard-pressed to get you back up on your feet while a sniper is looking in your direction. On the plus side, he dies almost instantly the moment the players start shooting back at him. The veteran's ability to highlight special enemies is invaluable in pinning this slippery bastard down though any player can highlight him by spamming the callout enemy button in the general direction of his laser sight.

• Mutant: Mutants that were enhanced with cybernetics and pumped full of experimental drugs. Inspired by the Charger from Left 4 Dead, its role is to charge at one of the players to separate them from their team, then give them a little ground pounding, followed by throwing them even further. Keep an eye on the terrain, they can incapacitate or even instantly kill players by throwing them off cliffs. It is a pretty big abomination, about the size of an Ogryn, and it is pretty fast and tanky. Funnily, it shares the Chaos Spawn's throwing animation from Vermintide 2. Liable to choose one target and then run past everyone else to get to them no matter how much dakka that tends to attract, but it's understandable since the poor thing most likely doesn't have much of a mind anymore. Its charge can be dodged with good timing (look for it raising its arm), and it charging into you with a wall behind you won't give it enough space to try and pummel you - leading it to tossing you away without much done to you (hopefully) before it tries charging again. Is heard approaching from a mile away due to its non-stop screaming. Do NOT try to use corners against this thing, it will make 90 degree turns and pound your ass.

• Pox Hound: A straightforward Gutter Runner/Hunter, but not as agile nor stealthy since it likes to bark and it does not fly. It sometimes comes in a squad of 2 or 3 mixed in with hordes. Its bite can corrupt players, not to mentioned it is fast and tanky so like the Pox Burster, it should be another enemy to be taken out afar ASAP. Just like the Mutants they will prioritize their chosen target regardless if the rest of the team is opening fire. UNLIKE the mutant or trapper, you will not be likely to dodge one if it lunges as the animation will just clip through whatever is in the way, and latency can be a bitch. It takes reduced damage from ranged but has very low melee resistance, so if your bud gets pounced on and you're close by, keep your bullets and start smacking the thing. Their pathing gets messed with by terrain such as corners or lampposts, so putting them between you and the dog buys you time for a proper moment to hit it. Like Gutter Runners, well-timed pushes or simply spamming fast attacks can knock them back even while they're lunging, and if you're in a tight spot absent of backup, dropping a delayed-fuse grenade by your feet (or if you're really desperate, hitting a nearby exploding barrel) will free yourself from them.
  • More recent updates have introduced a variant that comes in groups (and therefore is even worse), but thankfully these have much less HP and often die in one hit. Hounds have bad cornering, if you hear a pack barking in the distance, have the team hunker down at a corner where everyone can smack them in melee before they can turn and pounce.

• Chaos Ogryn: The Chaos Warriors of this game, but bigger with the abnormally large body proportions of Ogryns. Their job is to attract the players' attention and tank as much as possible. These tough dumb bastards come in three variants:
  • Crusher: The offensive variant dressed in full carapace armor and armed with a two handed rockcrete hammer. Reminiscent of the Chaos Warriors from Vermintide 2 except they actually hold up your team as opposed to falling over dead in 0.8 seconds as Chaos Warriors would. Irritatingly, your characters will chew you out for hitting the armor on one...when they are completely enclosed in armor..
  • Bulwark: Chaos Bullgryns, the defensive variant that's armed with a mace and a big sturdy shield, but thankfully other than the carapace armlet on his right arm, its body isn't completely armored. One could easily dodge its sloppy big attack then hit his exposed naked back with a powerful attack like a chainsaw's special. Psykers can bypass their shield with a Brain Burst, Surge Force Lightning and force sword special attacks while player ogryns can knock them on their ass with bull charge. Zealots and Vets can also use grenades to throw them off-balance, leaving them open to a charge or a well-placed headshot. As a last resort, its shield can be avoided even while they're facing you by hitting them in the middle of their attacks or dodging to their sides as their attacks begin.
  • Reaper: The ranged variant that will fill the players, the air, and their allies full of lead with their big fucking Heavy Stubber. Think of it as a harder-hitting, meatier version of the Scab Gunner. Do care it wears some carapace armor on his body so players should aim for the head or the unarmored bits of their body.

