Warhammer 40,000: Darktide News

My name is Daniel, and I’m a Programmer and Designer at Fatshark. This blog covers parts of our journey in creating enemies for Darktide. Over the years, I’ve gathered many clips and screenshots and wanted to share some of the early development stages and explain our thought processes. Keep in mind that many of these clips and screenshots feature temporary assets (sorry artists!) since they were created early in the project to test gameplay mechanics.

For Darktide, the Combat team used a very iterative approach. We identified the most important features to include, made functional prototypes, tested them in co-op, found problems, and made adjustments to improve the feel. We repeated this process many times. Our core goals for Darktide combat were replayability and co-op. We believe these are best achieved with highly polished moment-to-moment combat and unique (and sometimes funny) scenarios to experience with friends or random players.

[h2]Roamer Enemies (Normal and Elite Enemies)[/h2]

To help decide what types of enemies we wanted in Darktide, we first created a combat prototype in Vermintide 2. We did this because we wanted Darktide to have similar combat to Vermintide, and it was easier to test concepts since Darktide had very few assets (models, animations, sounds, effects, etc.) at that point.

Our main objectives for the combat prototype were to evaluate:

1. Melee/Ranged Combat Hybrid: How does Vermintide’s usually melee-focused combat work with a greater focus on ranged combat? How do we ensure melee stays important?
   
2. Ranged Enemy Positioning: With ranged combat, our enemies need ways to position themselves. What kind of positioning systems should we implement?
   
3. Ranged Enemy Types: What ranged enemy types should exist? For example, Vermintide 2 has horde enemies, roamer enemies, high damage elites, fast-attacking berserker elites, and shielded elites. What types should we have for ranged combat?
   

First, we gave a Chaos Marauder enemy in Vermintide 2 a gun and made it shoot at players. We chose these enemies because we planned to make humanoid enemies in Darktide. Their similar skeletons meant we could reuse many of the assets, making it easier for us to use them in the final game.

Then, we wanted to position enemies in the world in a way that made sense for tactical units using ranged weapons. In Vermintide, most enemies use a “Slot System,” which moves enemies to slots around players to space them out, simulate collision, and help with performance.

Here are 2 clips of slot system functionality OFF and ON in Vermintide 2:

https://youtu.be/L3v4jsX32TU

This system wouldn’t work for enemies that don’t aim to engage in melee combat. So, we created two new systems that work together:

1. Cover System: Like in many shooter games, enemies use cover to position themselves. This system guides enemy movement, causes enemies to interact with the environment, and helps level designers create interesting scenarios.
   
2. Combat Vector System: This system calculates positions between players and groups of enemies to simulate a "direction of combat”. It prevents enemies from firing at players from all angles. This is the fallback system when no cover is available.
   

Here’s a later version of these systems in action:

https://youtu.be/9IlEK6V_vlw

For the cover system, we first made simple boxes and walls of different sizes, added nodes, and calculated cover positions. Enemies then picked the closest unoccupied cover with a position opposite the player.

https://youtu.be/q-SyoPZRDAk

Next, we added animations and logic for enemies to peek, aim, and shoot from cover.

https://youtu.be/tgP8UE4ByLk

As you can see, the animations are static, don’t line up well, and the enemies look confused. However, it was a good early test to see what behaviors and animations we needed.

We noticed early on that ranged enemies needed different behavior when players got close because it wasn’t fun to be shot at from close range. So, we developed the concept of “Combat Ranges,” where enemies change behavior based on their distance from the player and the player’s weapon. We gave marauders melee weapons to switch to if players got too close. When switching to melee, they behaved like regular melee enemies.

This created a fun hybrid combat loop, where players could shoot enemies at range or charge into cover to force them into melee combat, using mechanics like environmental line-of-sight blocking, dodging, and sprinting to minimize damage. This led us to implement mechanics like sprinting and sliding.

