Warhammer 40,000: Darktide News

We’ve long seen the comments from players saying they want more of a challenge from Darktide. Players would like to continually challenge themselves and improve their skills. You want to face the horrors of the tide.

We’re excited to announce the next major game feature we have been working on for Darktide: Havoc.

If you’re a player who relishes overcoming obstacles and seeks to measure and improve your abilities, then Havoc has been crafted specifically for you.

This dev blog is an introduction to Havoc and to answer initial questions. We’re still performing tests for it, and we’ll announce a release date as soon as we are confident! We will be following this dev blog up with another Q&A, similar to what we did with Itemization.


Commissar Dukane and the Moebian 53rd Steelheads have arrived on Atoma, keen to prove their mettle and quash this uprising. Havoc missions represent Dukane’s influence on the war for Tertium. She believes in firm, swift, decisive action, striking at the heart of the traitor forces and ensuring each mission takes the maximum toll on the enemy.

An uncompromising taskmaster, she demands the best from all her charges, rewarding those she deems worthy with yet more perilous missions, or as she might say, opportunities for greatness.

Let’s break this down further.

Havoc is a new tiered progression system we have been working on for Trust Level 30 players.* This system will consist of different levels, known as Order Levels. There will be 40 Order Levels in total for Havoc.

Each Order Level will incrementally increase in difficulty, with increasing negative modifiers and varying mutators. Players won’t only face increased hordes or enemies, they’ll also encounter 4 brand new mutators, including one the community has recently encountered: the Infected 21st Moebians.

** Only Trust Level 30 players will be able to access Havoc.

A player’s Havoc Rank is the highest level they’ve reached and successfully completed in Havoc.

A Havoc Order is the current mission a player is facing. Each Havoc Order is unique and personal to the player in terms of what mission and what mutators.


[h2]1. Tiered Challenges[/h2]

There will be 40 Havoc Order levels for players to progress through for Havoc. With each level missions will become incrementally more difficult, allowing players to gauge their skill progression. To unlock Havoc, players must first complete an Auric or Non-Auric Maelstrom mission.

For each Order level, more negative modifiers are introduced. This increase is additive, meaning the previous modifiers will carry over to the next Havoc Order, plus any new ones on top of it. For example, if an Order level 1 reduces toughness regeneration, then Order level 2 will reduce toughness regeneration and another negative modifier on top of it. So on, and so forth until Order level 40 provides the most challenging content in the game.

A player will need to beat an Order level once in order to progress to the next Order level. A player will have 3 attempts to beat a Havoc Order level before being demoted down one Order level.

[h2]2. Personalised and Dynamic Havoc Orders[/h2]

While the modifiers are pre-defined for each Havoc Order, the mission and mutators applied to each order level will be unique and randomized for each player. This means Order Level 1 for one player will not look the same as a level 1 Order for another player.

If a player fails to complete the Havoc Order after an attempt, the player can continue to attempt the same unique mission and mutator combination. However, the enemies and spawns will appear in different places throughout the mission, which brings a level of variety and unpredictability so no two runs are the same.

As mentioned above, players will have 3 attempts per Order Level before being demoted one level.

[h2]3. Fluid Ranking System[/h2]

Havoc will update a player’s Order Rank on a weekly basis. If a player was unable to complete their Havoc Order before Havoc is updated for the week, they’ll remain at the same Havoc Order. But they’ll have a different mission and mutator combo to attempt.

If a player does not succeed in progressing forward in any Order Levels during the week, they will be decayed 1 Havoc Order the following week.

[h2]4. Cooperative Gameplay[/h2]

Players are not alone in their journey. Havoc encourages inviting friends to help progress through the Havoc Ranks together. While using the Party Finder to form a team, players will choose which friends’ Havoc Order to challenge together. The only requirement is to be at least level 30. If players form a group, it doesn’t matter if one friend is Havoc Rank 1 and the others are Havoc Rank 20. They can all play together.

For example’s sake, let’s say we had a group of four players: Player A (Havoc Rank 20), Player B (Havoc Rank 19), Player C (Havoc Rank 19), Player D (Havoc Rank 1).

If those players formed a group and successfully beat Player A’s specific Havoc Order 21, at the end of the mission, all of the players will have a new Havoc Rank of 21. However, those players’ Havoc Order (aka the personal mission currently available to them in Havoc) will not change until the following week.