Monstrosities (Bosses)

• Plague Ogryn: The first revealed randomly encountered boss of this game. Just a big rotting mutated Ogryn that wants to eat you and stuff you inside its shitty rotten intestine. Pretty much the Rat Ogre/Tank equivalent. Just like rat ogres/tanks, be careful fighting them around bottomless pits that they can punch players into. Its weak spot is its head.

• THAT KARKING THING: Revealed in the World Intro Trailer. It made its return in this game with some techno gadgets on its body and probably had the same animation as the one from vermintide 2 as well.Has yet to show up in the game even after launch. Was finally added into the game via the "Rejects Unite" update. Almost identical to it's appearance in Vermintide 2 with slight animation and aesthetic changes. Has noticeably less HP than Nurgle's other monstrosities but makes up for it with superior speed and aggressiveness. Keep an eye out for it's jump attack that allows it to rapidly close the distance to melee.

• Beast of Nurgle: This huggy guy isn't too fast but it leaves a slimy snail trail of diarrhea everywhere it goes that causes damage over time and slows movement speed. It's attacks mostly consist of vomiting said diarrhea at the player. Said vomit also acts as a tracker: If you have the debuff, it'll try to eat you. Stay nice and (relatively, for a prisoner) clean, and it'll stick to its more easily avoidable melee attacks. If you're playing as an Ogryn, you can immediately make him vomit a devoured teammate by beaning him with a thrown grenade box or using the career Bull Rush ability on it. Has a big pus bubble on the back of his head which functions as his weak spot, aggressive players can run up and hit it in melee while he's locked in one of his barf animations.

• Traitor Captain: Or Scab Captain for Low Gothic speakers. They serves as the boss of assassinate missions. Many things about him such as his name and weapons are randomly generated, so you'll see him carrying either a shotgun or a plasma pistol as range weapons; a two-handed power maul or a one-handed power sword as melee weapon. He always has Refractor Field equipped however. Do not tunnel vision on the boss because they will call in poxwalkers and traitor guard for support. Special enemies can and will spawn in the middle of the fight and you do NOT want to play where's waldo with trappers and snipers amongst the traitor guardsmen. Ogryns can knock him down with their bull charge when his shield is down, so having one on your team for these missions is ideal. His shield decreases ranged damage, so you have to beat him down close and personal before using your guns. Try to time your stuns to hit right before he regenerates his Refractor Field so your team has extra time to beat it down while he's recovering, or better yet, have the last few hits be done solo while the rest of the team readies brain bursts, power swords, force swords, chain weapons or other high damage attacks. Has an absolutely fucking baller boss soundtrack.

• Daemonhost: Much like the Witch in Left 4 Dead, the Daemonhost doesn't attack you unless you hit it, shine a flashlight near it, or get too close to it. But if someone does end up doing any of those things (block, dodge and pray to the Emperor if this is you) it'll rise up menacingly... And do nothing. You have one more chance to leave it the fuck alone. If you don't, you asked for it. It will teleport over to the idiot who annoyed them to to fuck their shit up and will try to possess them when they're downed for an instant kill. You don't need to fight it, so your best strategy is simply to leave it alone- if you hear its whispers, keep your lights off and be very careful with your shots to make sure you don't aggro it by accident. It is possible to kill it with some heavy-duty damage sources (Brain Burst is an obvious suggestion), though probably the only way to reliably kill it on Damnation without losing a teammate's soul or two is to have an Ogryn with Slab Shield (or a psyker with the Kinetic Deflection Feat and a non-Force Sword melee weapon) to aggro it (after which it will laser focus him until either one dies) and then set down the shield to constantly block its attacks and only receive some constant corruption damage from its nearby presence rather than getting absolutely karked in a few seconds. Alternately, specialized zealot builds can quickly burst down daemonhosts with thunderhammers, but don't try it yourself unless you know what you're doing. Just like the witch, it will automatically fuck off once they've reached their desired kill count. Unlike the witch, it will go for two members of the team instead of one on Malice difficulty or higher, so have fun.