We also designed enemies that are extremes of this concept, like the Gunner, who has a powerful ranged attack and doesn’t switch to melee, making it a prime target for high-damage ranged weapons. We also have Shotgunner/Assaulter enemies that try to get close to players without engaging in melee to force them out of cover. The first prototype of Assaulter enemies was a Chaos Warrior with a plasma gun. He slowly walks up, shoots a plasma shot, and switches to a two-handed melee weapon when close.

https://youtu.be/mSG9V4wFlxQ

With many enemies taking cover and hybrid combat being a core feature, we wanted to test mechanics allowing ranged weapons to interact with cover. One idea was Suppression, where high fire rate and sustained fire weapons could flush out enemies from cover even if the shots missed. We tested a mechanic where shooting close to the target would make them stop shooting and take cover for a moment.

https://youtu.be/aXnFRSGtTZI

Here is a clip showing the above features in the Vermintide 2 prototype. We also got help from level designers to create whitebox levels with covers and layouts suited for ranged combat. It also includes a prototype of the Sniper specialist (later added).

https://youtu.be/9IlEK6V_vlw

In the end, the core roamer population was divided into three categories:

• Melee/Fighters:
  • Rush into melee, forcing players to kill them quickly or switch to melee combat.
• Close/Assaulters:
  
  • Prefer to stay close to players (8-12 meters) and use fast-firing or hard-hitting weapons.
• Far/Riflemen:
  
  • Stay at a distance, use cover, and take potshots at players. They are generally more defensive and force players to engage with them.

After finishing the prototype in Vermintide 2, we implemented it in the new Darktide project. The assets look more temporary here since we’re not reusing as many Vermintide 2 assets, and many mechanics are missing. Here’s a clip of the first implementation of cover users in Darktide:
https://youtu.be/XXHafbMOMcU


An important element in all -tide games is the Horde enemies. They are designed to be numerous, varied, and fun to kill in masses. For Darktide, our main Horde enemies are humanoids, with two variants: Poxwalkers and the Newly Infected. Here’s a clip of the first implementation of Poxwalkers (with non-functional ragdoll physics):

https://youtu.be/3HZL4rwNOVY

We wanted our horde enemies to vault over cover since levels would be filled with covers, and we wanted hordes to feel like a wave rather than individual enemies. Here’s a clip of one of the first implementations of cover vaulting:

https://youtu.be/Xw3bBsf7uCg

Another aspect we wanted to improve with the hordes in Darktide is their navigation avoidance at longer distances. Avoidance means enemies try to avoid walking the same path as others. This is more noticeable in our games at longer distances due to the slot system spreading out enemies when they get close. Here’s a before/after clip of improved avoidance for Poxwalkers:

https://youtu.be/oHmswSJzw2A

[h2]Specialist Enemies[/h2]
Specialist enemies in Darktide (and Vermintide) can be categorized into two groups:

• Disablers:
  • These enemies try to disable one player, forcing others to respond. Examples include Pox Hound and Scab Trapper.
• Scramblers:
  • These enemies use mechanics to force players to split up or create chaos to disorient them. Examples include Bombers, Poxburster, Flamers, Snipers, and Mutants.

It’s crucial that specialist enemies have clear audio and visual cues. Their behavior should be simple so they are easily understood in chaotic situations. An important skill in our games is target prioritization, where players must quickly decide which targets to focus on while up to 200 entities are on screen and three other players are doing the same. Specialists play a key role because their impactful attacks can end a match if left unchecked.

We also allow players to “clutch” against all specials, meaning a single player can handle these threats alone if they take the right actions. Examples of handling a specialist individually would be pushing a Pox Hound/Poxburster, or dodging a Trapper net/Sniper shot/Charging Mutant. While this might seem against the idea of co-op, we found through playtests that the ability to clutch is crucial for individual skill expression, and skill expression is important in a multiplayer game. Not allowing a single player to survive alone would also result in a more toxic gameplay loop where players would give up as soon as other players were downed. It also simply feels rewarding to save the day and revive fallen team members.

Following are some examples of the specialists we created and how they looked at different times during the project.

