Warhammer 40k Darktide release date, trailers, and classes

The Warhammer 40k Darktide release date is just around the corner at the end of November 2022.  A live-service co-op multiplayer FPS game by Fatshark (the studio behind rat-stomper Vermintide 2), Darktide is shaping up to be one of the best Games Workshop-licenced videogames ever. We had a blast in its closed beta and cannot wait to bring you our full review. In the meantime, here’s our full guide to Darktide’s release, trailers, classes, and latest news.

 

For deeper dives into GW’s grimdark future, check out our guides to all the Warhammer 40k factions; the latest Warhammer 40k codex releases; and our primer on how to play Warhammer 40k.

Otherwise, it’s time to dive into Hive Tertium…

What is Warhammer 40k Darktide?

Warhammer 40k Darktide was announced by developer Fatshark in July 2020 – supposedly after hordes of grimdark gamers beseeched the Swedish studio to make a 40k-themed version of 2018’s Vermintide 2 – and the game has only looked more promising since then.

In fact, with the possible exception of the turn-based strategy battler Warhammer 40k Battlesector (which proved imperfect, but highly playable at review and received a pretty solid Necrons DLC), we hadn’t been this excited about a Warhammer 40k game in a long time.

Darktide is billed as another four-player co-op action extravaganza, taking Vermintide’s extremely successful hack-and-slash melee combat, adding in some classic 40k ranged weapons, and dumping you into the remarkably scary-looking, dark bowels of a Warhammer 40k chaos infested hive city to survive (plus, if you’re lucky, bring the light of the Emperor of Mankind to some heretics).

With Vermintide 2, Fatshark proved it could produce a truly atmospheric, lore-appropriate Warhammer world, and match it to best-in-class first-person slasher gameplay, to create one of the best Warhammer fantasy videogames of all time. Now, the 40k community is eagerly waiting to see if Darktide can repeat the feat for Games Workshop’s flagship sci-fi setting – and, so far… well, it’s looking pretty good.

Warhammer 40k Darktide release date

The official Warhammer 40k Darktide PC release date is November 30, 2022.

When FatShark first announced a delay to the game in July 2021, it estimated the game would release in Spring 2022. However, a further delay announced on 31 March, 2022 revealed the release date would then be 13 September, 2022.

This too was not to be, however – in July 2022, another delay pushed the PC release date back to November 30 2022.

Warhammer 40k Darktide XBOX release date

The Darktide Xbox release date is currently unconfirmed, but Fatshark CEO Martin Wahlund promised it would be coming to Xbox Series X/S consoles “shortly after” the PC release date.

Xbox players shouldn’t have to wait too long, though – as the official Xbox Warhammer 40k Darktide page lists its release date on the platform as simply “Coming 2022”.

Is Warhammer 40k Darktide coming to Game Pass?

Yes, Warhammer 40k Darktide is coming to Game Pass. It was originally slated as a day one Game Pass release, but – given Fatshark’s statement above – it’s now likely the game will arrive on Game Pass some time after the PC release on November 30.

We’ll keep this guide updated as soon as we hear more about the Xbox version’s release plans.

Warhammer 40k Darktide trailers

There have been so many Warhammer 40k Darktide trailers that it’s hard to keep up.

Setting aside the Class Spotlight videos (check those out below, under Darktide Classes) the latest official Darktide trailer is the World Intro Trailer, released on November 10, 2022.

It’s pretty damn epic. Narrated by a well-spoken Shipmistress (perhaps a Rogue Trader) named ‘Brahms‘, the trailer describes the galaxy-wide war waged by the Imperial Guard and Space Marines in the name of the Imperium of Man – then contrasts it with the underground, secret wars of the Inquisition and its agents.

This trailer dramatically sets the scene and galactic context for the desperate, deadly, blood-soaked missions you’ll be sent on during the course of Darktide’s evolving, live-service campaign.

Before that, we got a new trailer on August 23, during Gamescom 2022. This gives us a look at the game’s character customisation, as well as plenty of gory combat.

There was also a Warhammer 40k Darktide trailer during Summer Game Fest 2022 on June 9. This gave us our longest look yet at Darktide’s high-octane hack and slash (and shoot) gameplay.

This followed hot on the heels of a trailer named ‘Rejects will Rise’, which showed us the less than glorious backstories of the four playable characters, as well as providing hints about their abilities.

The March 2022 announcement declaring the game’s delay also came with a new trailer for Warhammer 40k Darktide.

Before that, a Warhammer 40K: Darktide trailer was revealed as part of Games Workshop’s Skulls! Livestream on June 3, and dropped the intriguing news that veteran Warhammer 40K novelist Dan Abnett was working with Fatshark on the game’s writing.

The driving point of Abnett’s commentary here is to underline the game’s focus on human stories. Far from the hyper-energetic clashes of power-armoured Space Marines and bio-weaponised alien behemoths elsewhere in 40K’s horrendous galaxy, Darktide is about baseline human fighters who simply have to make it through, against the odds. The phrase “survival horror” is used – whether for good or ill, we’ll find out on the game’s release…

For a bit more depth on the human stories Abnett means to tell through Darktide’s gameplay, you need to read this excellent interview with the man himself, over on our sister website PCGamesN.