Surviving Tertium Hive for rejects

A general misconception is that being over-leveled for a difficulty will make you Grimaldus flattening a bunch of snotlings. While it is obvious for people who played Vermintide, players new to Fatshark's approach of co-op games might not get the hint. What will get you through the mission is not to dish out the most damage or slaughter the most heretics, it's in fact your ability to minimize the damage you take through the level and using your environment to the fullest. Here are a few tips to help you being the best heretic crusher there is on Atoma Prime. Source: "Trust me, I'm an enginseer".

• General tips:
  • Stick together or die alone: Especially true since there is a whole mechanic of health (and passives) that encourage you lot to stick together, you'll even find out that some specials cannot do shit against you as a group (looking at you pox hound). You'll need stabby mates to hold the line and the shooty ones to clear the specials or other shooties.
  • If you see them coming, they will die: Choose carefully where you receive an oncoming onslaught- stay away from holes in the ceiling or automatic doors. You might want to see what is coming at you and kill it before it sees you. Also helps if you have cover and a chokepoint.
  • Look everywhere for supplies: Some of you may have noticed that 'nades, well supplied ranged weapons and medipacks can make the difference between getting away with the valkyrie or seeing yourself in some weird ass nurglite goo. You may break the "stick together or die alone" to this end, just remember to regroup when the poxwalkers come, a nasty special pops up or you encounter a large group of heretics. This goes double if you're hunting for scriptures or grimoires that spawn randomly around the level.
    • Know when NOT to look for supplies: On higher difficulties especially, staying in an area for too long is just invitation to getting swarmed. If you aren't hurting for ammo and health, it's better to just hoof it and get to where you need to be ASAP.
  • Make sure the coast is clear: As you advance through the difficulties, basic shooting enemies become a greater and greater threat with them doing more damage and being more prevalent in the game's many shadowy corners - the only way to avoid them making you embarrassingly dead from being shot in the back after you decided to advance is to make sure they are all dead. And even then, they can spawn ambiently to suddenly fuck up your shit or be obscured by shadowy corners, so constant vigilance is your only warning system.
  • Blocking is bonkers, being pushy gets your way, but dodging is important too: Blocking is a pretty reliable tool for avoiding melee damage as long as you have stamina, pushing can give you even more control over hordes by briefly staggering even more enemies than it would take your stamina to block their attacks or give you the space to slip by enemies surrounding you, but the truly best way to not have pointy or sharp objects in places you don't want them to be is to not be there. Disabling specials can be avoided with good timing by dodging right before their attacks land. Renegade guards'/cultists' guns will briefly flash before they fire, so you can even dodge gunfire if you're quick on your feet. You can also avoid bullets while sliding. Unfortunately, it'll take practice. Regardless, using all three of these defensive tools for melee in between each other is the way to go - dodging too often one after the other will causes your dodges to barely move at all without a short break from dodging, blocking many enemies at once will drain all of your stamina, and pushing alone isn't going to work very well against heavier enemies (especially if they're already attacking)...and attacking in between is important too, since stamina regeneration is paused by dodging.
  • A good defense button for your best offense: Just like in Vermintide, blocking completely resets your attacks' chain which for certain weapons with distinct swing patterns can be extremely useful for certain situations - like the Catachan Night Fang which does two diagonal swings that are good for hitting multiple horde enemies and then a downswing which most certainly is not, so you should stick with the first two attacks and block after them to cancel your chain back into them if you've got a lot of basic enemies in front of you. This is still useful even for weapons where its attack pattern is very similar (like the shovel's heavy attacks which are just swings right-to-left and then vice-versa), since it can help you land your attacks more effectively on weaker enemies in a large horde with heavily-armored elites mixed into it by turning your camera and dodging to the right of the elites.
  • Know your gear: Especially on higher difficulties, you better be acquainted with your wargear's moveset and how to get to the important attacks. Weapons like the dueling sword and combat blade do very low damage but slash and stab ridiculously fast, deal bonus damage to weakspots and, very importantly, can dodge far and often to make sure your sorry ass isn't mashed into a pulp. Some weapons need you to use your special button to make full use of them, such as power and chain weapons. Push attacks come out when you hold the attack button after pushing, and they often do the opposite of what a weapon is good it (IE, a horde-clearing sword might get a headsniping overhead) to give it some leeway. Whether they're good for clearing hordes or singling out the Elites, Specials and Bosses, you better know what you're dealing with. The released game comes with Attack Breakdowns for every single weapon, showing which attack and, in turn, each weapon, is good for singles and which are good for hordes.
