Warhammer 40,000: Darktide News

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[h2]Devoted Rejects, [/h2]

Here are the patch notes for hotfix 1.2.12 which just went live on Steam and it will shortly be live on our other platforms.

[h3]Bug Fixes and Tweaks[/h3]

• Fixed a server crash which could happen if the same Veteran player applied the buff on a tag from the "Focus Target!" talent multiple times to the same enemy in rapid succession.
  
• Fixed a crash which could happen while inspecting the Talents tree of another player if that player left the Mourningstar.
  
• Fixed a crash which could happen if a player left a mission and was replaced by a bot just as the mission ended.
  
• Fixed several uncommon crashes.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Veteran "Exhilarating Takedown" talent was increasing the toughness damage taken instead of decreasing it.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Psyker "Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff" and “Smite” blitz would target random enemy hitzones.
  

Dev note: This resulted in heavily reduced damage when a limb body part was targeted. The on-kill gore effects will still affect different enemy body parts at random, but the damage will be normalised.

• Tweaked the Psyker "Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff" to always trigger maximum on-kill gore effects on a critical hit kill.
  
• Fixed an issue where the progress for collecting Scriptures and Grimoires for Melk's contracts was no longer tracked.
  
• Fixed an issue where the progress of the "Flawless Execution" penances chain was reset after the release of The Traitor Curse Part 1 Anniversary Update.
  

Dev note: The game will update to the progress value obtained in either up to Hotfix 1.2.03 or in The Traitor Curse Part 1 Anniversary Update, selecting the highest one. We apologise for the issue and for the possible loss of progress.

• When in unobtained status, the penances in the "Flawless Execution" chain will now display the current value being tracked instead of the best value ever achieved.
  

Dev note: Previously, the penance UI displayed the value for highest uninterrupted run performed by the player, and did not reset to 0 when the player got downed. This made it difficult to properly check the progress in unlocking the penance, as the actual progress being tracked by the game may not have been the one shown in the UI.

• Fixed an issue where the chest would clip through the breastplate of the Zealot "Krieg Greatcoat (Marked by Faith)" cosmetic on female characters.
  
• Fixed an issue where the tassel on the "Duellists Autogun" weapon skin was affected by physics incorrectly.
  

[h2]Devoted Rejects, [/h2]

Here are the notes for Hotfix 1.2.11 which just went live on Steam.

• Fixed a crash which could happen if a player joined a mission while a projectile was traveling in the air.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Veteran "Onslaught" talent did not affect melee attacks.

[h3]Missed Patch Notes from The Traitor Curse:[/h3]

• Achlys Mk VII Twin-Linked Heavy Stubber: decreased time to fire first shot from 0.22s to 0s, improved deploy speed, reload speed, movement speed while firing, tighter spread while braced, even tighter spread while braced + crouched.
  
• Fixed a bug where Hand-cannon weapon blessing effects were applied globally.
  
• Fixed an issue with the physics of the Death Korps of Krieg Upperbody.
  
• Reduced the Ogryn Lorenz Mk V Kickback minimum pellet count from 16 to 12
  Dev note: "Minimum pellet count" is a way to make sure that an enemy hit by a few pellets of a shotgun attack will still react by counting it as having been hit by more pellets than it actually was. The overall maximum damage and shot spread of the Kickback are not affected.
• Surge staff on-kill gore effects are no longer always triggered when killing an enemy - now also limbs and heads may be dismembered instead of the whole torso.

[h3]Veteran Talent Changes[/h3]

• 'Twinned Blasts' changed from 10% to 20%.
  
• 'Trench Fighter Drill' changed from 15% to 10%.
  
• 'For the Emperor!' changed from 20% to 10%.
  
• 'Bring it Down!' changed from 25% to 20%.
  
• 'Marksman' changed from 50% to 20%.
  
• 'Skirmisher' changed from 3 stacks to 5 stacks.
  
• 'Close Quarters Killzone' changed from 30% to 15%.
  
• 'Fire Team' changed from 3% to 5%.
  
• 'Confirmed Kill' changed from 25% + 25% over time to 10% + 20% over time.
  
• 'Out For Blood' changed from 2.5% to 3.5%.

New Talent (Not including Keystones)

• “The Bigger they Are …” - Executioner’s Stance now outlines all Ogryn Enemies. (Cannot be picked together with ‘Counter-Fire’)

Here are the patch notes for Patch #15: The Traitor Curse Part 1 which just went live on Steam and will be out shortly on the Microsoft Store.