Before that, we got our first glimpse of Darktide’s gameplay in its first ‘proper’ trailer, released on December 11, 2020.

Here, we had a decent shifty at the playable squad members in the game (including the Ogryn), and some appropriately gore-soaked footage of first-person melee combat, with the player using a chainsword, power hammer and combat knife to chop through what look like Chaos-addled cultists and traitor guardsmen.

The second half gets all shooty, showing off the massive slug shotgun the Ogryn trooper carries, a couple of lasgun variants, an autogun, and the humble frag grenade, among other implements of death.

We also see a rather distinctive-looking spiky-helmed traitor guardsman, who seems like they may be important.

Before that, all we had was the original teaser trailer from July 2020, which whet all our appetites for the idea of a four-person Imperial Guard squad trying to survive in the terrifying hellscape of a Chaos-dominated underhive, where all the lights are mysteriously out of action…

We, er… we don’t think those guardsmen made it out. Just saying.

Warhammer 40k Darktide classes

There are currently four Darktide classes that we know will be playable when the game releases – they are:

• The Zealot – An inquisitorial acolyte type with a bowl cut, a power hammer, and a scroll down their front
• The Veteran – An Imperial Guard stormtrooper with a gas mask and lasgun
• The Ogryn – toting a massive slug gun and a cutlass
• The Psyker – A hooded, warp-powered psyker, who needs no equipment – their mind is a weapon – but has some anyway

Ever since the “writer reveal” trailer, we’ve known that the player starts the game as a prisoner (cribbing notes from The Elder Scrolls, are we, Fatshark?) but is then recruited as an agent of the Inquisition – a secretive and hugely powerful faction within the Imperium of Man.

It soon becomes clear (based on our time exploring the glorious hub zone during the Darktide closed beta) that the Inquisition has hired a small army of such agents – each of them from one of the above four classes – all bustling around completing missions all over Hive Tertium.

Fatshark has released badass Class Spotlight trailers detailing the character, aspects, in-game abilities, and playstyle of three the four Darktide classes we’ve seen so far (we’re still waiting to see more about the Psyker).

Each of these videos gives its respective Darktide class a subtitle / secondary name; these are actually only the default subclasses for the Veteran, Psyker, Ogryn, and Zealot classes – and we expect to see further distinct variant subclasses released later, a la Destiny 2.

Here’s a breakdown of the Class Spotlight videos so far:

Zealot: Preacher

In late September, a dev blog post revealed more information about the Zealot – in particular the Preacher, one of several class options for the Zealot archetype. The Zealot class spotlight says this class has “aggressive, in-your-face type” gameplay – as the Zealots are spurred on to deal even more damage when they suffer injuries.

According to the text in the video: “Preachers yearn for the release of death and arrival before the Golden Throne. Alas, it seems the Emperor yet has need of them in the mortal world and so they fight on, blows emboldened by pious rage as their lifeforce ebbs, and fury heightened by the knowledge that each scrap of pain brings them closer to reward.

“Preachers care not if they live or die, so long as the foe is vanquished. Their faith hardens as they suffer injury and grow weaker, empowering attacks with holy wrath and strengthening their will to fight on.”

A table also shows the Zealot Preacher‘s in-game stats and abilities – here it is in easier-to-read form:

Veteran: Sharpshooter

According to text in the video: “The Veteran Sharpshooter epitomises the Astra Militarum’s combat doctrine: overwhelming firepower, honed through training, and delivered unflinchingly in the heat of battle.”

“The Sharpshooter specialises in ranged combat drills, keeping the foe at a distance while bringing firepower to bear against high-priority targets.

“Though they can spray and pray with the best of them, the Sharpshooter is at their most dangerous when they take the time to place their shots where the enemy is vulnerable. Breathe in. Breathe out. Blow them away.”

Here’s a table from the video showing the Veteran’s in-game stats and abilities:

Ogryn: Skullbreaker

According to the text in the video: “Ogryns are abhumans, a subspecies of humanity deemed useful enough to protect it rom the sanction of purgation.

“Stronger and Tougher than ordinary humans, Ogryns excel at work that requires extra muscle or indifference to pain and often serve as labourers, manufactorum workers… or, in the Astra Militarum, shock troops, and bodyguards, using their brawny bodies to shield their comrades and immense strength to smash their enemies.

“A Skullbreaker leans into the Ogryn;s foremost attribute: its prodigious strength. He loves nothing more than to charge into the thick of the fighting, shouldering aside any ‘punies’ that get in is path to delvier punishing, shattering blows against his chosen target. Often while laughing as the tiny, tiny foes tire themselves out flailing at him in return.”

Here’s a table for the Ogryn Skullbreaker‘s in-game stats and abilities:

Warhammer 40k Darktide characters

Brahms

We don’t know much about Shipmistress and potential Rogue Trader Brahms, other than that she narrates the November 2022 World Intro Trailer, and appears to be a servant of the Imperial Inquisition.