    • Pick your weapons carefully: Related to this, barring some fairly specific builds and depending on class, you'll usually want to have one weapon that can deal with hordes and one weapon that can deal with elites. The Psyker and Sharpshooter will always have some fairly reliable means of killing Elites quickly so you'll usually want a chaff killer to accompany them. The same principle applies for the others. Several Melee weapons will be able to do both effectively but naturally rely on you being at close range.
      • Bear in mind that you can only actively regain toughness via melee kills and chaff is the most common source of that, so you will usually want your melee weapon have some chaff-killing capability.
  • Watch your back: While it'd be great if your entire team were able to constantly overwatch each other at all times and moments, you're generally just a bunch of geeks on a computer that will probablydefinitely get distracted by the many things that can go wrong during a mission. Even worse, just like in Vermintide, enemies can spawn out of the ether without warning right behind you. Therefore, the only 100% reliable method for making sure that you never get hit from behind is to check behind you with your own eyes - spare a glance behind yourself sometimes and listen closely if you prefer to have a chance of blocking the stabs that will be aimed at you.
  • Use cover: While it may sound like "thank you, Captain Obvious"-tier advice, you may remember that someone paid a bunch of dudes to put and design those debris, concrete slabs, crates, and barrels in the middle of the fucking path. Darktide is still a first-person shooter and requires you to occasionally have a shooty phase while using cover. This tip is mostly for people not familiar with this genre, Vermintide players being used to just dodging around an open space whenever there's no specials and fighting opponents who typically can't hurt them if they're not up close, or simply believing that having cosmetic flak armor makes you bulletproof.
    • Consider your height: Sadly, that height slider isn't just for show. If you're tall enough, you won't be able to take cover behind smaller objects, but as a consolation you might be able to shoot over them (little relief when you're being pelted by bolts and bullets, but it's something) and in melee, you won't have to angle your swings to get good headshots. Ogryn are sadly fucked in this regard no matter what.
  • Consider risk and revive: Just like in later Vermintide, you automatically block all melee attacks while reviving, so if you have enough stamina or run Kinetic Deflection for psyker, you might be able to tank a horde of poxwalkers without getting hurt. Shooters however will drain your toughness instead, no blocking will help. Getting damaged interrupts revives unless you're an Ogryn. Don't attempt a revive until you can reliably bring your mate up. Zealot stun grenades (or even Veteran frag grenades, if you throw enough of them), the Ogryn's bull charge, and psyker knockdown can help you get a quick + sneaky revive without killing everyone around you. This does not apply to teammates snared by trappers. Untangling them is much faster than a revive and their healthbar will be greatly depleted if a handful of poxwalkers beat on them while they're lying on the ground.
  • Chop the shooty ones, shoot the choppy ones: As is often the case in 40k proper, enemies that are good at being shooty do poorly when they're locked in melee, while choppy heretics can't shoot worth shit and may not even have guns. Most importantly, the moment you get close enough, enemies with multiple weapons will take a fatal moment to switch up, an opening you can easily exploit. Use this to your advantage.
  • Use your team to help you: This is especially useful when being targeted by elites. Since most of the time they will focus on only one teammate, it's best to tag them, then block/dodge/take cover and wait for your buddies to take care of the heretic.
  • Spam that tag button: The tag button works on special enemies hiding in darkness, in fog, or inside a mob of lesser enemies. Spam that button to pick them out for you and your teammates. Make sure to rebind it to a more convenient key or button if you must.
  • Engaging patrols or groups of heretics: Basic rule: elites die first. Composition and placement of those groups can result in multiple approaches: force them into melee if they are more shooty with a zealot rush/stun grenade or an ogryn charge, especially a good call if you can flank them. You can also have your veteran or psyker taking the most problematics out with a well placed grenade, volley fire snipe or brainburst. Or go Call of Duty style to soften up the nasties and take down the choppy ones from a relatively safe distance.