The following week, all players will be Havoc Rank 21 and they’ll have a Havoc Order level 22 to complete.

Players will always be promoted the following week based on their highest completed Havoc Order level the week prior. In this example, even though Player D started at Havoc Order 1, they are brought up to Havoc Rank 21 since this is the highest difficulty they completed the previous week .

[h2]5. Party Finder Integration[/h2]

One of the reasons we wanted to introduce the Party Finder was specifically for Havoc. Because the difficulty is so high, it wouldn’t work to simply Quick Play into a Havoc mission. Because of the varying combinations of mutators and missions, and the increasing difficulty, players will want to prepare their talents and weapons based on the challenge they’re facing. Using Quick Play would not allow players to properly prepare for the challenge.

There will be a separate section in the Party Finder for players to create and join Havoc parties. You can create a party based on your own Havoc Order or join others. If friends are forming a party together, they’ll need to choose which player’s Havoc Order they’d like to attempt together.

Again, anyone can join any party regardless of their own Havoc Rank or the current level of their Havoc Order, so long as they’re Trust Level 30.


When Havoc is launched, it’ll have 8 missions in the mission pool. These were chosen based on a few criteria, like zone, mission type, win rate in upper difficulties, etc. Operations (like Rolling Steel) are not planned to be a part of this rotating mission pool at this time, due to them being different in nature to our other missions.

Havoc will introduce 4 bespoke mutators which players will only find in Havoc. Havoc Order levels will be able to have up to 2 mutators active at one time. The community has already encountered one of these during the latest event: the Infected 21st Moebians. We think you’ll enjoy the other ones we have planned. We’re going to keep them as a surprise for now and share them closer to release.

Conditions will also be a part of the mix for possible Order levels for players to tackle. However, not every Order level will include a condition. It’ll be more spread out, with a condition being present ~5 Order levels. This includes Lights Out, Ventilation Purge and Tox Gas. (Note: Ogryns soon will no longer be suffering from the dark.)


In the future, we’ll rotate the missions that are available for Havoc. Also, any time a new mission is added in an update, it will enter the mission pool. (As mentioned above, Operations are not planned to be a part of this rotation.)

We also plan to add more mutators over time for Havoc. So let us know if you have any ideas that you’d like to see in the future.


You might be wondering, how will players be rewarded? Players will receive materials and Mastery XP. There will also be a cache based on your weekly progress within Havoc, where players can earn extra Plasteel and Diamantine.

Beyond materials, there will also be frames, titles and insignia to be earned throughout the Penance system. We’ll also be adding an all black Moebian 53rd cosmetic set, which will be earnable through playing. (Note: Players will not need to get to Order Rank 40 to earn this cosmetic set, don’t worry.)




Alright, that’s a wrap on the Introduction to Havoc. We’re working hard on testing and putting together the final touches for this upcoming game mode. Once we’re ready, we’ll be able to share a release date.

Similar to our Introduction to Itemization, we’ll be following this up with a Q&A dev blog to answer any player questions we see! Please stay tuned and join the conversation.

Thank you for your support.

– The Darktide Team

The Lord of Decay has blessed his most beloved followers with hideous tentacles. So imbued are they with his foul pestilence that they explode when shot.

Dispatch them at close quarters to avoid this.

Complete missions featuring the blessed enemies to progress and collect rewards. This condition will only be available during the event and it will appear on both the Standard and Auric mission terminals. Look out for missions with the “Mutated Horrors” condition.

This event will start on Thursday, November 7, 2024. The rewards will be Ordo dockets, Plasteel and Diamantine. Those who complete the last tier of the event will receive a new Portrait Frame. (Dev Note: Be aware the frame might not show up immediately in players’ inventories after receiving the notification. Players may need to re-log, or at least leave and re-enter the Mourningstar.)

• Fixed an issue where the Social menu could fail to correctly display the status of other players and also block invitations/join requests.
  
• Fixed memory leak crashes which could happen when inspecting weapon stats.
  
• Fixed issues where the max potential for weapon stats could change when empowering a weapon.
  

Dev Note: Weapon level calculation is now handled in a more reliable manner. Some weapons that had their total stats below 380 at max Empower level will now be at 1 level below max (490 instead of 500) - meaning players will need to go to Hadron’s and empower from 490 to 500.

