As part of the upcoming Free Update , we have a new set of weapons coming to Darktide! These include both new marks for existing patterns, as well as some brand new patterns entirely! We’ve interviewed some of our Game Designers to talk about them in this Feature Highlight. “I’m
As part of the upcoming Free Update, we have a new set of weapons coming to Darktide! These include both new marks for existing patterns, as well as some brand new patterns entirely! We’ve interviewed some of our Game Designers to talk about them in this Feature Highlight.
“I’m Matteo, I’m a Game Designer specializing in Weapons. My favourite class is Psyker, and I make a sick tiramisú.” ~ Matteo
“I’m Erik, a Game Designer also specializing in Weapons. My favourite classes are Zealot and Psyker. I can confirm that Matteo makes a sick tiramisú. I can't cook or bake but I'll make you a perfect 'Last word' cocktail.” ~ Erik
New Weapon Families
Ogryn Cruncher
“It’s a big sledgehammer. And it’s big even for an Ogryn, so it’s HUGE, heheh.” ~ Matteo
The “Cruncher” two-handed Hammer is a relatively simple, but effective weapon. The heavy attacks are powerful, wide swings with good damage and stagger potential to mow down hordes with. The Weapon Special attacks behave like heavy attacks in that you can charge them, but use a Strikedown, single-target focused moveset.
As a unique quirk, both the heavy and the special attacks become more powerful the longer you hold them! Of course, as such a massive weapon, it’s quite slow both in movement and in swing speed, so timing your attacks is essential.
“So you want to make your attacks count. You’ll be able to control the enemies with it, but you need to pace your attacks so that you can hit the enemies and leave as small of a gap as possible between them.” ~Matteo
“The Arbites shotgun was very well received, so we wanted to give something in that line to the other human classes as well.” ~ Erik
Available to all Human classes except Arbites, the Huntsman is a pump-action shotgun that was designed to behave similar to the Exterminator Shotgun. Not just in gameplay but also in feel, since pump-action shotguns have a uniquely satisfying cadence to them that we wanted to get just right for this gun.
Compared to the other shotguns these classes have access to, such as the Combat shotgun, the Huntsman is slower and heavier, but packs a stronger punch. It has a classical cone pellet pattern and is extremely efficient at close to medium ranges. It also doesn’t have special shells for its weapon special, and is instead the first shotgun with a flashlight!
The Thugshot is a slug shotgun for the Ogryn. It looks quite similar to the Kickback, but as it fires slugs instead of pellets, it is far more precise and concentrates its firepower on a single, devastating projectile.
“It’s basically the equivalent of a human cannon, but in Ogryn hands, so… it shoots pretty hard, I would say!” ~ Erik
Each shot has a powerful impact and deals heavy damage to pretty much anything. It’s decent at dealing with heavily armoured enemies, but is not particularly specialized at it. While it is reasonably accurate, it’s not a weapon that excels at extreme ranges, but it’s a good alternative to use against threats in mid to long distances.
“I imagine the players are gonna have fun pulling out a quick cannon, getting off a shot and then back to swinging with the new two-handed hammer!” ~ Erik
Just like the Indignatus Mk IVe, this Crusher variant is available only to Zealots and Arbites classes. It sports a unique moveset to provide an alternative flow of attacks and chains, keeping things interesting. But the main feature that differentiates them is the Weapon Special!
While both marks’ Weapon Special empowers the weapon’s next attack, the Mk VII’s explosion is far more powerful, but it then goes on a cooldown where you can’t use the Special again for a few seconds. This approach lets us keep both styles of Weapon Special available to the family, letting players choose their preferred Weapon Special.
“This is basically a non-sawed off variant of the sawed off double-barreled shotgun.” ~ Erik
Because of the longer barrel, this version has a tighter spread compared to the Crucis Mk XI, making it more effective at farther distances but worse at blasting down crowds of enemies before you.
Beyond these distance changes, the main differences are that this variant shoots both barrels when hipfired (while it only fires a single shot when using the alternate fire mode), and that the alternate fire lets you Aim Down Sights, rather than bracing it.
This lets the shotgun excel at picking off priority targets in the midrange, while still having a powerful blast available for close quarters combat. Damage wise they’re very similar, but not identical; small tweaks here and there between the two marks.