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[h2]Mission: Mercantile HL 70-04[/h2]

Wyrmwood reports indicate that the Moebian VI have set up a base of operations in the Carnival. What's more, they are using some of the more disreputable areas of Mercantile HL 70-04 to produce stimms and distribute them out to the rest of the Hive. Get in there and recover samples we can analyse for traces of the Blight.

Dev note: This mission will be available on the mission board 1-2 hours after the patch release.



[h2]Veteran Tree[/h2]
Enjoy many changes and tweaks made to the Veteran tree, including the addition of Keystones (due to these changes, Veterans will see their talent tree reset and players will have to re-assign talent points).

• Marksman's Focus
  
  • Weakspot Kills grant you stacks of 'Focus'. Moving makes you lose stacks of 'Focus'. 'Focus' in turn increases your Reload Speed, and Ranged Finesse Power.
    
  • For a few seconds after your Weakspot Kills your Focus stacks will stay regardless of if you're moving around or not.
    
  • Improvements to 'Marksman's Focus' can provide Rending, Toughness Replenishment, Increased Max Stacks, and easier 'Focus' Stacks management
    
• Focus Target!
  
  • Your Tags on enemies now increase the Damage Taken of the target based on how long you've waited in between each Tag.
    
  • Improvements to 'Focus Target!'  include increasing the Maximum Strength of your Tag, along with bonuses such as, Toughness, Stamina, and Damage to allies once you kill the Tagged enemy.
    
• Weapons Specialist
  
  • When killing enemies with Melee Weapons, you power up your next Ranged attacks, granting increases in Critical Strike Chance and Rate of Fire.
    
  • When killing enemies with Ranged Weapons you power up your next Melee attacks, granting increases in Attack Speed and improvements to Dodging.
    
  • These bonuses are granted when you swap to the other slot.
    
  • Improvements to 'Weapon Specialist' include improved Stamina Management to your Melee Weapons, Ammo Management to your Ranged Weapons, and a Toughness Boost.
    

[h2]Inspect Feature[/h2]
Now you can inspect other players’ loadouts while in the hub and in mission lobbies.
When using this feature on the MourningStar you will be able to view the chosen player’s loadout, cosmetics and talent trees - while in mission lobbies you can switch between viewing a player’s weapon loadout and talents by pressing [TAB]. 

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[h2]Penances[/h2]
"After the release of Patch #13, several Penances could no longer be unlocked. We apologise for the issue. In this update, we reworked the systems handling the unlock of Penances and made sure that all of them could be obtained. The fixes include, but are not limited to, the following Penances:

• "Power Up"
  
• "Malleous Monstronum"
  
• "Resupply Allies"
  
• "Bring the Hurt"
  
• "Just a Flesh Wound"
  
• "I'm in charge"
  
• "Marked for death"
  
• "Stay strong"
  
• "Master your tools"
  
• "Make every shot count"
  
• "Going Out With a Bang" - Fixed an issue causing the Psyker Penance being able to be completed with a Plasma Gun overload explosion
  
• “Friends Will be Friends” 
  
•  "There is nothing but the Abyss" - Lowered the regained health requirement. from 75% health to 25% since that is the new max from the “Holy Revenant” Talent.
  

We also removed ‘Stand by for Action’ and ‘Rapid Response’ from the list of penances in the game.

Dev Note: These penances required the completion of a prototype mission type that was removed before launch. 
[h2]Group Buff Icon Setting[/h2]
We have added a setting that groups the buff icons in the HUD based on their source. The groups are currently:

• Generic - Buffs gained from conditions in game or gained from other players
  
• Talent - Buffs gained from your own talents
  
• Blessings - Buffs gained from your current weapon blessing.
  

This setting is turned on by default but it can be turned off to enable the previous behaviour. We hope that this will make it easier to see if a talent or blessing is active.

[h2]Bug Fixes and Tweaks[/h2]
[h3]Talents[/h3]

• Ogryn
  • Fixed Issue where 'Light 'em Up' Talent would trigger multiple times on the same shot on the same enemy.
    
  • Fixed issue with ‘Furious’ triggering on all melee attacks, not just heavy.
    
• Psyker
  • Assail - Increased the Base Cooldown. 2s to 3s.
    