• Fixed an issue where FSR 3.1 Frame Gen would appear as disabled when playing excessive fullscreen effects, using lens distortion or showing certain GUI elements (e.g. the screen effect when a Stimms buff is active).
  
• Fixed an issue where Nvidia DSR/DLDSR would not work in fullscreen display mode.
  
• Fixed an issue where weapon penances were unlocked in the Mourningstar and claimed, but were not shown as completed.
  
• Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes render only in a corner of the screen while in fullscreen display mode but on lower resolution than the monitor.
  
• Fixed an issue where Windows chime sounds could play when using Alt+Tab to switch between fullscreen and windowed display modes.
  
• Fixed an issue where the “activated” status of weapon Special actions could be canceled by getting stunned. Partial Fix. (We've received some reports that this fix does not apply properly to the Power Sword or Thunder Hammer. We're investigating this. Thank you!)
• Fixed an issue where the description text for the Armourbane blessing would display incorrectly for Tiers 3 and 4.
  
• Fixed an issue where some sound effects (e.g. reload sounds) would be played predominantly only on one side.
  

• Fixed an issue where the knife wouldn't keep a backhand grip for blocking while charging a heavy attack.

• Fsr 3.1 Frame Generation Does Not Do Anything During Excessive Fullscreen Effects (Fixed in this Hotfix)
• Incorrect Rounding of Weapon Stats (Fixed in this Hotfix)
• Penances Shown As Not Completed (Fixed in this Hotfix)
• Purging Flames Penance is Bugged
• Misaligned Weapon Skins in the Penance Preview Squares
  • There are some weapon skin rewards in the penance previews that are misaligned or don’t fit in the square.

[h3][1]
MILITARUM WARZONE MISSIVE ALPHA-ONE
TO: Astra Militarum (Moebian) Command Staff
FROM: Dukane, D. Commissar
++via astro-node x-sym-226-aleph++[/h3]

My honoured lords militant. I am now in rapid transit to the capital world Atoma Prime, lacking as I am updated orders from you. I intend to build upon the instructions you have already blessed me with, which is to say to inject fire and disciplined determination into our beleaguered forces in the face of this wretched traitor uprising.
There is no time to regroup for direct consultation. In the last few months (relative) the Traitorous 6th have committed sundry crimes of violence and treachery across the Domain. This would be unacceptable from any adversary, but when this horror is perpetrated by soldiers of the Astra Militarum, it is a crime and an outrage against our highest honour. I do not have the words to express my disgust. These were our own people.
The 53rd Steelheads are proud soldiers, impeccable in their loyalty. Moreover, as I need not remind you, they are Branx-born. Like their birth world, they are young and aspirational. Atoma Prime has ruled the Domain for too long. It has grown fat and lazy, and slumped into privileged corruption. How else can one explain the gross deviation of their infamous 6th? Atoma, and the Lord Margrave, has allowed this treason to breed. Yes, Atoma must be freed and delivered. Yes, the traitors must be expunged without delay. But beyond that, I believe that the ancient hive must be soundly purged. The uprising must be put down and the enemy eradicated, but the soil from which this infamy sprang must also be cleansed with fire.
It must be the Astra Militarum that achieves this. I trust, my lords, that you will concur with my intent. The direct military deployment of the Steelheads, their honour bruised and their pride mauled, is the most expedient solution, and it is the most just. Let us clean our own house. Let the Guard restore its own dignity.
I am told, by coded transmission, that an Inquisitorial warband leads the reclamation effort on Atoma. On the one hand, I am reassured by this. On the other, I am dismayed by the lack of material strength. A warband is merely paramilitary. This outrage requires a response of the full force of the Astra Militarum on a formal war footing. Rest assured that, under my direction, the 53rd will execute the matter with the strictest and most steadfast discipline, a credit to the Throne and the Aquila banner.
I invite your response and instruction, but until any such is received, I will press on with my intent as stated above and bring legitimate war and restored honour to the hive of Atoma. The Emperor protects, and the Guard prevails.

[affirmed by my sigil] - Dukane.