“Those small changes make it play very differently.” ~ Erik
Finally, we have a simple new variant of the Ogryn Slab Shield! This one plays very similar to the existing mark, with the main difference being a new Light Attack moveset, with a bigger focus on Strikedown attacks. This lets you use the heavy attacks for clearing and controlling hordes while still having an option for single target damage.
“We’re always looking for fun niches to explore that don’t exist in the current roster. [...] We always work as hard as we can, to do as many weapons as we can and always expand the arsenal. To give the players new, fun toys.” ~ Erik
Due to not sharing any weapons with humans, the Ogryn arsenal is smaller and so we took this opportunity to bring them two new families, one melee and one ranged. In particular, we know that Ogryn mains have been itching to have a new big two-hander to crush punies with, so we hope it meets expectations!
All five of these weapons have been concepts that the design team has been toying with in the background for a while, and this upcoming Free Update was a great opportunity to bundle them all in a pack and release them.
Bonus: Favorite new weapon?
“I like the Ogryn Thugshot because I think it fills what used to be a gap in his arsenal. It’s fun to play with, very rewarding when you cleave through several heads with a big cannonball. But also, as a player, I wanted a pump-action shotgun for my Zealot, so I’m pretty excited for that as well.” ~ Erik
“For me, definitely the hammer, it’s nice. It stays in the same area of the pickaxe, of these giant Ogryn weapons that you want to have, but it leans more into the ‘stagger everything’ idea of the Ogryn. In the same vein as the clubs, but those are relatively fast. This one is like slow, giant swings that just topple everyone.” ~ Matteo
“We’re excited to see the players get their hands on the new weapons, along with the new map!” ~ Erik
That’s all we have for today! We hope you enjoyed this early look at the weapons coming in this Free Update!
Warband! On September 29 , Get ready to return to Tertium and venture deeper into the Hive than ever before! The Depths of the Damned update introduces a new mini story campaign to Darktide, which reaches its climax in the brand new level, Spillway! This new mission sends players
On September 29, Get ready to return to Tertium and venture deeper into the Hive than ever before! The Depths of the Damned update introduces a new mini story campaign to Darktide, which reaches its climax in the brand new level, Spillway!
This new mission sends players into the deep and dangerous recesses of the Hive. The notorious domain of the Water Cartel is a sprawling labyrinth of tunnels, waterways and forgotten passages, crawling with chaos, decay and threats best left undisturbed. Spillway's journey is far from straightforward; strike teams must choose their paths wisely, and some routes are more perilous than others.
Expanded Arsenal: The warband is expanding their armory against Chaos with six new weapons coming to Darktide! Players will be able to unleash a mix of both new weapon marks and families accessible to a range of in-game classes.
For the new weapon families, Darktide is introducing the Ogryn Cruncher, Huntsman’s Shotgun and the Ogryn Thugshot.
The newweapon marks include the Crusher Krourk MK VII, Double-Barrelled Shotgun Krouk Mk IV, Gromm Mk I Battle Maul and Mk V Slab Shield.
For a more in depth breakdown of the weapons, keep an eye on our Feature Highlight coming soon!
Face The Prophet of Decay: Deep within the Hive, something has taken root. Little is yet known about the Prophet of Decay, save for one grim certainty...they are no ordinary spawn of Chaos. A powerful Psyker, the Prophet has made the depths of the Torrent its domain, and what awaits the Strike Teams in the dark remains to be seen.
Other Transmissions from the Hive: Alongside the above, the Depths of the Damned update will also feature additional content such as a new live event, store rotation and quality of life improvements.
That’s all we have for today! We hope you look forward to the Depths of the Damned update, as well as the Feature Highlights that we’ll be releasing!
Whatever Admonition's been up to seems to be infecting the population. Horde sightings are on the rise, with some districts entirely lost to the shambling horrors. This isn't a case of a single hab-block falling. This is something much darker and could be the herald of worse to c
Whatever Admonition's been up to seems to be infecting the population. Horde sightings are on the rise, with some districts entirely lost to the shambling horrors. This isn't a case of a single hab-block falling. This is something much darker and could be the herald of worse to come...
The streets are choked with hordes of infected enemies! To make progress in the event, complete missions with the Endless Hordes modifier.
The event is LIVE NOW until September 2! The rewards will be Ordo dockets, Plasteel and Diamantine. Those who complete the last tier of the event will receive a cosmetic insignia.