It’s not a great leap of the imagination to guess that she’s Shipmistress of the Imperial Navy vessel that serves as your home base during the game – but we don’t yet know what type of role she’ll play in the game’s story and events.

The Inquisitor

Back in the original teaser trailer, the voiceover is heard – in plummy, aristocratic, British-English tones that scream ‘high-born Imperial citizen’ – reporting to an Inquisitor that they have arrived at the planet, and assembled their “recon team” (that’s you, chum) to investigate certain levels of the hive city.

It seems evident that this apparent inquisitorial agent will be the one pulling your team’s strings, setting missions for you to complete – but we don’t yet know if they will be a fully realised, named character in the game’s story, or more of a shadowy puppet master.

The briefing sergeant

It seems more likely to be the latter, however, since in the most recent gameplay trailer, the characters were briefed on their mission by a cockney-voiced Imperial Guard sergeant. (Perhaps Vermintide 2’s Kruber fell through a warp gate.)

It makes sense that a high-born Inquisitor would go through some intermediary when dealing with lowly indentured fighters like the heroes of Darktide, and this seems to be him. The sergeant’s voice pops up again and again in the trailer, so it seems likely he’ll be a ‘voice in your ear’ throughout the game.

The spiky-headed traitor guardsman

In the second half of the December 2020 gameplay trailer, we meet a distinctive, badass-looking chap, apparently in charge of some Imperial Guard soldiers who have turned traitor and joined Chaos.

Flanked by fellow corrupted troopers, this guy’s arrival seems choreographed to add maximum evil vibes. Standard Guard uniform modified with chainmail, spiked plates and a spiky helmet; an etched human skull at his belt; and a face uncovered to reveal mouldering flesh and bone – it’s the very model of a scary (yet human) 40K villain.

Dollars to donuts, this fella is one of our main antagonists.

WARHAMMER 40K DARKTIDE SETTING

Darktide is set on the planet Atoma Prime, in a continent-sized, ultra-dense hive city named Tertium. In the writer reveal trailer, Black Library darling Dan Abnett describes Tertium as “a vital Imperial holding, essentially the capital of an enormous area of space,” and “home to billions of loyal Imperial citizens”.

“It’s not the sort of thing you want to lose – but it’s also a way for Chaos to get into the Imperium, which [the Inquisition] can’t allow to happen,” he adds.

In terms of in-game environments, the setting of a hive city allows for more variety than you might think.

Since these places house billions of people, spanning thousands of miles across (and often many miles beneath the planet’s surface, and miles upwards too), there’s scope for missions to explore all sorts: habitation blocks; vast market districts; factory units; acres and acres of churches, temples and cathedrals; surface level streets, hive ‘stacks’ (miles-high skyscrapers that make Judge Dredd’s megacities look like Lego villages), and more.

In Warhammer 40K lore, these sorts of places are pretty bleak, soulless and overwhelming at the best of times – but in Darktide, it would seem Tertium has an even worse problem: a Chaos uprising.

In the 2020 teaser trailer, we saw the recon squad exploring “level six” of Tertium hive, and discovering a crowd of ghoulish, shambling humanoids (and one shadowy hulk that might be a corrupted Ogryn) which look suspiciously misshapen and diseased.

As such, it’s a pretty fair bet that Nurgle, the Chaos god of plague, decay and contagion, is working his feculent magics upon Atoma Prime.

WARHAMMER 40K DARKTIDE WEAPONS

The three trailers we’ve seen so far have been fairly open-handed in showing the game’s gory, grimdark arsenal – we’ve seen crunchy and blood-spattered footage of various melee and ranged weapons so far:

Melee weapons

• Chainsword
• Combat knife
• Power hammer (we won’t call it thunder hammer ’til we see the lightning)
• Ogryn-sized cutlass
• Power sword

Ranged weapons

• Lasgun
• Autogun
• Ripper gun (A massive Ogryn-sized shotgun that looks like a China Lake grenade launcher)
• Frag grenade

There are some classic 40K weapons we haven’t seen yet, too, which we’d guess may still make an appearance. Take your bets, folks…

• Power fist
• Boltgun
• Heavy Stubber
• Bolt pistol
• Plasma Gun
• Meltagun

Rest assured that our eagle eyes are out for any whisper of an update on Warhammer 40K: Darktide, and we’ll keep this guide updated with the latest on the game as we go along. The Emperor protects. Probably.

Warhammer 40k: Darktide Beta

Fatshark announced on September 20 that it would be running a two-day-long Warhammer 40k: Darktide Closed Beta from October 14 to October 16. The Closed Beta ran on both PC and consoles.

As standard for such Beta tests, applicants were sent a questionnaire about their platform of choice (and system specs, for PC players) before being accepted onto the Beta (or not). The Closed Beta is now over.

Closed Beta participants got to explore a restricted version of the game, says Fatshark, explaining “we will be limiting weapons, maps and missions, enemy types and other systems”. Game progression in the Beta build was be wiped afterwards, and will not be carried over into the final game.

Fatshark welcomed Beta members to stream their gameplay, however – and it invited streamers to join the game’s dedicated content creator programme for more information.

Source: Wargamer