One year on from its rocky launch, co-op shooter Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has been on a bit of an apology tour, making major overhauls of core systems to get the game into a more lovable state. So far it’s been a really successful makeover, and it’s culminated in a big free expansion, The Traitor Curse, released in two parts. We got the first part last month, and now we’ve got details of the second, along with a promise to have it out before the winter holidays.
In case you missed it, part one introduced a new story cinematic and a new zone and mission based around a creepy carnival, alongside an inspect feature and a rebalance of the Veteran’s talent tree.
Part two promises to keep the grimdark times rolling with another new mission, dubbed Warren 6-19, that sends you into the “back alleys” of the carnival to find and destroy the cult’s production facilities. There’ll be a special encounter that can trigger for a limited time during missions, too—a fight with “the Karnak Twins”, who sound like a less than friendly pair.
The biggest change, however, comes in glass syringes. The update will introduce Stimms to the game—a new consumable that comes in healing, damage boosting, speed buffing, and cooldown reducing flavours. They sound very similar to Vermintide 2’s magic potions, and that’s no bad thing: in that game, they were a great tool in player’s arsenals, precious resources that, if conserved properly, could give you the edge for pivotal moments like boss fights. I’d certainly welcome that extra element of tactical depth in Darktide too.
There’ll also be new “Marks” of weapon—in other words, variants of existing weapon types, with unique stats and qualities. The press release teases a version of the Stub Revolver that lets you fan the hammer for a quick spray of bullets, and a, er, “foldable” shovel. Quite hard to imagine how making your weapon slightly more portable will be useful in a scrap against endless hordes of Nurgle cultists, but hey, I’m excited to find out, and apparently there’ll be lots more new Marks beyond those two as well.
Finally, Fatshark leave us with a little tease:
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I’m sure the community’s already hard at work deciphering what this could mean. Perhaps a festive element, as a nod to the season? Surely even Warhammer isn’t too grimdark to celebrate the holidays?
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