Warband! Today’s hotfix includes a handful of fixes. The patch is now rolling out on all platforms, and you can read the notes below! Hotfix 1.12.5 patch notes Fixes General Fixes Fixed a crash occurring when Zealot players disconnect mid use of Fury of the Faithful. Fixed Chordc
Warband!
Today’s hotfix includes a handful of fixes. The patch is now rolling out on all platforms, and you can read the notes below!
Hotfix 1.12.5 patch notes
Fixes
General Fixes
Fixed a crash occurring when Zealot players disconnect mid use of Fury of the Faithful.
Fixed Chordclaw ability being able to be used without consuming charges.
Fixed a crash occurring when Veteran hotjoins a game with Leave No One Behind talent.
Fixed a rare crash occurring when the Servo Skull is reviving an ally but the player being revived dies.
Inviting your Steam Friends from the Steam Overlay into your Strike Team now works again.
Fixed an issue where newly created characters could not opt out of the campaign.
Cosmetic Fixes
Fixed visible hole on Cadia's teeth Chainsword.
Fixed ammo meter and broken reload on Resplendent Fury Laspistol.
Fixed hair clipping into headgears.
Fixed Hair clipping with Scryer's Eyewrap with Psykana Collar.
Fixed wrong colors being displayed on Pistolero's Duty Uniform & Gun-Hand's Duty Uniform.
Harsh Environment Flak Helmet with Psykana Collar (Montar Camo) with orange emissive light renamed to MkIII Harsh Environment Flak Helmet with Psykana Collar (Montar Camo) to avoid name duplication.
Fixed issue with powered VFX being offset on Pyre Blade.
Warband! Today’s patch comes with several tweaks and fixes. After feedback from you all we have done some balance changes to the Vanguard enemies, decreasing their health, modified their block radius and added a new way for you to stagger them. We also took a look at the Blitzes
Warband!
Today’s patch comes with several tweaks and fixes. After feedback from you all we have done some balance changes to the Vanguard enemies, decreasing their health, modified their block radius and added a new way for you to stagger them.
We also took a look at the Blitzes available to the Skitarii class and made some adjustments. There are plenty of other things going into Patch 1.12.4, and it is now being rolled out on all platforms, notes are below!
Dev Note for our Xbox Series S players:To alleviate memory, and to prevent crashes, there is now a black pre-loading screen that appears before the Valkyrie loading screen when you go into a mission. This shouldn’t change the loading time length. We have other memory saving solutions that we will implement in a future patch, and we aim to return to the normal loading screen once those are implemented.
The Blocking radius has been decreased from 120 degrees to 100 degrees
Note: This is the Half-moon we check in front of the enemy to consider if they are guarding against attacks
Events Adjustment:
We’ve lowered the amount of Vanguard enemies allowed to spawn concurrently in mission mid and end Events
New stagger available
It’s now possible to heavily stagger a Vanguard by Pushing them twice in a rapid fashion; this will make them stumble backwards and open to be attacked.
Weapon and Blessing Updates:
Mechanicus Power Sword
Fixed an issue where the Finesse and First Target stats would not correctly apply their scaling to Special activated attacks
Increased the Melee Strength bonus scaling on Special charges from +4% to +5% (max at 6 charges from +24% to +30%)
Added a new Light 5 diagonal Vanguard attack, chained from Light 4 and chaining back into Light 4 / Heavy 3
Changed the scaling of the Mobility stat to provide an additional effective Dodge when exactly at 80% stat.
Slight range and hitbox increase for all attacks
Slight movespeed curve increase for Heavy windups and attacks
Paired Transonic Blades
Fixed an issue where Light attacks could be repeated at way faster than intended rate when quickly swapping between wielded weapons/items.
Fixed an issue where the Cleave Efficiency stat would fail to scale the damage on secondary targets for most attack profiles.
Dev Note: 2nd target ADMs for profiles that use both weapons (Slayer Heavy 2, Dueller Heavy 1) have been tweaked to avoid scaling their damage higher than the 1st target due to the above change.
