Warhammer 40k Darktide allowed me to experience what it would have been like to fight for the Emperor of Mankind. It felt good fighting my way through the horde in service of the Imperium of Man. Now if only that game-breaking bug wasn't there. Read on to learn more about our first impressions of the Warhammer 40k Darktide Closed Beta Test (CBT), as we look at its gameplay and story.
For starters, what exactly is Warhammer 40k Darktide? Warhammer 40k Darktide, or Darktide for short, is a first-person shooter with co-op elements and an emphasis on horde combat. You pick one of four archetypes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Groups of four enter a mission location and must fight their way through the levels, accomplishing objectives as they do so. After clearing a mission, the characters receive gold, exp, and sometimes weapon drops. Leveling up unlocks skills, and this constant powering up allows players to survive harder difficulties.
To celebrate the 7th year anniversary of Warhammer: Vermintide, another game made by this game's developers, as well as to prepare for Darktide's release on November 30, 2022, players who pre-ordered the game can take part in the Pre-Order Beta from November 17, 2022, until November 29, 2022.
In light of the upcoming Darktide Beta, let's dive into our first impressions of the game so that you can decide if you want to pre-order the game or not.
Warhammer 40k Darktide First Impressions
I was able to get into the CBT from Darktide's Steam page. I'm a huge Warhammer fan, so taking part in the CBT was a dream come true for me. As soon as the servers were online for the closed beta, I rushed into the game, Instead of the game lobby, however, I was met by a player queue. A player queue with over 12,000 players, to be exact. This was within my expectation since the game is still in closed beta. Nevertheless, it still cooled my hype a little. Once I did get in, however, things went a little smoother.
Warhammer 40k Darktide character creation
The character creation for this game is very straightforward. You had to select one of the CBT's available classes: Veteran Sharpshooter, Zealot Preacher, Psyker Psykinetic, and Ogryn Skullbreaker. Each of these classes had its pros and cons and changes how you play. For my first character, I decided to go for the Veteran Sharpshooter. After choosing a class, I also chose my home planet, my reason for becoming a part of my class, as well as the reason for my imprisonment. Most of this is just for flavor text, although the last bit dictates what color my clothes are. Once I named my character, I was ready to get into the game.
Warhammer 40k Darktide gameplay
Right after character creation, I was immediately thrown into the game's tutorial. It taught me the basics, such as how to move, dodge, and attack. It also taught me game-specific features, such as how the healing/shield system worked, as well as how my powers worked. After learning all this, I had the option to go to the advanced tutorial, which I went into. This time it taught me about Darktide's more advanced gameplay features, such as sliding, as well as the suppression mechanic. Afterward, it was time to play the game.
I loaded into a central hub, with various other players surrounding me. I could explore the hub freely, and access its various features. For example, players who reach level 2 can access the armory, where they can buy weapons. This will be important later. Other than the armory, players could also go back to the tutorial to review what they learned. Of course, at the center of the hub is the mission select terminal, where players could select a mission to do. Once they have chosen a mission, they are matched with players who are also doing said mission. Once everyone is ready, the mission begins.
Darktide has a very simple gameplay loop. Although you have guns, you will be using your melee weapon most of the time. This is not just so you can conserve ammo. Melee attacks are also the fastest way to take out multiple enemies once they come close to you. And come close to you they will. Missions normally start off slow and peaceful, with one or two enemies to pick off. As you head deeper, however, the chance of encountering a horde increase. Guns are still useful in a horde, but using a melee weapon is still a better way to not get overrun.
Even if my class, the Veteran Sharpshooter, specialized in taking out enemies from afar. I still used my combat shovel for over half of the mission. This is the same for all of the classes. Players cycle between using their melee weapon, and their ranged weapon. Most of the time, we only use our guns when facing stronger enemies. Eventually, we reached our key objective, which was to carry crates of ammunition to the end zone. Most missions in Darktide are like this. We spent most of the map getting to our main objective. Afterward, we would spend the rest of our time in the mission finishing said objective. Afterward, we would head to the extraction point and finish the mission.
After finishing the mission, we were awarded with gold, experience points, and sometimes weapon drops. This helped prepare us for our next missions. More experience and gold meant more skills and better weapons. This allowed players to take on even harder missions. At least, that's what was supposed to happen. Before we get into that, though, let's talk about the Darktide's story.
Warhammer 40k Darktide story
Darktide's story is actually very simple. Your character used to be a proud member of the Imperium of man. A solder, a religious figure, or whatever it is you chose as your character's lore. However, after committing a sin to the Empire, you became part of a penal unit. This unit takes care of the missions no one else wants to do but needs to do anyway. This ranges from clearing daemonic possession in facilities, to reclaiming special ammunition, and more. As you play through these missions, you get bits and pieces of Darktide's story from the NPCs guiding you in them. They talk about what the facility was for, as well as why it fell to the enemy in the first place.
Other than the NPCs, you actually get even more story bits from the characters themselves. See, in the Warhammer universe, it's rare to have two groups of people that are entirely friends with each other. The veterans, for example, only trust Psykers as long as they do their job. Zealots hate Psykers, as they play with almost heretical powers. Psykers don't really like anyone, and the Ogryns, well, they're just there. This relationship between the different archetypes can be heard throughout the mission. You will hear the Zealot screaming praises to the emperor. The Veteran will be saying so many things about discipline and the importance of war. The Psykers will constantly be holding back the demons threatening them from the Warp. The Ogryns are there and want to help out everyone.
This banter between the characters makes it very fun to play. Even if you don't have voice communication with the people on your team, it still feels alive, and you don't feel alone. It's even more interesting when multiples of the same archetype are in one party, as they all have a common thing to bond over. This makes me want to play more of the game just to see these interactions. Problem is, something was keeping me from it.
Warhammer 40k Darktide game-breaking bug
Throughout my playthrough of the Darktide CBT, I only experienced one bug. The problem was, that bug was very game-breaking. As I mentioned in the gameplay section, a huge part of Darktide is leveling up and gaining access to stronger weapons. The bug I experienced prevented me from leveling up. Whenever I finished a mission, I would get kicked out of my party. Because of this, the game doesn't distribute XP points to me. The whole time I played this CBT, I was stuck at level 1. No matter what I tried to fix it, nothing worked. Thanks to that, I just watched as my friends who didn't have the bug left me behind in terms of power.
According to the developers, they have already fixed this problem. However, when I tried it out back during the CBT, the bug was still present for my character. We don't know for sure if the bug is present or not in the pre-order Beta, but hopefully it is.
Warhammer 40k Darktide summary
Overall, despite the game-breaking bug, I really enjoyed playing in the Darktide CBT. The melee combat felt amazing, the gunplay was decent, and the music fit the game so well. The way that Darktide incorporated the story bits into the gameplay was a nice touch. I would play just to hear the characters interact with each other. The only thing that made it unenjoyable was the bug that prevented me from gaining any experience. Other than that, the Darktide CBT was a good experience, and I can't wait for the full release.
That's it for our first impression of the Warhammer 40k Darktide CBT. If you want to learn more about Warhammer 40k Darktide, you can head on over here.
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