[h3][2]
MILITARUM WARZONE MISSIVE ALPHA-TWO
TO: Astra Militarum (Moebian) Command Staff
FROM: Dukane, D. Commissar
++via astro-node z-ki-787-talos++[/h3]

My honoured lords militant. Upon Atoma, in the great and ancient hive of Tertium, things are worse than we feared. The Traitor forces, all soldiers of the once vaunted Moebian 6th, now deplorably transformed by heresy and corruption, have wrought great damage and hardship and, further, have claimed significant areas of territory.
I have conferred with the Inquisitorial undertaking, in the person of one Rannick (though not directly with their Inquisitor himself, an individual known as Grendyl). I fear this Grendyl may be trying to keep me and the Steelheads at arm’s length, out of concern that we might fall as the 6th fell. The Ordos clearly have little faith in the Astra Militarum. Rannick, for his part, insists to me that the corruption of the very Warp itself has lodged within the hearts of the traitors, and that we face a foe empowered by forces beyond mortal limit. I remain unconvinced. I believe we face an enemy driven by disdain, by privation, and by idolatry, and an enemy that has been allowed to breed thanks to the venal weakness of a hive and a ruling society that has fallen prey to its own luxuriating entitlement. I have declared to Rannick that the Steelheads are born of greater mettle, and thus can be fully trusted, for they are not prey to such infantile whimsy.
Of the Inquisitorial warband itself, I have little to remark. They are, for the most part, thugs and rejects, who seem little better or more disciplined than the very traitors we combat. They are ill-tempered, and regulation-shy. They are not soldiers, and they certainly lack the numerical strength to achieve any lasting compliance. Further, their loyalty to the Throne appears shabby and forced, not bright and willing as is the case with the Astra Militarum Steelheads. I will, in fairness and balance, record that this “warband” has fought hard and at great cost thus far, achieving some gains against the enemy. But it is not enough, and they are not enough, and I fear that their morale will soon snap as thoroughly as the loyalty of the Traitorous 6th. I will take field command of their endeavours, and have my trusted sergeants train their rabble squads to something approaching military composure.
This is a perilous situation. For all its wrongs and its canker, Atoma cannot be allowed to fall and give this enemy a foothold in the Domain. The Emperor protects, and in his name, the Steelheads will prevail.

[affirmed by my sigil] - Dukane.



Interested in learning more about Commissar Dukane? Check out our latest Vox Intercept

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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In Darktide we wanted all sounds to feel coherent and real, even though the Warhammer 40,000 universe is full of concepts based on fiction. It’s very easy as a sound designer to fall into cliches when making futuristic or fictive designs. You know, a sci-fi gun doesn’t have to go “pew-pew” when you shoot it. Me and the team actively avoided these cliches, because first of all it’s boring, and second of all, the Warhammer 40,000 universe has its own unique sounds.

My name is Johan W., one of the sound designers here at Fatshark. And in this dev blog I’m gonna go into some details in the process of creating the sound direction for Darktide.


A good place to start is to bring up Anders D. G., our Game Director. He was the one sitting on the vision for Darktide. We had a lot of chats about sound and music in general and shared references about how the world of Darktide should feel.

To me personally though, everything kind of started with a very particular sound. It’s a synth preset I did. I named it the Darktide Distortion Bend. There was nothing special about it really, but each time I played it, I got into a headspace I liked. It sounded dark and gritty, it had an analogue synth feel and it felt powerful and dangerous. This is a bit fuzzy I know, but I thought that described my idea of Darktide pretty well. From there, I started comparing everything I did to see if they’d fit together.

You can actually hear it in the very first teaser trailer we did (that wobbly distorted revving sound around 01:05 in the video).

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Official Teaser Trailer

And in the second trailer…
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Official Gameplay Trailer

And in the sound of you dying…
player_state_death_01.wav

The distortion bend-sound was actually my starting point even for the Lasgun, which we knew was gonna be one of the most important weapons to get right from the start. And we knew for certain that it wasn’t gonna sound like a generic sci-fi laser weapon. For that reason it went through tons of iterations just to find the balance between grittiness, punchiness and finding out what the “las”-part of the weapon was gonna sound like for Darktide. We wanted to create a lasgun sound that remained faithful to the source material. It also had to be at least somewhat satisfying to use, if anyone was gonna use it. I ended up working with mostly analog noises from electrical gear, some frying pan noises and some real gun sounds as well, just to up the realism. I decided to focus on the heat from the photons, instead of the “crack” that has sometimes been described (although there are a lot of cracking sounds when you’re running out of ammo instead). (Shoutout to my previous lead/boss Danijel Djuric who did the first prototypes for the Lasgun. I continued everything where he left it when he left the company.)

lasgun_sound_example.mov



When I say analog noises, I mostly talk about this set of module synths that served me very well for Darktide. Not just for Lasguns but almost every psyker sound has something to do with this one.