[h3]Pox Hound:[/h3]

The first special we added was the Pox hound. We chose the Pox hound because we knew that we needed a fast moving disabler enemy, and it was similar in frame/pose to the Gutter Runner from Vermintide, meaning we could build similar gameplay and be sure that it would work.

First step was to make it pounce on the players. Then, it needed animations and logic to handle its faster speed. We added turning animations (blended animations to simulate momentum etc.), running staggers (staggers that continue forward instead of stop) to help with this. Finally, we polished some of the landing and turning animations. The hound has had some issues with becoming a rocket dog, which was related to how we calculated the trajectories for the pounce, but that has mostly been fixed as of now!

[h3]Mutant:[/h3]

One of the new Specialists in the -tide series is the Mutant, inspired by the Left 4 Dead charger. We designed it to be more of a scrambler than a disabler. Its role is to charge a player, grab them, deal damage, and then throw them unpredictably to create chaos. We found it needed more health to fulfill its role, making it tankier than usual specialists and a target for high-damage weapons.

Here’s a clip of the first prototypes, using a Chaos Ogryn model and temporary animations to test the mechanics. Once we had the Mutant model, we experimented with its animations. We realized that getting charged constantly got too tiring, so we added pauses after he threw a player, and an extra long opening when players succeeded with dodging.

https://youtu.be/ZMyj86_ZWW8

The animations, sounds, and visual effects were polished later to create the final version of the Mutant we have today.

[h3]Poxburster:[/h3]

Another specialist that got added was the Poxburster. We wanted the Poxburster to be a simple Scrambler that explodes when close or on death. Initially, it was supposed to be solely a high priority ranged target that didn’t have any counterplay when it entered melee range.

Starting off, we put a barrel on a Poxwalker and made it explode when close. Later, we added model/animations/vfx/sfx. We realized that players got annoyed by it in close quarters however, so we experimented with ways to deal with it in melee. In the end, we added the “fuse” followed by a window to stagger it in order for a well timed push/dodge backwards to avoid all damage. This turned out to be a fun alternative to kill it.

https://youtu.be/tJkZqOSIQyQ

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
In conclusion, creating enemies for Darktide has been a detailed and iterative process aimed at making the gameplay exciting and varied. From early tests in Vermintide 2 to the final versions in Darktide, we continuously tested and improved on features. Our focus was on making both melee and ranged combat fun and challenging. We developed different types of enemies, from hordes that swarm and overwhelm to roamers that add variety and strategy. Specialist enemies further add strategy, requiring players to quickly decide which threats to focus on first. Our goal was to build a co-op experience that players will want to return to again and again. Thanks for reading!

As promised, here is the next batch of questions and answers regarding the Itemization Rework coming after summer. Again, we collected over 11 pages of feedback, questions and general concerns after the release of the last Q&A dev post.

As a refresher, the two new systems are the Mastery system and the Empower system (formerly Expertise). (There is still a chance that these names change.)

Note: All of the questions we’re answering in this are pulled directly from the comments on the Forums, Reddit and Discord. We kept the players’ wording instead of writing our own questions.

In case you missed our previous comms:

• Introduction to the Itemization Rework - Dev Blog
• Itemization Rework Q&A Part 1 - Dev Blog

OK, let’s dive in!

[h2]Blessings / Transferring Weapons to New Systems[/h2]

Question If one has a complete blessing library for a specific weapon type, could one expect to have their Mastery fully completed, or will you add mandatory grind?

Answer
If you have a complete blessing library for a specific weapon, you will have all your Mastery for that specific weapon completed. There will be no additional grind added.



Question How does the every Tier of one Blessing gets calculated into the ““head start in Mastery””? Do players get more points in Mastery from one single blessing if they have unlocked all Tiers of that blessing or does only the highest Tier count?"

Answer
All tiers are taken into consideration for the specific weapon family. With higher tiers being more important in the calculation. To reach max Mastery, you will only need 70-80% of all the blessings available.



Question With the itemization rework can we expect a rework toward Melk with or after the update since most of us use it to gain higher tier blessings faster than anything else?

Answer
Yes, Melk will give higher-tier equipment than before (higher-tier referring to blessings and power of the weapon).