Changed the Crit Chance scaling for the Critical Bonus stat from 0-8% to 0-10%
Added a new alternative crosshair for melee weapons with a Special mode switch
The new circle crosshair will be displayed when the Special is enabled, instead of the standard dot crosshair
The alternative crosshair behaviour can be turned off in the Interface Options, through the ""Weapon Special Crosshair"" toggle
Affecting the following weapons:
Paired Transonic Blades
Sapper Shovel
Latrine Shovel
Crowbar
Bone Saw
Mechanicus Power Sword and Arc Maul
Tweaked the HUD element which represent the Special charges to have better visibility against the background in different lighting situations
Increased the contrast and opacity of the HUD, both when the Special is activated or deactivated
Removed the fade out of the HUD when at full Special charges
‘Decapitator’ weapon blessing
Changed the “One-Shot” enemy current health requirement from 100% to 80%
Changed stacks to decay one by one instead of all at once
Updated the duration and scaling per stack over Blessing tiers for all weapon families:
Combat Axe
Duration from 8s to 5s
Scaling from 18/20/22/24% to 14/16/18/20%
Power Falchion
Duration from 8s to 5s
Scaling from 18/20/22/24% to 10/12/14/16%
Bone Saw
Duration from 8s to 5s
Scaling from 18/20/22/24% to 14/16/18/20%
Mechanicus Power Sword
Duration from 4s to 5s
Scaling from 18/20/22/24% to 10/12/14/16%
Dev Note:The requirements for the ‘Decapitator’ Blessing are now more lenient, allowing for enemies which are lightly damaged to still trigger the effects. Note however that the killing hit will still need to deal damage equal or higher than the maximum health of the enemy to be considered a One-Shot. Additionally, we have updated the stacks to decay one by one over time instead of all at once, to further increase the consistency of the Blessing.
Since the uptime of the Blessing effects will be higher after the changes, we have rebalanced accordingly the values of the Finesse bonus and aligned the duration of each stack to 5s for all the weapon families.
‘Machine Spirit Resurgent’ weapon blessing
Lowered cooldown scaling over tiers from 6/5/4/3s to 5.5/4.5/3.5/2.5s
Skitarii Blitzes Update:
Dev Note: We’ve taken a pass on the Blitz Abilities of the Skitarius with the goal of aligning their power levels in comparison to each other and improving their usability.
Arc Grenades
Updated Arc Damage application to increase consistency
Dev Note: Damage is now delivered through a short duration (0.5s) Debuff instead of direct damage. This change also affects Voltaic Resistance (Integrated Refraction Emitter Sub Node) and Voltaic Arcs (Voltaic Emitter Sub Node). The average damage per enemy should increase compared to before.
Arc Jump Range 8 -> 12
Explosion Radius of initial Arcs 8 -> 10
Now generates 4% Capacitance for each Elite or Specialist Killed by the Arc Grenade.
Servo-Skulls
Purgator and Medicae Servo-Skulls
Base Charges 4 -> 3
Selecting both the Purgator and Medicae Servo-Skulls increases the Charges to 5.
Purgator Servo-Skull
Burn stacks per hit 1 -> 2
Max Burn stacks 16 -> 12
Noospheric Command
Can now only be used if you have the required Capacitance available.
Integrated Refraction Emitter
Charges replenish every 75s.
Max 3 Charges
No longer replenished by picking up Grenade Boxes
Voltaic Resistance (Sub Node)
The number of Arcs released will now be at least 1
Reduced the number of hits required per Arc 10 -> 6
Quality of Life Changes
Both Vanguard type enemies have been added to the Meat Grinder.
You can now order your operatives from the list in the Operative Selection screen. Hovering with a mouse will show arrows to reposition that operative up or down. With a controller, new button actions will show on the bottom part of the screen as a prompt to do the same.
Expeditions - Tech-remnants dropped with a value above 100 will now show on the Auspex map
Expeditions - Made it so dodging out of the Auspex map does not count as clicking on the map
Updated the ‘Alternative 7’ controller layout buttons scheme
Dev note: The Alternative 7 layout will now be very similar to the Default one, with the Special input being moved to the Left shoulder button and conversely the Tag input being moved to the Right Stick pressed input.
Fixes
General Fixes
Fixed so that the Rolling Steel data-interrogation minigame counts as progress for "The Machine Whisperer" Penance
Fixed an issue where the Skull Companions had incorrect unlock requirements.
Kicked players will no longer be prompted to reconnect to the mission they were kicked from.
Fixed an issue where Sire Melk's Events were empty when no event was ongoing.
Fixed an issue where some cutscenes would end with a fade to black which would never go away.
