Warhammer 40,000: Darktide News

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One of our favourite times of year: releasing a new update for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide…

Nightmares & Visions has already begun to roll out across our platforms. Keep reading to see what’s waiting for you on the Mourningstar.

We are trying something new with patch notes.

From now on, we’ll be listing the patch notes in FULL on our website ONLY. This is because as the game grows, it’s often between 40-50 pages each major update. When trying to format these across three platforms (each with their own formatting)...please think of our poor CM. (Yes, I wrote this. - Straw)

[h3]You can read about the rest of the update on our website.
[/h3]


Sefoni has a new challenge for you, rejects. The Theatres of Mortification contain the Mortis Trials. A fiendish new addition to Sefoni's training regime. Enter the Psykhanium and Sefoni will pit you against waves of enemies, but she'll also provide what she calls Indulgences (ability enhancements well beyond the powers of an average fighter) to help you in your endeavour. You can begin the trials in the usual way, by visiting the Psykhanium, but for a quicker entry, check out the new terminal near the mission board.

There is a lot to unpack in Mortis Trials, but we don’t want to spoil the fun that awaits. You can read our latest dev blog to learn more about it, or dive right into it once you’ve downloaded the update.




Sefoni's new training protocols whisk you off to the Theatres of Mortification. Unleash carnage in the Mortis Trials.

To make progress in the event, complete 4 consecutive waves in the Mortis Trials. Each set of 4 waves completed grants 1 event progress point. It is possible to earn up to a total of 3 progress points per completed Mortis Trial run.

This event will start on Tuesday, March 25. The rewards will be Ordo dockets, Plasteel and Diamantine. Those who complete the last tier of the event will receive a cosmetic insignia.



[h2]Reminder of Havoc Maintenance Announcement [/h2]

With Havoc Campaigns, we’ll be introducing new balancing to the game mode. Ahead of Nightmares & Visions, Havoc has been “off-campaign” and unavailable to play from Sunday, March 23 until today, the day of release on March 25.

During this off-time and to reflect the balance changes made, we’ve reset everyone to their nearest threshold depending on the highest they reached the previous Havoc Campaign period. (Please see the chart below.)

As we previewed in our earlier dev blog on Updates to Havoc, there are some structural changes and more coming to Havoc with this release.
[h2]Rank Overhaul[/h2]
Starting with Nightmares & Visions, ranking in Havoc will change. All players who participated in the mission will rank up their order (up to three ranks) depending on eligibility. To be eligible you need to have an order of equal or lower rank.

• A gap greater than or equal to 10 gives an increase of (3) Clearance Levels.
  
• A gap between 6 and 9 gives an increase of (2) Clearance Levels.
  
• A gap of less than or equal to 5 gives an increase of (1) Clearance Levels.

Based on feedback received, players' new order next week will no longer be equivalent to the highest played the previous week, rather we’ve opted to roll over the current order rank.

Dev note: The inactivity decay is still active and it only triggers upon no interaction with the Havoc system.


[h2]Havoc Campaigns[/h2]
With this update, we’re introducing Campaigns to Havoc. Our intention is to release a new Campaign with different mutators and a rotating mission pool, alongside our major updates to Darktide.

Havoc Campaigns is what we’ve opted to call the rotation of the mission pool and mutators within Havoc. We want players to be able to learn and adapt to these combinations, while also changing things up over the period of the current Havoc Campaign. We will share more information on our plans for this in a few weeks.

[h2]New Mission Pool[/h2]
The previous missions from Havoc have been rotated out with the start of this new Campaign. The following missions are a part of this latest Campaign:

• Enclavum Baross
  
• Clandestium Gloriana
  
• Dark Communion
  
• Vigil Station Oblivium
  
• Hab Dreyko
  
• Power Matrix HL-17-36
  
• Magistrati Oubliette TM8-707
  
• Ascension Riser 31
  
• Relay Station TRS-150
  
• Comms-Plex 154/2f

[h2]New Mutators[/h2]

[h3]Heinous Rituals[/h3]

• Reports indicate that the Admonition has begun creating more Daemonhosts in this area, stop these rituals before it's too late.
  
• Based on the mission length X amount of rituals will spawn. These rituals are composed of 8 Dreg ritualists trying to summon forth a new Daemonhost. Kill them all before time runs out or face the wrath of the newly created Daemonhost.
  

[h3]The Encroaching Garden[/h3]

• Marked Enemies, blessed by the Lord of Pestilence, will heal affected allies in proximity. 
  