    • Kill the squishies: Another good rule-of-thumb in most cases is to kill the enemies that you will certainly kill faster. Bosses may be scary, but the player being attacked by them can focus on dodging and kiting them to take practically no damage from them. Crushers and Maulers are spooky, but the same rule applies. Gunners, Flamers, Pox Hounds and the like however can all still cause damage and disable your team while being harder to keep away from entirely but will be killed far quicker than the aforementioned enemies, removing their ability to harm you further and giving the team more space to hopefully end the tougher doodz without them doing too much damage to the team. A horde of basic enemies can usually be killed far faster than a boss will...and the team will kill the boss a lot faster when they aren't constantly turning around to the poxwalkers poking their backs. While proper resource allocation can allow you to occasionally ignore this rule (there's not much reason for a psyker to start head exploding a Gunner when the entire fucking rest of the team is already shooting at them, after all), it's a generally-safe procedure to follow. Don't get distracted by the enemy's distraction carnifexes!
    • Clear the lines of fire: Players may not actually be able to cause friendly-fire damage to each other despite their avatars' verbal complaints, but getting in the way of your teammates preventing them from shooting at specials or elites still wastes their time and even their ammo. If you're one of the closer players to a priority target, consider crouching to ensure your allies will be able to shoot at them too. If you're sticking with your melee weapon when priority targets are about, try going toward terrain (and then going backwards if also necessary) so allies behind you can stick toward the middle of an area and easily shoot at priority targets on either side (this also simplifies things for you unless the terrain is also a door, since you can be sure enemies can't approach you from the terrain).
  • Those barrels ain't for show: Maps are littered with explosive barrels and hanging land mines you can shoot to clear out enemies. Obviously, you also want to make sure you're not standing too close to them yourself, since the enemy's shots can set them off too! They're color-coded too: Yellow for vanilla explosions, red for flame bombs that will coat the ground in fire.
  • Professionals have standards: Remember to protect this guy, who is willing to give up the purging for 10 seconds and use the auspex scanner or debugging the data interrogator. If you are this guy, you deserve your own Leman Russ Battle Tank.
  • It's not fleeing, it's a strategic retrograde advance: Don't hesitate to retreat to a safer position to take cover in order to regenerate your toughness or force heretics to attack you through a chokepoint. Better yet, if you can area transfer while a horde is coming, just do it and leave those screaming sickos behind.
  • Miniboss encounters: "How" and "where", those are the two questions that you must ask yourself when fighting one. For where, a big open area to facilitate your dodges, clear of enemies and without any pit, unless you want to visit Tertium's Under-Underhive. As to how, if you are targeted by the creature, focus on dodging, blocking and looking out to not be blocked by objects. In the other case, kill all others enemies first, then focus on the bastard. This will get easier when you get an idea of how their attack pattern works. Also works with the heretic captains.
    • Do not shoot the Daemonhost: Seriously, they'll probably just eat the souls of one or two of your teammates if you try. Like Witches from Left 4 Dead, they are better off avoided, but they are far harder to kill than Witches. Unless you're achievement hunting, in which case, try not to get everyone killed, yeah?
      • Sometimes, by dint of game induced randomness, a Daemonhost will be directly in the way of your party. In those circumstances, clear the immediate area of enemies and do your best to slip by it as quick as you can. Daemonhosts give you two chances to avoid them (pissing them off the first time will make them levitate, the second time will give you a bad day), so just have the party beat feet past it before it gets mad. Otherwise, sic the best dodger / blocker on the host and pray to the Emperor that your team doesn't get wiped. If you're REALLY unlucky, you may be faced with two of them at once (though this seems to only occur on the higher difficulties, thankfully). In that case, you're just screwed.
  • Don't killsteal a Psykers Brainburst target (usually..): Because Psykers need to actively kill targets with brainbursts to get their Warp Charge passives (with accompanying feat bonuses), most psykers will keep their charges topped off by bursting chaff. Let them do it. On a more casual front, really try not to kill a target being brain bursted in general; it's a waste of the psyker's time and just means they built up heat for nothing. THIS SAID, some targets that need multiple brainbursts are worth dealing the extra damage to (Mutants, Ogryns, other elites on harder difficulties etc) or when something needs killing really quickly.
  • The little things add up: There is a tendency to look at certain weapons and write them off if they don't reliable kill all chaff in one hit. Flamers and Staves tend to get hit with this, along with some other melee weapons. The useful things about these weapons / attacks is that they will frequently set up your team mates for much easier kills ; either by weakening them or staggering them.
