In this review, we will discuss the game Warhammer 40,000 Darktide, a first-person shooter co-op game, that focuses on horde combat with set objectives and missions. This game is similar to others such as Left 4 Dead, World War Z, Back for Blood, and Warhammer: The End Times – Vermintide. I have roughly around 20 hours of gameplay to Darktide and have experienced most of what the game has to offer. This will be an honest review and unbiased, as I will go through key aspects of the game and mention the pros and cons. At the end, I will give the game a percentage rating out of 100.
Gameplay. The gameplay itself is very entertaining allowing in detailed immersion. For actual gameplay, the game is a series of missions that are given to you. You and a team of four must complete this mission and fight through hordes of enemies and elites that will do anything to stop the players. The players must use a wide variety of weapons from shovels to high-powered laser guns. The combat gives real threats to the players and forces them to be careful. Gameplay is very fast paced and allows players to work together to help each other survive. The game also provides you with four distinct classes that players can play, all having unique skills and abilities that help the party in their own way. Overall gameplay is genuinely very entertaining and would rate it 90/100.
The story of the game is very “realistic.” What I mean by that is there are super soldiers and aliens that can rival the power of gods. But there are regular people that live in this setting and the players play as those regular folk. They are not gods and do not have special powers or abilities. The world is cruel and the player must struggle to fight for every inch that is given. The missions and the story behind them are not unrealistic for this setting and the story that unfolds throughout does a good job of showing that. However, the story isn’t very long, and there isn’t much character development or an extremely detailed story. It’s clear the game wanted to focus on gameplay and missions and while the plot is still good it feels as though a little more extra detail could have really made the game that much better. I would rate it 60/100.
For mechanics, I will be talking about frame rate, texture quality, game interactions, and general mechanics of the game. When the game first came out there were various gameplay and quality issues that made it very difficult for people with average PCs to actually play the game at a decent frame rate and quality. It was clear the game still needed work. But this was actually fixed very quickly and the game’s developers, Fatshark, offered a public apology for this issue and proceeded to give detailed help to their community when people were still experiencing issues. Fatshark cared about its community enough to directly help and stay in communication with the Darktide community. Additionally, they provided detailed information on all upcoming content and updates. It’s something that more and more games continue to ignore, so this alone makes me give them a higher rating for their game. I will rate this part 55/100.
Overall, I do enjoy Darktide and it will be a game I will play in the coming days. My overall rating of the game is 75/100 or 3.6/5 stars. This is a game that I will enjoy for a while but based on its performance issues, I can see people getting aggravated to a point of not playing the game. If you enjoyed Fatshark’s earlier games, such as Vermintide, this option is that and so much more. While Darktide has its problems, it will still be a game I recommend to friends.
Written by Jace Phillips, Lethbridge College