• If these enemies are not dealt with quickly, they will rapidly regenerate the enemy forces. 
  
• Select enemies will be marked, and while these enemies are alive they will heal allies at a rate of 1200HP/s within a 5 meter radius. 
  

[h3]Enraging Elites[/h3]

• Elite enemies fall into rage when under 50% HP left, increasing their attack speed, damage caused and rendering them immune to crowd control.
  

[h3]Rampaging Enemies[/h3]

• Enemies in this sector are rampaging. They gain increased defence against attacks upon witnessing the death of an ally.
  
• When an afflicted enemy dies, allied enemies in a 4 meters radius around are buffed up to 5 stacks, each stack providing damage reduction.
  

[h3]Emperor’s Fading Light[/h3]

• Removed the increased shooting time from ranged enemies.
  

Dev Note: This was removed in response to the lack of build diversity where players felt forced to bring abilities like Psyker Telekine Shield or Zealot Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude.

• Added in Moebian Lieutenants that have a 80% chance to spawn throughout the mission.
  

Dev Note: The Lieutenants are derived from the Twins and based on players' sentiment that they were “stuck” in their special assignment. We felt it fitting to bring out enemies that feel familiar.

• Weakened Monstrosities will have a low chance of spawning throughout the mission.
  

[h3]Horde Pacing[/h3]

• Changed horde spawn frequency from being based primarily on distance traveled through the level, to relying on timers. Please note that the amount of hordes allowed is still calculated based on main path traversal.
  

Dev Note: This change was made as backtracking too far turned off hordes. Also it was changed to combat being able to predict roughly where hordes show up.
[h3]New Horde Compositions[/h3]

• New coordinated horde strike type: “Blockade sandwich”.
  

Dev Note:This strike may happen if the strike team tries to backtrack too far.
[h3]Roamers[/h3]

• Removed density type “none” from Havoc. This change was made to make the mission feel more oppressive with less chances for breaks.
  

Dev Note: Density type decides on how many roamers we spawn in a given area during regular and Auric missions.

• Changed spawn population of roamers to be more balanced between melee and ranged, instead of being primarily one or the other.
  

Dev Note: This change will on average lower the spawn amount of gunner-esque enemies by 20%; this change is subject to be introduced during regular and Auric missions depending on the reception.
[h3]Specials[/h3]

• Increased coordinated strike and surge frequency.

[h3]General[/h3]

• Increased Havoc Challenge rating. 
  

Dev Note: Challenge rating is a rough measure of the "challenge" the players are encountering, this value is part of defining the allowed limits of enemies spawned concurrently.
[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]

• Mission accept/reject popup for Havoc missions will now show chevrons that indicate how many rankups you will gain for your own Havoc order if successful.
  

[h2]Party Finder Notification Change[/h2]

When the player is in a mission, the party finder invite popups are replaced by notifications that no longer block gameplay.

Dev Note: We wanted to give a little extra shout out to Badwindt on nexusmods.com for pointing us in the right direction! When we were looking to implement a fix for this, the mod gave us an idea of where to look. 


[h2]DLSS 4 Support Added to Darktide[/h2]

Support for DLSS 4 has been added, featuring Multi Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards. This technology generates up to three times more frames per traditionally rendered frame, significantly boosting FPS. Additionally, DLSS 4 offers faster single Frame Generation with lower memory usage for both RTX 50 and 40 Series. Additionally users can now choose between the CNN model or the new Transformer model for DLSS Super Resolution on all GeForce RTX graphics cards.



[h2]Ogryn Talent Tree Rework[/h2]
Our favorite Abhuman is getting his Talent Tree revamped! We had a few clear goals we wanted to achieve with the rework that all boiled down to one point: Providing more Build opportunities.

We released a dev blog about the Ogryn Talent Tree changes and since then we’ve made a few more tweaks. You can read about them in full on our website.



Don’t forget, we partnered with Games Lantern to get the new Ogryn Talent Tree up on their build simulator so players can test out their new builds.



In this update, we are addressing some of the outliers in the Darktide arsenal, whether over or under-performing.

We approached this objective by tweaking values, but also by adding new features and attack chains, or by shifting the power budget of the weapons, with the goal of giving each of them clear strengths and weaknesses.

In all cases, we made sure that the fantasy of each weapon was maintained or even reinforced by the changes.