Fixed an issue where notifications could get permanently stuck on screen
Equipped gear now will stay the same if a player made changes to the backstory choices during Personality Scourge and all background choice cosmetics were already available in the player's inventory
Tweaked the text position for mission modifiers in multiple places in the UI
Fixed an issue where Input Device selection was not available in the Sound settings
Preset Graphics quality no longer gets modified to "Custom" after selecting any of the preset choices
Controller configuration "Alternative 2" no longer shows an incorrect button layout
Fixed an issue where players level could show as 0 in the mission result screen
The Tagging Wheel option entry now resets as expected
Item icons now should display as expected when viewing an item that the current character cannot equip.
Fixed various talents appearing incorrectly in the Tactical Overlay
Fixed Veteran ‘Demolition Stockpile’ buff showing the wrong timing for grenade replenishment when using Krak Grenades
Fixed Skitarii ‘Integrated Refraction Emitter’ being active while grabbed by a Daemonhost or eaten by Beast of Nurgle
Fixed a crash that could happen when switching talents in the Meat Grinder while ‘Advanced Combat Doctrines’ ability was active.
Fixed ‘Advanced Combat Doctrines’ giving the wrong number of ‘Power Overload’ keystone stacks through the ‘Powerdrive’ keystone upgrade. Now it gives stacks when the ability is deactivated based on the total charges consumed while the ability was active.
Fixed a crash that could happen if a player disconnected while in the middle of Arbites ‘Break the Line‘
Fixed a crash that could happen if a latching attack was interrupted right as it hit an enemy
Fixed ‘Overcharge Transfer Lattice’ not showing its cooldown time in the HUD when it activates.
Fixed inconsistencies with ability charges not being given when their cooldown ended
Fixed a crash that could happen in Expeditions if a Skitarii would try to target a Vortex when generating an Arc through abilities or weapons.
Fixed Skitarii ‘Redline’ keystone upgrade ‘Advanced Power Management’ not interacting with the ‘Advanced Combat Doctrine’ ability
Fixed a crash that could happen if an ‘Arc Grenade’ explosion happened while the player that threw it was dead
Fixed Skitarii ‘Integrated Refraction Emitter’ crashing in Expeditions at the end of a mission or loading transition
Fixed Skitarii ‘Ammunition Deposit’ aura effect staying active in the Meat Grinder when switching auras
Fixed Skitarii ‘Redline Capacitors’ and ‘Static Capacitor Drain’ Capacitance generation bonuses not being applied to Capacitance gains other than base generation over time
‘Advanced Combat Doctrines’ now always aims towards the body of Pox Hounds and Armored Pox Hounds
Dev note: Due to their small profile and speed, prioritizing the head often resulted in misses during active gameplay.
Fixed ranged weapons performing the rest of an interrupted Reload sequence when wielded after ammo was added via the ‘Gunsmith’ talent while it wasn't wielded.
Fixed Veteran ‘Always Prepared’ keystone upgrade not preventing the Reload sequence from playing after the ammo was replenished upon using ‘Executioner's Stance’ while on an empty clip/magazine.
Fixed an issue where the ‘Chordclaw’ ability could enter an infinite attack action loop due to an incorrect interaction with the ‘Purgator Servo-Skull’ Blitz
Fixed Skitarii ‘System Shock’ talent not triggering from the Shock Maul Electrocution effect on staggering hits.
Fixed Arbites ‘Break The Line’ melee switch not triggering the ‘Terminus Warrant’ keystone
Fixed an issue where the ‘Arc Grenades’ explosion radius was not matching the description of the ‘Enhanced Arc Grenades’ talent
Fixed ‘Slice and Dice’ not refreshing its duration when getting new stacks
Fixed an issue where the syringe of the ‘Medicae Servo-Skull’ could appear into screen when playing on a ultrawide with high FoV
Fixed an issue where button callouts could fail to appear in the character creation menus.
Fixed a crash caused by the Valkyrie Grenade in Expeditions.
Fixed an issue where the Skitarii ‘Servo-Skull Blitz’ activation could be interrupted when bound to the mouse scroll wheel.
The Blitz UI input is now hidden when Blitz cannot be activated (e.g. when the Skitarii ‘Artificer Servo-Skull’ talent is equipped).
Kills attributed to a Skitarii Servo-Skull will now be always displayed in the Kill Feed.
Health will now stop to be drained for an incapacitated ally while being revived by the Skitarii ‘Medicae Servo-Skull’.