  • Corners for Pox Hounds, Walls for Mutants: These two are the exact opposite in how they work. Pox Hounds are TERRIBLE around corners, meaning that if they can't jump an object they'll waste time clumsily going around it, leading to an easy kill. Mutants on the other hand can take 90 degree angles to bum rush your ass and pound it to the ground, so do NOT dodge into an object it can turn around. On the other hand, getting trapped by a Pox Hound without anywhere to dodge into is a recipe for disaster, while Mutants will harmlessly throw you away if they have no space to pound you. Assuming there are no instant death bottomless pits, of course...
• Veteran:
  • Clean up the ranged chaff: On higher difficulties, as enemy damage becomes higher, your job as the vet changes from sniping elites to killing everything that tries to shoot at you. With your increased ammo count and increased ranged/weakspot damage, you are the most reliable member of the party for killing ranged foes. Focus on dealing with them while your team protects you from melee hordes.
  • Deal with the campers: The Veteran is the most well equipped for denying Scab Snipers from getting shots off, due to the combination of Focus Fire and having the best ranged weapons in the game. If one gets marked for death (or you spot one using Focus Fire's highlight or the naked eye), drop whatever you're doing and eliminate him if possible.
  • Two’s company, three’s a crowd: Veterans scale very poorly with other veterans. You need a lot of ammunition to function and work best when someone else is distracting the melee enemies so you can line up your shots. When putting a team together, try not to have more than two veterans. If you do end up with more than that, seriously consider bringing a basic lasgun or autogun to maximize your ammo pool.
  • Sharing is caring: Just because you are the most ranged-focused class doesn't mean you are the only guy with a gun. Generally speaking, you shouldn't pick up an ammo box if you have more than two full clips worth of ammo in your bag, nor should you pick up a grenade box if you still have more than two.
• Zealot:
  • Stuns for the clutch: The Zealot Stun Grenade is one of the best CCs in the game, and thus should be saved for very bad situations. You CAN use it to soften up hordes, but their utility for having to GTFO of a bad situation or clutch a revive can't be ignored.
  • Don't be a masochist: Just like in Vermintide 2, try not to get damaged on purpose just for your attack buff. It's a side effect of bad moves, NOT your main playstyle. That extra attack won't be worth shit if you go down in one or two hits, and the Toughness system in Darktide means a Zealot with full toughness, one health and the invincibility passive on cooldown really will die in only two successive hits by anything, unlike a Zealot in Vermintide 2 being almost functionally alike to being at full health with an entire bar of temporary health.
  • You can be a crit class: Zealot's class ability makes his next melee a crit. Combine this with effects that activate on critical hits, stack critical hits on high-speed weapons like a combat blade, and you've got yourself a crit-fishing priest.
  • Charge to safety: Your class ability can be used for more than just getting into melee. The rush forward can be used as an emergency dodge, and the instant toughness regeneration makes it useful even if you’re already in melee with the enemy. Additionally, unlike the veteran and ogryn powers yours doesn’t unequip/swap your weapon, so you can quickly zip to cover with a bolter or other slow-equipping gun.
    • Charge to PEWPEW: While your class ability makes your next melee hit an immediate crit...it can also make all of your ranged weapon's shots crit for the five-second duration it lasts without being consumed on a melee hit. Since crits can ignore some of the damage reduction caused by armor, this can allow weapons which would otherwise be essentially useless against Crushers, such as flamers or lasguns, to situationally tear them up.
    • Become a homing missile: Line up your crosshairs with a particular enemy when you activate the charge, and you'll beeline straight towards it. You have increased charge distance when you do this, and when you tackle them they get heavily staggered. A great tool for both movement and offense.
• Psyker:
  • Force Weapons aren't always the answer: Your force weapons aren't the only tools in the psyker's kit. They do interact with the peril meter more, but the other weapons are as good as they are on other classes, better depending on how they interact with the psyker's skills. All non-force weapons also passively quell peril 25% faster than force weapons, allowing you to use your Brain Burst or the force weapons you do bring more while neatly switching between them.