Once a few more areas of the game started to shape up. We started to more accurately grasp what the sound of Darktide should be about. Eventually I tried putting it into words. The idea was that every sound we put in the game should follow this set of guidelines.

I’m just gonna copy paste what was written. It was only meant internally for the sound team. It’s very technical and perhaps super boring to most of you. But I feel like some of you might find it interesting. So here we go!


The soundscape of Darktide is made out of metal, dirt, analogue gear, broken electronics, old huge machines. Nothing is well oiled, so heavy squeak, creek, stress and spark sounds are a big part of the soundscape. “High-tech” doesn’t belong in this world. If something is digital it should feel like an old computer with broken harddrives and clunky buttons. It’s much closer to cyberpunk than sci-fi in that sense. High-pitched beeps and classic laser type of sounds are strictly forbidden, pure heresy. With Darktide we are not just creating a game-play experience, we are bringing a universe to life. That mindset should be reflected in how we design this game. It should feel like we are in a place too large to grasp, and the player is just a tiny piece in a large story taking place. We do this by emphasizing the scale of things.

[h2]Oversized Realism[/h2]
Every single worldized audio source in Darktide should sound real, even though we are making a surreal game. We also want most things in Darktide to sound huge, larger than most items that exist in real life. This is a challenge, because it sounds contradictory. How do we create realism if there’s no real-life reference to compare it to? Here’s the answer… If a sound has a natural frequency balance, dynamic range and width that corresponds to the distance it’s being heard from, it’s going to sound realistic. So if we are designing, say, a pistol sound, we should first imagine it being at least twice the size of a real-life pistol and then reflect on how that would sound if it was real. If we are able to create a huge pistol sound, but also stay within a realistic frequency balance, dynamics and width, it’s going to fit into the Darktide universe.

[h2]Even Magical Sounds Should Be Organic[/h2]
Every concept that involves unrealistic materials or sources of power should still be based on something organic. For example Las-weapons are based on electric sounds and old electronic gear. That way we can make it sound organic because there are a lot of real life recordings to use and get inspiration from. Plasma-weapons are based on water and some analogue synthesis. The warp mainly consists of pulsating analog circuits and glitches. This way we can maintain the feeling of realism even with the most unrealistic concepts. You will also much easier get high quality textures in the sounds when using real recordings as assets.

[h2]Dark and Gritty (But Not Harsh to Listen to)[/h2]
Darktide should sonic-ally be pleasant on the ears, but nothing in this universe should feel pleasant. A successful example of this is when a sound feels gritty but not harsh on the ears. It’s very important to separate the sound design from the mix-quality of the sound. Both aspects need to be fulfilled in order to fit in the game. Always reflect before committing on a design choice, “Could I make this sound feel even darker?” Usually the darker the better. If a sound feels cute, happy, funny it doesn’t belong in this world. The only occasion we can allow ourselves to be comical is a dark sense of humor. In Darktide you can never go too horrifying or brutal.

[h2]Spatial Audio[/h2]
The whole soundscape of Darktide is based on the principle that everything that can be spatialized, should be spatialized. Always 3D over 2D as long as it makes sense. Even stingers should strive towards always being 3D because we want to present it as an in-world sound. We wanna avoid non-diegetic sounds, even if that is the more traditional way of doing it. The only exception should be UI and player experience sounds.

[h2]Prioritize Game-Play in the Mix[/h2]
Even if the design goal for Darktide is immersion and realism, game-play needs to be the priority when necessary. The human perception is limited and can’t hear everything at all times, especially from just a pair of speakers. So priorities need to be made in order to keep the mix readable. We should always strive for danger sounds (things that can hurt the player) and game-play informative sounds (e.g. hits, abilities, stingers, to be prioritized. It’s incredibly complex and we don’t always get it right, but we try our best.