Dev Note: Assail has been very powerful and has acted like a third weapon in many cases. We’re increasing the time it takes for them to recharge to incentivise switching back to your Primary or Secondary Weapons after using it, instead of wholly relying on them in most Combat situations. 

• Fixed Bug where Psykers 'Warp Rider' Talent gave more damage on low Peril than intended. Used to give 10% Damage at 0% Peril, instead of the intended 0% Damage at 0% Peril.
  
• Fixed Issue where 'Brain Rupture' had an inconsistent cast time when under the effects of 'Kinetic Resonance'.
  
• Fixed Issue where Peril generated through 'Kinetic Deflection' didn't synergize with 'Warp Expenditure'.
  
• Fixed an issue where specific types of enemies failed to be correctly highlighted by the 'Disrupt Destiny' talent. (The issue was only visual).
  

• Veteran
  • Fixed issue where 'Tactical Awareness' didn't trigger consistently when wielding a Chain Weapon.
    
  • Fixed issue where Veteran talent "Grenade Tinkerer" also made the player stun immune.
    
  • Fixed issue where 'Enhanced Target Priority' did not have an effect for all players.
    
  • Fixed issue where 'Onslaught' applied more stacks of Brittleness than intended.
    
  • Lowered the Bonus toughness of Duty and Honour from 100 to 50.
    

Dev note: It became too strong with the combined toughness increase and cooldown reduction of the previous patch.

• Zealot
  • Changed so ‘Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude’ ability staggers bosses 1st and every other pulse instead of first/last.
    
  • Fixed issue with Zealot Talent "Disdain" where buff icon was not showing correctly.
    
  • Fixed issue where two ‘Toughness Boost’ Operative Modifiers didn’t stack properly.
    
  • Changed max stacks for the Zealot Talent "Martyrdom" to 7, down from 9, to correctly reflect the max number of Wounds.
    
  • Fixed issue with 'Restoring Faith' buff icon showing up at times when it wasn't active.
    
  • Fixed issue where Pious Cut-Throat didn't trigger properly.
    
  • Fixed issue where ‘Fortitude in Fellowship’ didn't work properly.
    
  • Fixed issue where ‘Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude’ could get stuck wielded with no effect.
    

[h3]Weapons and Blessings[/h3]

• Fixed issue where the Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff received the 'Smite' Bonuses from 'Empowered Psionics'.
  
• Fixed an issue causing the aiming trajectory for underhand grenade throws to jump upwards when throwing the grenade.
  
• Fixed a bug where Shotguns weapon special "reload" wasn't affected by any of the reload speed talents and other buffs.
  
• Fixed detailed stats breakdown on the Krourk Mk IV Cleaver.
  
• Fixed an issue with attached projectiles, like the Krak grenade, which now is guaranteed to hit the enemy it is attached to. Previously there were some edge cases, if the body part it was attached to was clipping into geometry due to animation, that caused the explosion to not hit.
  
• Fixed an issue causing weapon temperature effects to not persist after wielding another weapon.
  
• Fixed Stub Revolvers showing "Melee Critical Chance" instead of "Ranged Critical Chance" in the detailed stat inspect view.
  

Dev Note: The stat for Critical Hits has always been applied to the ranged attacks of the weapon only, and this has been a visual issue in the inspect view.

“THE TAWDRY SURFACE IS GARISH AND ENTICING, PROMISING ENTERTAINMENTS AND ILLICIT DIVERSIONS, BUT UNDERNEATH THE LURID SURFACE, IT’S ACTUALLY AS VILE AND PITIFUL AS THE RUMOURS SUGGEST… PERHAPS EVEN WORSE.”



My name is Fredric Grapensparr, Lead Level Designer and one part of the multi-disciplinary team that crafted Darktide’s most recent zone for you to dig into. In this post I’ll be walking you through what that process looked like on a surface level and what you may expect from it. Without further ado, allow me to introduce HABZONE HL70-04, commonly referred to as ‘The Carnival’ by the citizens of Tertium.



Our work on The Carnival began with searching for a mood and backstory that differed from what you’ve previously seen in Darktide, while staying authentically Warhammer 40,000 and true to something you’d expect to find in the dark fantasy of a Hive City. What if we combine visual inspiration from Victorian London and its legends, with that of a Deep Hive? Toying with ideas such as a corrupted governor who would make The Adeptus Arbites look the other way while profiting off unsanctioned establishments, out of sight from the main streets. The overarching pieces fell quickly into place, making room for the expertise of Dan Abnett and our narrative team to flesh things out further and make corrections where necessary.