[h3]Blessing Description Updates [/h3]
Dev Note: We have changed the underlying system which is used to present the values used in Weapon Blessings. It will now pull values directly from the data used for the Blessing, instead of these values being hard coded separately.

What this means for you as players is that nothing has changed. But there might be instances of Blessings that look like they have been rebalanced now. In reality, it means that the Blessings will be showing the values that are defined in the game code. This is purely a visual change. 

Known Issue from Nightmares & Visions

• There is an issue with Psyker’s talent “Mettle” where the game client will crash if the talent reaches 31 stacks of movement speed buff. 
  

Dev Note: This will be fixed with Hotfix #63 (1.7.1).

[h3]You can read about the rest of the update on our website.
[/h3]



Thank you for reading about our latest update, Nightmares & Visions. We’ve worked hard on this update for our community. It’s exciting to finally be able to share it with all of you.

And this is only the beginning of what we’ve got in store for you this year.

We’ll see you on the Mourningstar.

– The Darktide Team

I always knew I would be pulled back into Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, but I didn’t think it would happen this soon. Despite thoroughly enjoying the game, I’m constantly playing games for a living, and it was probably a bad time to also start Baldur’s Gate 3—and like anyone who has played it can attest, once it gets its hooks in you, your life is gone.

But the Warhammer 40,000: Darktide – Nightmares & Visions DLC was the perfect excuse to jump back into the excellent horde-based shooter, offering not only a brand-new game mode that builds on the established formula but also a complete revamp of the Ogryn talent tree. This gave me a solid reason to step away from my Psyker for a moment and try something new.

Like with many of my DLC reviews, I won’t waste too much time rehashing how the game plays or what the story is. If you need a refresher, go check out my initial review of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide and then come back here—I’ll wait. Anyway, my... Read more

As promised, we are back this week with another dev blog for the next update for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Nightmares & Visions, which releases next week on March 25, 2025. 

This week, we’re focusing on new content coming to the game in the form of Mortis Trials. This feature has been designed to be a unique, replayable activity whereby players will mash through waves of enemies in visions induced by Sefoni, the Mourningstar’s mysterious Psyker. 

With the arrival of Commissar’s Moebian 53rd and the escalation of the Battle for Tertium, Rannick has grudgingly decided that they need to step up the Rejects’ training regime from, well, nothing, to something. 

With resources tight and the warband’s operatives more than a little… varied in their approach to combat, he and Morrow have turned the matter over to Sefoni. Which makes sense, given that she’s the creator and maintainer of the Mourningstar’s Meat Grinder - a psychically generated oubliette where Rejects can familiarise themselves with new weaponry. 

To make this possible, she’s manifested a new nightmarescape that Morrow calls Sefoni’s Reverie.





Unlocked from Trust Level 13, Mortis Trials is a new activity in Darktide where players can experience something they wouldn’t encounter in normal missions, something with crazy wave compositions and roguelike elements. The fickle nature of these psychic manifestations has ensured that no two trials are alike, and only those who adapt will prevail. By accessing Sefoni’s Reverie on the Mourningstar, players will be transported to the Theatres of Mortification. These are the arenas where players will face the challenges Sefoni has created for them.  

At the end of a successfully completed trial, players will return to Sefoni’s Reverie.

Havoc is a game mode with multipliers upon multipliers, and stacked mutators; which has been designed for late-game players to face a challenge. The experience of an activity like Mortis Trials is designed to be chaotic, with easy access for immediate fun. That said, players will face horrors in these theatres, where there is no escape or surrender. Only by standing your ground and fighting with unwavering determination will players emerge with victory. 




Unlike some other experiences in Darktide, Mortis Trials offers more modular pacing rather than non-stop action. Pacing is key, with the difficulty increasing over time in a fun and expandable way. 

Each trial consists of 12 waves of heretics to clear. These waves will be broken into three waves of three, and then a final set of three heretical-filled waves straight from Sefoni herself. 

When launching Mortis Trials, players will first select the difficulty level they wish to try. From there, the players will assemble in a central theatre. 

Before facing the initial wave, players will receive a small buff. The buff they receive is based on the “indulgence” that is chosen before this first wave begins. 

Each indulgence has a specialization which will define the type of small buffs player will get during the play through. These include:

• Pyrokinetic: This Indulgence Archetype specialises in dealing fire damage, or improving combat effectiveness while attacking burning targets.
  
• Voltaic: This Indulgence Archetype specialises in dealing electric damage, or improving combat effectiveness while attacking electrocuted targets.
  