Question In the new crafting system, you mentioned we can unlock the blessing that we want using the Mastery experience. If I want to unlock a Tier 4 blessing of a Lasgun, let’s say Ghost, do I have to unlock ALL Tier 1 to Tier 3 blessing of Lasgun to access the Tier 4 blessing page? Or I can simply unlock Tier 1 to 3 of Ghost and access Tier 4 Ghost without unlocking other blessings?

Answer
No, you will not need to unlock all Tier 1 to Tier 3 blessings of a Lasgun to access the Tier 4 blessing page. There will be a minimum requirement of lower tiers blessing to be unlocked before reaching the next tier level, but it will not be all of the previous tier.



Question How much my 1084/1214 blessing will contribute to weapon Mastery?

Answer
All 1084 of your blessings will be taken into account, then. All unlocked blessings will be taken into consideration when transferring a weapon to the new system.



Question What happens to my weapons in the inventory that have blessings on them i dont have unlocked? Will they just stay the same and i only cant use the blessing on another weapon?

Answer
Items will remain the same, therefore the unlocked blessings will not be taken into account when it comes to the translation of the blessings library into Mastery. Any unlocked blessings will exist on the weapon itself, and they cannot be transferred to another weapon.



Question When StrawHat said that players will begin with a headstart in the new system, does that mean that we won’t have access to blessings we did previously and therefore forcing us to grind for the tiers all over again? (This is from the last Q&A post.) You did not answer my question regarding the transfer. I currently have collected all level 4 blessings for my favorite weapon. But I did not collect any level 3, nor any level 2, nor any level 1 blessing. After the transfer, will I still have access to all level 4 blessings?

Answer
Yes and no. It will depend on how you are building your new Mastery track. In the worst-case scenario, playing 1 or 2 games would be necessary to have it all. We saw that having T1/T2 blessings were less common for those at max level. It would feel too punishing if we put too much weight on asking players to have these lower tiers in order to reach max Mastery. Therefore, we will be weighing T4 blessings in such a way that you won’t encounter that grind.



Question (More of a Comment)
That weapons are still locked at 380, and that you’ll still be hunting for the ‘perfect’ stat distribution base weapon is kind of insane, to be honest.

Answer
With the new system, players will be able to freely change between marks of a weapon family as they progress in the Mastery track. This means the player will only be searching for the base weapon with the stats distribution they want, rather than searching for the preferred stats distribution on each individual mark.

That said, a player will be able to play with the best weapon they’ve found, and then with minor investment be able to change to a better weapon once it’s been found. And any progress within that weapon family will be transferred to the new weapon.



Question (More of a Comment)
Worse still, the ‘broken locks’ are time gated. Want to freely swap around T4 blessings? Gotta have maxed Mastery on that weapon family first.

Answer
This is incorrect. Players will get access to the best blessings before reaching the actual end of the Mastery curve.



Question Well it’s a pretty huge difference that you can’t change perks or blessings, nor can you cash in a blessing into a library. It’s all about the grind first. And depending on if Strawhat was careful with wording or not, you have to unlock all T1 blessings to unlock a single T2 blessing.

Answer
You will not need to unlock all the T1 blessings to unlock a T2 blessing. Furthermore, you can change around the perks and blessings on a weapon as much as you want.



Question (More of a Comment)
Also, allowing Hadron to still consecrate items to let people brute force it with enough currency is a good choice, but if you still need to unlock the blessings when an entirely new family of weapons comes out, that will still hamper people who like to experiment, even if the Mastery grind isn’t that long.

Answer
As players are free to unlock the blessings they want (in whatever order they want), players will be able to fairly quickly unlock the blessing choices they want to experiment with after just unlocking a few tiers of Mastery of a weapon. Since we are adding more tiers to each blessing and making them all available at tier 1, players will quickly be able to unlock the gameplay potential of a blessing. This allows players to be able to create the build they want sooner. Though it will take a bit longer to unlock the most powerful version of that build.