The Carnival is effectively a massive slum. Over-populated, close-packed and riven with poverty and grim conditions. As a result, it is semi-lawless. The disreputablenature of the place means it is a notorious area for entertainment: that’s its appeal. It’s the place you go for brief respiteand vice. It’s attractive in a very degenerate way, vividand dirty, promising transgressive thrills.

A skilled brawler may find their ticket out of poverty by participating (willingly or not) in fighting pits. The glory is short-lived however as blood lust corrupts. Another may strike gold with a lucky roll of the dice - though the chances of making it out alive with the winnings are slim, as The Carnival houses its own bogeymen and monsters stalking the backstreets. Bars are particularly
dangerous, pass out and you may find yourself in the hands of a devoted murdercult. Then there are the gangs looking to expand their influence. Visitors should expect to get mugged, or worse most likely.



With the worldbuilding foundation laid out in collaboration between the world team, Dan and the writers, designers and artists are primed to establish the current day state of the zone and its locations. The Traitor Guard have invaded and established defensive lines, and intelligence says that they’re cooking something up that would be a great detriment to Tertiums war efforts. What is their ultimate interest in the place and can we turn the tide in our favour? That is mostly for you to discover as we roll the missions out in sequence. But know that the stakes are high.

After the initial concept and narrative phase, Level Design is next up. We start off by deciding on key locations that fit into the theme and sketch the entire zone out with all of its missions, both in 2D and 3D, ensuring that everything fits together. This can prove challenging as things tend to change along the way in order to better fit gameplay, while still making sense from an architectural perspective as it is always important for us that gameplay mesh well with the artistic vision. During internal playtests we may receive feedback that a road is too narrow for interesting gunfights to happen, so in order to rectify that we need to move a building or three. Suddenly that same road is now a main road leading to a dead end, which is immersion breaking and something we want to avoid.

First iteration top-down sketches from two locations in the mission Mercantile HL-70-04-510. Certain things have changed since then, while others haven’t. Play the mission once it's available and see if you can recognize them.

Much like our other zones, the missions of The Carnival are interconnected, perhaps even more so than previously. Gameplay space is not only packed densely horizontally, but vertically as well. In one mission you could pass through a key location, while in another you may find yourself in the basement of the same building. A keen eye may recognize landmarks previously visited while traversing a rooftop. Every room and all the different paths in and out should have their purpose from when the place was first built, up until its current state. Think of it as city planning to a lesser extent, except more chaotic as the city has already evolved over centuries when we visit it, with newer structures replacing older ones.

This interconnectedness also translates into the narrative, where there’s a larger plot unfolding within the zone that intersects through each of the missions. This is part of our aforementioned ambition to set The Carnival apart from what you’ve experienced in Darktide thus far.



With the refined narrative and playable 3D blockout in place, artists get to work iterating on the end visual product. We typically reference the enviroments of the established Warhammer 40,000 universe , but for environments where there’s little to no precedence it’s about working with Games Workshop to figure out what materials and architecture (spoiler: it’s often with several pinches of gothic) would make sense for the point in Tertium’s millennia long timeline in which the zone was built. In the case of The Carnival, we had to ask ourselves questions such as what a refectory and a brewery may look like, as well as other locations that you normally don’t see or hear about in the setting. What we can’t find within the vast library of official Warhammer 40,000 art and lore that has been produced over the years we work closely with Games Workshop on to define.


Early concepts of storefronts and brewery props.

At this stage in development we’re still communicating between each of the disciplines to ensure that we’re all aligned on the vision, making gameplay changes where necessary, optimizing performance, tweaking color grading, lighting and adding further worldbuilding through voice lines and ambient sound design - so be sure to pay close attention to that between the rock- and flamethrowing. It’s an iterative process through and through until we’re content with the experience.



Since the release of Darktide we’ve learnt a lot about combat (which has evolved in itself) and what makes for fun and interesting engagements. Our ambition has always been that all classes, playstyles and loadouts should be able to find their opportunity to shine. With The Carnival we’ve aimed to refine that further and we’re looking forward to hearing about your experiences with this latest chapter in Darktide’s history.