• Fulminator: This Indulgence Archetype combines elements from both Pyrokinetic and Voltaic disciplines. It applies both electric and fire effects on enemies and can improve combat effectiveness when fighting electrocuted or burning enemies.
  
• Death Dealer: This Indulgence Archetype specialises in close-quarters shooting and melee. Quick swapping between weapons and quicker reloads.
  
• Colossus: This Indulgence Archetype specialises in survivability, focused on close-quarters melee combat.
  

Based on the archetype selected, the players will receive another small buff for the second wave. Every third wave, the players will be required to move around the arena and complete a designated task. These are the “objective” waves, which happen on the 3rd, 6th and 9th waves.

Upon completing the objective, Rejects are granted a cache of ammunition and supplies to aid in the trials. Further, players will then pick an additional stronger buff. This buff, along with the others, will continue to stack after each wave is successfully cleared. After each objective wave, players will pick an additional stronger buff. (These buffs are often amplifying player abilities, grenades, etc.) Only the most devout and blessed will survive.

After the last objective wave is completed (i.e. wave number 9), Rejects must endure a final set of three waves surging with enemies.  These are the waves where the players are the strongest. We want to give them plenty of time to enjoy their power to the fullest.

After successfully completing one round of the Mortis Trials, players must return the Mortis Relic to Sefoni in her Reverie. The strain of these Trials pushes her to her limit, causing stray thoughts and memories to slip out of her head. Attentive players might glean unintended insights into key members of the Mourningstar crew, so you better pay attention.

Repeated playthroughs of the Mortis Trials promise different play experiences, with new Indulgences to try and new conversations to unlock.





To learn more about Mortis Trials from a narrative perspective we are handing the dev blog over to our Narrative Lead, Michael Knight and our Lead Writer, Matthew Ward.

Sefoni’s one of the first characters a new Reject meets, but we don’t know much about her. Is that about to change?
Michael Knight: Yes and no. Sefoni’s delighted that she’s got new playthings to torment - the Rejects probably treat her better than most of the rest of the warband - but she’s also very secretive. That said, generating the Trials of Mortification places Sefoni under enormous pressure, and fragments of her past have a tendency to manifest without her knowing.

MW: Not just her past.

MK: I’m pretty sure that we’re not supposed to talk about that. Grendyl wouldn’t like it. Safe to say, the Trials of Mortification offer the Rejects the opportunity to learn a lot more than Rannick intends. That probably won’t end well for Sefoni, but again, I doubt she cares.

How do the Rejects complete a Trial?
MK: Each Trial of Mortification is effectively a beefed-up exercise in a section of the Meat Grinder. The Rejects need to defeat the waves of enemies being projected by Sefoni, accomplishing tasks along the way. If they win, they’ll unlock a relic and get one step closer to being initiated into the Mourningstar’s elite cadre of Mortis Operatives. Fail, and… you can guess the rest.  

MW: But Sefoni isn’t entirely heartless. The Meat Grinder’s her world. It follows her rules, so she’s prepared to offer the Rejects a series of indulgences (in-game buffs) that will help them meet the challenge.

MK: Rannick isn't going to like that.

MW: There’s definitely a sense that she’s not answering to Rannick any more, if she ever did.

You said something earlier about the Rejects having a chance to learn things that Rannick doesn’t want them to know. Can you tell us a little more about that?
MK: Well … Sefoni’s a psyker, a pretty rare and formidable one. And she’s been with Grendyl a long time. She’s overheard a lot over the years. Chances are, she knows a lot more about the warband than even Rannick. How far that goes - and how deep it goes - remains to be seen.

MW: One thing’s for sure… As time goes on, she’s going to get bolder.

MK: Unless Rannick catches her.

MW: Unless that, yes.

Hmm…there is a lot to be unpacked there. I’ll leave that for the community theory crafters.



Thank you for reading our dev blog on Mortis Trials, part of the new content coming alongside the Nightmares & Visions update slotted for release next week on March 25, 2025. We’ll be looking out for any questions over the weekend and we’ll make sure we answer them in the patch notes.

Remember, the Emperor protects. But He also demands sacrifice.

We’ll see you on the Mourningstar.

– The Darktide Team

When Havoc Mode was first released at the end of 2024, we mentioned it would be a system we’d continue to hone with community feedback.

Over the last couple of months, we’ve been reading tons of input from the community on Havoc through player comments, threads, videos, memes, etc.