We are also introducing a “sacrificing” system to allow players to sacrifice weapons to get Mastery experience for a weapon family. This gives players even more avenues to gain Mastery within a weapon family outside of only playing with the weapon. For example, when a new weapon comes out, players will be able to sacrifice ANY other unwanted weapon, even those from completely different weapon families, to get a headstart on Mastery. Note: If it’s the same weapon, more Mastery XP will be given versus if it’s a different weapon.

TL;DR: Weapons a player no longer wants can be sacrificed to get a headstart.



Question When you say: This system will merge all weapon types/families, meaning players will be able to freely switch between different marks of the same weapon type. For example, once you own an Infantry Lasgun, you have the potential to unlock all the possible marks for this weapon and switch from one mark to another. What does this mean for weapons:

• That are on their own: Staves and Kickback/Rumbler (Don’t share blessing, but do models)
• That may not be on their own: Plasma; Bolter; Ogryn Power Maul; Crusher; Hack Shotgun…
• Weapons that do share but still might get a variant: Stub Revolver; Chainsword; Chain Axe; Evicerator…

Answer

• Weapons that share models/skins, but not blessings: These will be classified as different weapon families, therefore getting each their own Mastery track with separate blessings trees.
• Weapons that currently have only one mark: These will still be classified as separate weapon families and get their own Mastery track, just without marks to unlock.
• Weapons that have multiple variants: Variants of the same weapons are called “marks”, and will be included in the same weapon family. Each family will receive its own Mastery track. Different weapon families that are similar, like Chainswords and Eviscerators, will still have separate Mastery tracks. Some blessings will appear in multiple Mastery tracks, but each blessing needs to be separately unlocked in each blessing tree.

One nice aspect of the new system is that if/when we do add more marks to a weapon family, they will be unlocked in the Mastery system instead of diluting the loot pool and making it harder for you to obtain the weapon you want from the loot system. Previously, every time we released a new mark for a weapon, we made it harder to get any specific weapon from the loot pool. This new system removes that problem and will make the addition of new marks purely positive.



[h2]Stats[/h2]
Question "Every weapon is created with a pool of stat points that have been distributed in the different stat buckets, and every weapon has the same potential maximum number of stats that can be distributed.”

Is there a way to remove points from one “bucket” to be added to another? while still keeping the “investment” cap from expertise in mind?

Answer
No, it will not be possible. Each weapon will be generated with varied maximum caps on each stat.



Question Is the overall power of weapons remaining the same, or will a newly-maxed-out weapon with this new system give more damage/power/stats?

Answer
The overall power of the weapons will remain the same as before.



Question What makes a weapon go to 380? Let’s say I roll the dice at Brunt’s and get a 340 Force Sword. That sword can now go from 340 to 380? If so, how? By consecrating it?

Answer
Every weapon will now have the potential to reach 380. The Power system (formerly referred to as Expertise) is where you can make it happen by empowering your weapon through the use of crafting materials.
 


Question When viewing any weapon, it will show the weapon’s maximum potential stats. These stats will be randomly determined. It’s up to the players to decide if the weapon profile is interesting enough for them to commit and increase the stats until reaching this potential (which are then applied to the weapon through the Expertise system). Does this mean that we CAN choose to fill things from 0 to cap for each different stats?

Answer
You cannot select where the points are going exactly, it will be an automatic increase for each stat.



[h2]Empower (formerly Expertise) / Mastery[/h2]
Question I think the gist is that the blessings we’ve unlocked get converted to ‘Mastery XP’ that we can then spend to put whatever we like on new weapons?

Answer
Correct, the blessings on a specific weapon are converted into Mastery XP for that weapon family. However, the Mastery XP is bespoke to the weapon family and it is not universal (to be applied to any weapon you like).



Question So if I understood correctly, we long-time players skip “Mastery”, go straight into “expertise” and can attribute perks and blessings freely at material costs?

Answer
The idea is weapons will be converted over to the new system. The Mastery XP is determined by the blessings that are unlocked on the weapon itself. The more blessings unlocked or the higher tier of the blessings unlocked, the more XP that is gained for that weapon family. Then, using crafting materials, players can Empower their weapons and apply the perks and blessings as they wish.