[h2]The Combat[/h2]
Okay, so combat… The direction for the combat sounds went through some turns during production. We started off with the goal of making it feel as real as possible. Battlefield was a reference in several discussions about how the guns should feel (not sound). We thought that pure realism would fit the game direction perfectly, painting the perspective of the regular people, etc. If you’re just a disposable soldier, the gameplay should probably feel like a battlefield was our thinking. And the enemies should be loud and powerful to convey your insignificance even more. This was a total 180 turn from the Vermintide sound design, where you are this cinematic hero where your actions are loud, fun and powerful. I remember this shift in design approach when I first got my hands on the thunder hammer. I got the brief from Mats (combat designer) that it should sound like a lightning strike right in front of you and it should feel like you’re just melting everything. I knew I couldn’t do it realistically, it had to be cinematic and fat as hell. By that time, we had started to work with some “kill confirm” sounds. I wanted to make them big and satisfying too in a way that could work alongside big thunder hammer sounds. All of a sudden we started to enter a territory that was closer to Vermintide where we had big and punchy sounds during combat, and I think everyone agreed that this was just so much more fun to play with. I still wanted to restrain us and not just drop the realism part. I still believed it was possible to do both. Here’s where the “oversized realism” direction I talked about earlier started.



I’m glad we ended up putting in so much effort in making the combat feel fun and rewarding, shout out to Sebastian G. who helped out so much on the gameplay code side. He was the one enabling me to add different hit sounds based on where you hit, how hard you hit, with what you hit and what you hit it with, if the enemy died from the hit and so on. It really helped us make the combat more immersive and satisfying. I really enjoyed the detail that you get different kill confirm sounds based on what enemy type you killed. All these small parts came together pretty good, it just makes you wanna smash things, am I right?

[h2]The Enemies[/h2]
There is a lot to talk about the enemies. I won’t go into detail on how they were designed. That’s something we can talk about in another dev blog as it wasn’t me who did most of them. Anders N. did most of the work here, and of course our great VO designers David W., Ola and David F… My main focus was to make them work in the mix, and make sure the sounds fit the gameplay loop. This might have been the most challenging part of the whole sound mix actually.

If you miss a sound cue during a mission you might die, but if the game is just full of sound cues all the time, they’d stop being cues and just turn into noise. You’d also lose most of the immersion if we went full-on arcade with stingers all over the place. We had to be very selective of what to present to the players, but never select the wrong things.

Anyway, instead of putting the main focus on making the most sophisticated hierarchical mixing system, I wanted the main problem solving to take place in the actual sound design. For example, instead of making a trapper three times as loud as a mauler in order to hear, we wanted to make sure they didn’t even compete in the mix. Because sometimes you’d even wanna hear the mauler over the trapper. Basically the goal was that multiple enemy sound cues could play simultaneously and still be readable. To try and achieve this we had to make sure each enemy not only had unique sounds, they also had to be differentiated in terms of timbre, pitch, duration, loudness, etc. as much as possible. We had to use all kinds of mixing and psychoacoustics tricks to make them stand out from each other as much as possible. To fully understand why and how this works you need some basic understanding of sound theory and acoustics. This took us a long way, but more was needed to be done in a chaotic game such as Darktide.

Another way we worked to make the special enemies stand out in the mix was to just have them behave differently game-play wise. Poxbursters are designed to be heard from a distance so you have time to shoot it. Trappers are supposed to be sneaky so they are heard mostly when they are close by. Mutant chargers are meant to be heard over time with more low frequency content. Snipers with a very specific “dodge or die” sound that only happens once. Chaos hounds have a distinct spawning sound, which is supposed to make you aware that dogs are coming, then you have to wait and see where they show up. Other enemies like the flamer are purposefully more reliant on the visuals to not bloat the mix too much. Same goes for bosses, you don’t really need super clear sound cues for them, because you can’t miss them.

All these small parts, a lot of mixing, (which I won’t go into here), makes the enemies audible even in the most chaotic moments. That was our goal at least.

[h2]The Levels[/h2]
The ambience of Darktide had a pretty clear direction from the beginning. It was also one of those things we could start to work on before a lot of the game mechanics were fully in place. We knew that it had to feel huge, industrial and obviously grimdark. But we wanted to do it realistically. Usually when creating big environments you try to utilize nature and animals to make the space feel alive. That wasn’t really possible in Darktide. You are almost never outdoors, everything is made out of metal and seemingly no wild life. To make the environments feel alive we had to use other tools. As I described earlier we wanted the players to feel small and vulnerable in this world. To further convey this we focused on adding sounds that felt huge and distant. Big metal stress sounds, huge fans and machinery going off in the distance. In some areas there is warfare going on, or speakers playing propaganda, but it’s all fairly distant sounding. I think that just adds to this feeling of size to the place. And also your insignificance as a player, the world is simply too big to care for you. Maybe my colleague Jonas Hellberg can tell you more about the level events and how he makes huge world sounds in another dev blog.