Now as the first dev blog for our next update, Nightmares and Visions, we’d like to tell players all about the work we’ve been doing on Havoc and the changes we’re bringing to the game mode in March.

First of all, we upped the pacing a bit to keep things fresh. Players might notice there is less time to regroup than there was before. There are other larger changes we’d like to touch on in this blog, though.



[h2]Rank Overhaul[/h2]

One of the biggest points of feedback we received had to do with progressing through different Havoc Assignment Ranks. 

(As a quick refresher, Havoc Assignment Rank is the current Havoc Assignment a player has access to play in the game; Havoc Clearance Level refers to the highest Assignment a player has completed. 

A player’s Havoc Assignment Rank currently changes after each mission or after each weekly reset. It can go down if a player only plays lower Assignment Rank missions that week. However, a player’s Havoc Clearance Level only goes up over time as a player completes higher Assignment Ranks.)


As it stands in the game now, before playing a game of Havoc, the party needs to choose which player’s Havoc Assignment they’d like to attempt to complete. After finishing the game, only the owner of that Havoc Assignment would see their own Clearance Level go up. The remaining players would need to wait until the following week to see their Havoc Clearance Level go up. We read the feedback saying this part of Havoc was frustrating and unclear.

Further, there were worries of “boosting” other players through the initial system we laid out. 

We’ve made some changes. 

With this update, we’ve changed it so everyone who participates in a Havoc game will rank up their Assignment Rank. That is, upon winning the mission, all the players of equal or lower Assignment Rank to the chosen mission will be ranked up. 

All players who participate get the mission reward, as well.

To make it fair, everyone who participates in a mission for Havoc will be eligible to be penalized upon failure (i.e. lose a charge), too.

These changes were made to ensure everyone who participates in Havoc will feel rewarded post-mission. 

How do we determine how many ranks a player will climb after completing a Havoc mission? 

It is determined by the difference between the player's Assignment Rank and the Assignment Rank being played (shown in the chart below).

• A gap of less than or equal to 5 gives an increase of (1) Clearance Levels.
  
• A gap between 6 and 9 gives an increase of (2) Clearance Levels.
• A gap greater than or equal to 10 gives an increase of (3) Clearance Levels.

A player’s Assignment Rank is no longer determined by the highest completed Havoc Assignment Rank from the previous week. Instead, as long as a player is active each week, the player will retain their current Assignment Rank. (A player is considered “active” as long as they attempt at least (1) Havoc mission in a week. The player does not need to win the game in order to be considered an active player.)

Now, the only way for a player’s Assignment Rank to go down is if they lose all three charges or they are inactive for a certain period of time (i.e. a player does not play at least (1) Havoc mission after a weekly reset).



[h2] Havoc Campaigns [/h2]

Along with Nightmares and Visions, we are introducing something to Havoc called Havoc Campaigns.

Havoc Campaigns is what we’ve opted to call the rotation of the mission pool and mutators within Havoc, we want players to be able to learn and adapt to these combinations while also changing things up over the period of the current Havoc Campaign. It’ll begin from this update!

Maintenance Announcement: With Havoc Campaigns, we’ll be introducing new balancing to the game mode. Ahead of Nightmares & Visions, Havoc will be “off-Campaign” and unavailable to play from the Sunday, March 23 until the day of release on March 25.

During this off-time and to reflect the balance changes made, we’ll reset everyone to their nearest threshold depending on the highest they reached the previous Havoc Campaign period. (Please see the chart below.)




[h2] New Mutators [/h2]

Heinous Rituals: 
Reports indicate that the Admonition has begun creating more Daemonhosts in this area, disrupt these rituals before it’s too late.



The Encroaching Garden:
Marked Enemies will heal affected allies in proximity.
If these enemies are not dealt with quickly, they will rapidly regenerate the enemy forces. 

Rampaging Enemies: 
Enemies in this sector are rampaging. They grow emboldened upon witnessing the death of another of their kind gaining increased defence against attacks.

Enraging Elites: 
Elite enemies will upon taking critical damage become enraged, increasing their attack speed, movement speed, and give them complete CC (crowd control) immunity. 

These four mutators will replace the current four mutators in Havoc. 




This summarizes the first wave of changes we’re bringing to Havoc for 2025. We still have more ideas we’d like to explore and bring to the game mode this year.

We’ll be reading the comments across our platforms in response to this blog, so please join the conversation and let us know what you think!

Thank you for reading and playing.

– The Darktide Team