Also, we have mentioned above the ability to sacrifice unwanted weapons in order to increase Mastery XP at a player’s discretion.



Question I was wondering to get the maximum amount of Mastery XP for a weapon group, do I need to unlock every single tier of every blessing for getting the maximum XP for that? I have all tier 4 blessings but never bothered with lower tier blessings.

Answer
Players will not need every blessing of a weapon family to achieve max Mastery upon introduction of the new system. We are looking at something like having all T4/T3 blessings will be enough to max Mastery.



Question Would it be possible to add a new item filter in the shops and crafting menu which sorts items from their max potential to lowest? That would help a lot when min maxing gear!

Answer
Well, every weapon will have the max potential of 380. However, we will be adding a filter so players can sort by the current Power rating.



Question Is this update going to come with balancing changes? A lot of us feel the game is too easy, even on the hardest difficulties right now. Weapons like the plasma gun, revolver and knife makes the experience way too easy, for instance. I understand you guys try your best not to nerf players, but sometimes the players really do need it. Some enemy buffs would be welcomed also.

Answer
We are aware of this problem and try to balance the game accordingly. Still, as different players will see balance changes differently, we want to be careful and try to respect all player’s investments in the game. Hopefully, the Mastery system will allow us to be a bit more forthright with balance changes, since it will make it easier for players to adapt to any new meta in the game without having to rely on RNG systems to do so.

We are also working on other features that will address this problem, but more news about them in the future when they’re in a more solid state to share.



Question Looks good! Genuinely hope there are cosmetic rewards for fully mastering a weapon. Come on FatShark! Just one free skin, just a scrap.

Answer
There will be a cosmetic reward per weapon family.



Question Are curios also implemented in this system somehow? Currently you can’t even buy them from the Brunt’s store.

Answer
Curios are not a part of this overhaul. We are however thinking of ways to make curios more fun and engaging. We felt that we would tackle the bigger problem of weapons first and give curios the time and attention that they need to become a more interesting part of a player’s loadout at a later time. However, we will note that the locks will be removed from Curios, as well. This means players will be able to change anything at any time, aside from the base property of the item itself.



Alright, that answers the second batch of questions. If anything in this post is unclear, please let us know below. This will help us collect more feedback and ensure we answer them in our future posts.

Thank you!

Our latest hotfix (1.4.12) is out now on Steam and the rest of our platforms will follow. You’ll find the patch notes below!

• Fixed an issue where ammo crates would still spawn in Maelstrom Mission C-I-VI.
  
• The tooltip for the Stopping Power stat has been updated to reflect that it affects damage as well.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the canteen on Psyker “Shroudwrap Carapace” cosmetic upperbody to be warped.
  

We’re excited to announce the next free update coming to Darktide - Unlocked and Loaded - will be releasing on September 26, 2024.

https://youtu.be/69zI8J5nnZU

Unlocked and Loaded will include the overhaul to itemization, a new mission with a new objective, and improvements to social features.

[h2]Itemization Overhaul: [/h2]
Unlock Your Potential: With the itemization overhaul, players will master their weapons over time, unlock blessings, weapon marks, and perks, and tinker with their gear to increase its Power. This overhaul will help players carve a clear path to get the weapons and gameplay they want. (More dev blogs on this soon and the next Q&A blog will be released this week!) (Q&A Pt. 1 and Q&A Pt. 2)

[h2]New Mission:[/h2]
Time’s running out! Players will race against time and repel heretics in this shorter high-octane mission in which players’ strike teams are the only thing standing between a barreling freight train and Tertium. (Did you see the end of the teaser trailer?) (We’re also working on a dev blog for this mission, too!)

[h2]New Social Feature:[/h2]
Team-up against Chaos: As Darktide is made to be enjoyed with others, our new Group Finder features will make teaming up with like-minded players easier. Before embarking on a mission, players will be able to form groups and band together to wreak havoc among the ranks of the heretics. You can form groups based on language, difficulty, mission focus, and more.