The propaganda played out in the levels is actually a quite fun medium that we’ve used a lot to further tell a story about the different areas of Atoma. What’s being said from them is based on missions and if the Imperial cultists are occupying that area. On some missions it is cultists that play their own propaganda through the PA-systems.

Another important aspect of the level sound design is that we kept a very high quality of the reverbs, which are all impulse responses of real spaces. Every ambience loop is in surround formats and we use sound portals to properly propagate the sounds through corridors, open doors, windows etc instead of them traveling directly through the walls. That is a big upgrade from the Vermintide games that I think made a huge difference in the end.

[h2]The Music[/h2]
The music of Darktide is today a huge part, some say the biggest part of Darktide’s sound. And it’s all thanks to our composer Jesper Kyd, who exceeded our expectations to say the least. But this wasn’t the case throughout the whole production. Jesper came in fairly late in the production process. We released our first three trailers without a composer just because we hadn’t found the right one yet. Who the hell did the music for the first three then you might ask? Well that’s not important. Let’s just agree that it got so much better when we finally decided to ask Jesper. Anders De Geer presented our vision, we gave him some more sound mix pointers, and he was able to translate it into music so well. We wanted gritty organic analog sounds, and he had a bunch of old analog synths that he was itching to use. A match made in heaven? He got a lot of creative freedom, since we kind of had a very similar vision of the game we never really had to direct him much at all. His work kind of just molt together with our sound design, and there we had the sound of Darktide presented to us for the first time.



Alright, well, that’s it for now! I hope you found this somewhat interesting, and hopefully It revealed some more insight into how I (along with the rest of the team) shaped the sound for Darktide that we all know and (hopefully) love. It took a lot of effort to ship this game, from a lot of talented people. I’m so proud of what we’ve done thus far. And a lot more is to come!

If you have any questions about some of our design decisions, or any of the more tech-specific words I used, or if there is more you want to know on the topic, please comment below! Me or someone else in the team would happily talk more on any topic, preferably sound related. I’m sure StrawHat will pass them along to me and I’ll do my best to respond.

Ok thanks bye!

– Johan

Hotfix #51 (aka 1.5.4) is out now and you can find the patch notes for it below! It is out now on Steam and it will shortly follow on our other platforms.
[h2]Render Settings Reset[/h2]
With 1.5.0 and the introduction of FSR 3.1 Frame Generation we accidentally defaulted the Frame Gen setting to be on. This was unintentional and we apologize for the inconvenience. With this hotfix, the launcher will be doing a proper re-detection of your render settings and reset the frame generation setting to off. This applies even if you have explicitly turned on Frame Generation. You will have to turn it on again, and you might want to tweak other render settings to your liking after the first time you launch the game.
[h2]Deprecating Fullscreen Exclusive (FSE) Display Mode[/h2]
[h3]What?[/h3]
With 1.5.4 we will be deprecating our Fullscreen Exclusive (currently named "Fullscreen") display mode and adding the ability to set custom resolution for the "Borderless Fullscreen" mode. You will not see any performance degradation from this change.
[h3]Why?[/h3]

• We have now added the ability to set custom resolution for the "Borderless Fullscreen" which was the last remaining blocker for making the "Borderless Fullscreen" fully usable.
  
• The Fullscreen Exclusive display mode no longer serves a purpose when it comes to improving the performance of Win10/DX12 exclusive titles after Microsoft's improvements to borderless window modes*.
  
• For quite some time we have seen a lot of issues connected to the Fullscreen Exclusive display mode.
  
• With the latest release we also added FSR3.1 FG which added even more crashes with a similar connection to the Fullscreen Exclusive display mode and it is clear that the focus on testing for Fullscreen Exclusive display modes from our partners is dropping.
  
• The borderless window approach to fullscreen shows significantly more stable and user friendly behavior for players that frequently alt-tab in and out of the game.
  