  • You are a tank with Kinetic Deflection: Kinetic Deflection exchanges block stamina for blocking with Peril instead. Now you have 100% of Peril to work with instead of a few bars, and managed well you have far more defensive play than any other class. With Force Sword Deflector, now you can block hails of bullets. With a non-Force weapon which passively quells ridiculously fast, you can reliably substitute for a shieldgryn for tanking a Daemonhost.
  • You're a delicate flower without Kinetic Deflection: Psykers are the weakest class in the game, with less health even than the veteran. Unless you have the specific tanking build in mind, you want to avoid charging into the fray recklessly.
  • Flow like water: Building off the previous point, damage mitigation is key for playing a psyker. If you don't have Kinetic Deflection, your best tool is dodging. You can dodge whilst channeling your brain burst or quelling your perils, so be sure to keep moving if the enemy gets too close.
  • Flay with speed: Weapons that shoot and swing fast like the autoguns and duelling swords are perfect for proccing your Kinetic Flayer auto Brain Burst and keeping your warp charges high. The king of this for the psyker is the autopistol, due to the close-range focus, the high ammo and, of course, the ludicrous firing speed.
  • Be a team player: Just because you don't need ammo or grenades doesn't mean your team doesn't. Tag any big ammo bags or grenade boxes you see, and be ready to cover your teammates if they need to scrounge for supplies.
  • Your ult has incredible utility: You can use Psykinetic's Wrath for more than just quelling peril in overheat. As long as you're looking at these things while you click the button, you can: pre-stagger a horde, free a teammate being chewed on by a Pox Hound from far away, continue your Brain Burst offensives by quelling and more.
  • Know how to use your Peril: There are generally two extremes you want your peril, low or high. Low peril means you can spam a lot before you have to quell. Keeping it high however can give you massive buffs depending on your feat and blessing setup. Living on the edge at 100% is perfectly viable if you want a high-risk, high-reward playstyle.
    • You don't overheat at 100%: A useful quirk with your Peril is that simply getting to 100% won't have you blowing up like a melta bomb. You have to cast something at 100% to overheat. You can start a brain burst at 90%, explode someone's head to bring you to 100 and you'll be A-OK unless you cast something right after before you cool down. This all applies to force weapons, special pushes with the laspistol and more. For people who like high-peril usage for buffing themselves, this is something to keep in mind.
• Ogryn:
  • You are the best support in the game: Between your tankiness, your unstoppable revives, charges like Foot Knight Kruber and your ability to carry things without any move speed loss, you have more utility than the other classes. Use these advantages well.
  • The more the merrier: Ogryns tend to get significantly more powerful when working with other ogryns. Two ogryns together are a force to be reckoned with, while three are all but unstoppable. Having an all ogryn team is hilarious (especially seeing all four guys try to cram into the valkyrie in the loading screen), you won't have any good way of dealing with long range enemies like snipers (unless you're really REALLY good with your grenades, and made sure someone packed a Gorgonum).
  • Be aware of your size and position: Because of your... girth... Ogryns really have to watch where they stand. Cover is hard to come by when you're taller than most everything even when you crouch (making your Ogryn's height anything less than the highest in an attempt to fit into more cover will be punished by BLAM, why the fuck else would you play Ogryn then), and your back can take friendly fire as much as your face gets melted by enemy fire.
  • Clear the hordes: Ogryns have some of the best crowd control in the game, from the humble bully club to the twinlinked Heavy Stubber. As such, you're right up there with the Zealot's Flamer and the Psyker's Purgation Staff in bringing the hurt to large mobs of enemies. That plus being more tanky than the punies means standing between your allies and a horde is actually a sound move...just also try to give your buds behind you a clear line-of-fire to any special enemies that you'll want deader than the rest of the horde as much as possible.
  • Think before you shoot: Ogryn guns tend to have very high damage but low ammo, slow reloads, and poor accuracy. Make sure every shot (or every burst of shots with the heavy stubber) is targeting an enemy that's actually worth shooting. Every ogryn gun in the game so far has a melee special attack: use that to clear out the chaff if you don't want to switch to your melee weapon.
  • Charge only as much as you need to: Moving backwards while your Bull Rush is occurring will cause it to stop. This can allow you to keep with your team, stay in cover, or just let you get to caving in prostrate Crusher skulls ASAP rather than fucking off to Surroundedville.