[h3]How?[/h3]
Going forward we are renaming "Borderless Fullscreen" to only "Fullscreen" and will have only two display mode options "Window" or "Fullscreen". We are also decoupling the resolution from the window size, meaning that you will now be allowed to set any resolution for the game when using the new Fullscreen (previously "Borderless Fullscreen") mode. Previously you were always locked to using the desktop resolution if you used the "Borderless Fullscreen" mode. This caused players that had a 4k desktop resolution but hardware that wasn't able to push the game to sufficient frame rates at 4k, to be unable to use the "Borderless Fullscreen" mode.

* https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/demystifying-full-screen-optimizations/

"The DWM manages the composition/organization of the desktop display content from various applications, meaning it controls what is rendered and presented to the front of your display and what is held in the background. However, this control has historically resulted in a slight performance overhead vs FSE, where the game has full control.

To get back this performance overhead, we enhanced the DWM to recognize when a game is running in a borderless full screen window with no other applications on the screen. In this circumstance, the DWM gives control of the display and almost all the CPU/GPU power to the game. Which in turn allows equivalent performance to running a game in FSE.”

[h2]Bug Fixes and Tweaks[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where some of the weapons with a Special activate action failed to correctly refresh their activation if the Special action was performed again while in the active duration of a previous Special activation.
  
• Fixed an issue where shots from the M35 Magnacore Mk II Plasma Gun failed to penetrate Bulwark shields.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Valkyrie briefings would sometimes not finish before loading into a mission.
  
• Fixed an issue where you would occasionally see a subtitle when getting close to a character in the Mourningstar.
  
• Fixed an issue where subtitle text from Morrow would sometimes remain displayed after the VO ended.
  
• Fixed some issues with Darinda Dukane’s animations.
  
• Updated the description of the Ceaseless Barrage blessing to correctly match the gameplay mechanics.
  
• Updated software that should address the issue of players being unable to see or type in chat.
  
• Fixed a crash related to enemy spawning that could occur during certain mission events.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause a crash when navigating the Mastery menu using a gamepad without any Blessings present.
  

[h2]Cosmetic Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where some gaps would appear while wearing the Zealot “Pious Banneret's Garb” upper body cosmetic.
  
• Fixed an issue where the rivets on the Veteran “Lucius KM VIIIB Death’s Head” and “Lucius MK IIIA Death’s Head” headgear cosmetics wouldn’t always line up correctly, creating incorrect shadows.
  
• Made slight changes to the collar of the Veteran “Krieg Greatcoat MkI” upper body cosmetic to avoid clipping with the “Lucius KM VIIIB Death’s Head” and “Lucius MK IIIA Death’s Head” headgear cosmetics.
  
• Fixed an issue where the shoulder pad on the Psyker “Kobaloi Topcoat” upperbody cosmetic would appear to be offset from the arm.
  
• Fixed some clipping issues while wearing the Psyker “ "Timeworn" Psyker Jerkin (Taros Tan)” upper body cosmetic together with the “ “Timeworn” Psyker Regalia” lower body cosmetic.
  
• Fixed the insignia on the Zealot “MK IX Pot Helm and Rebreather” headgear cosmetic being depressed into the helmet.
  
• Fixed an issue where certain faces would lightly clip into the visor of the Zealot “Votarist’s Pot Helm with Rebreather” headgear cosmetic.
  

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]
Fsr 3.1 Frame Generation Does Not Do Anything During Excessive Fullscreen Effects

• FSR 3.1 Frame Generation excludes the entire screen from generation when there are a lot of fullscreen effects playing that impact all pixels on screen. This will cause frame gen to just copy the previous rendered result which results in the framerate looking like framegen is disabled while frame counters saying that it is running correctly.
  
• CURRENT WORKAROUND: If players disable Lens Quality, it addresses this issue for the time being.

Penances Shown As Not Completed

• While migrating to the new Itemization system, there is a chance for a visual bug to occur where players with a lot of progression on their weapons might not see their Penances displayed as complete. This is only a visual issue which might occur when opening the Penances menu for the first time. Closing and opening the UI again will update it properly.
  
• UPDATED: A fix for this will be shipped with the next hotfix.

Incorrect Rounding of Weapon Stats

• On uncommon occasions when looking at a weapon card, the total value of the potential stats distribution shown might add up to 1% higher or lower than the maximum (380).
  
• UPDATED: A fix for this will be shipped with the next hotfix.

Misaligned Weapon Skins in the Penance Preview Squares

• There are some weapon skin rewards in the penance previews that are misaligned or don’t fit in the square.