Fixed an issue where Skitarii Servo-Skull attacks could be blocked by allied abilities or Blitzes (e.g. Psyker Telekine Shield and Veteran Smoke Grenade).
Fixed an issue where the Skitarii Servo-Skull could sometimes fail to be usable for Data Interrogations.
Fixed an issue where Mutant and Chaos Spawn grabs did not take Dodge Linger times into account in their hit detection.
Fixed an issue where the ‘Puncture’ Blessing could be triggered by hits caused by sources different from the secondary weapon, as long as the weapon was being wielded.
Fixed transition fade overlay in character creator not showing correctly when switching between Skitarii voice and name or Hive Scum / Skitarii home planet and appearance
Fixed an issue where changing your height at the Barber-Surgeon as a Skitarius would make you appear shorter than your selected height until loading into a mission or re-entering the Mourningstar.
Fixed an issue where sprinting would be interrupted when pressing the Wield input while having the Skitarii ‘Servo-Skull’ or ‘Artificer Servo-Skull’ Talents equipped
Fixed an issue where particles from attacking with the Shock Maul or Arc Maul would not be removed when unwielding the weapon
Fixed an issue where rapidly changing between background selection and character appearance in the character creator would show a darkened overlay
Fixed Skitarii ‘Corpuscarian Disciple’ Penance not tracking electrocution effects from Arc discharges
Fixed Skitarii ‘Flensing Fury’ Penance mission time including time prior to players spawning, making its unlock harder than intended
Expeditions - Fixed an issue that caused player deaths to count multiple times. It would show an incorrect death count in the end of round screen and cause teams to lose Tech-remnants multiple times.
Expeditions - Fixed an issue that caused team members rescued with the use of a Servo-skull not to get their Tech-remnants back
Fixed a crash that could happen when a player was kicked while loading into an Expedition mission
Cosmetic Fixes
Fixed missing pattern on Veteran ‘Chem-Safe Rebreather (Sun Scorch Camo)’
Fixed missing arm guards in first-person view on Torg's Battle Gear
Warband! Hotfix 1.12.3 is now being rolled out on all platforms. It just has a small fix, but we would like to take the opportunity to quickly cover some feedback we have received since the release of the Skitarii Class. Dev note: Since the Omnissiah blessed the Mourningstar with
Warband!
Hotfix 1.12.3 is now being rolled out on all platforms. It just has a small fix, but we would like to take the opportunity to quickly cover some feedback we have received since the release of the Skitarii Class.
Dev note:
Since the Omnissiah blessed the Mourningstar with the arrival of the Skitarii, we’ve been keenly listening to the feedback you have shared regarding them. We are currently looking at their Blitz Abilities , addressing the issues regarding balance, usability, and how they fit into the kit of the Skitarii.
We are also looking at the Skitarii Melee Weapons, and we are planning some fixes and changes to stat scaling and also a set of specific tweaks for the Mechanicus Power Sword.
Finally, we have heard your feedback on the new enemy, the Vanguard, and we are hard at work on tweaking and balance for them too.
We still need some time to get this right, so these fixes are coming in the next patch, that should be with you all just after summer break.
Hotfix 1.12.3 patch notes
General Fixes
Fixed missing auto-aim on Advanced Combat Doctrines when shooting targets moving sideways.
Known Issues
The initial section of the Chasm Station HL-16-11 mission has some navigational issues that might cause enemies to navigate unpredictably.
Warband! Hotfix 1.12.2 is now being rolled out on all platforms. This hotfix is focused on the Skitarii class, and it also has some features and tweaks to improve the general Darktide experience. Hotfix 1.12.2 patch notes Features & Tweaks Reduced the unlock requirement for t
Warband!
Hotfix 1.12.2 is now being rolled out on all platforms. This hotfix is focused on the Skitarii class, and it also has some features and tweaks to improve the general Darktide experience.
Hotfix 1.12.2 patch notes
Features & Tweaks
Reduced the unlock requirement for the Pro-Trader (5) Penance from 100,000 salvage to 20,000 salvage.
Vanguard Enemies:
Sweep priority between head and shield hitzones have been equalized; this change will make it so less of the hits that visually should have hit the head will be consumed by the shield instead.
Tweaked the Weakspot damage multipliers as follows:
Dreg Vanguard 0.5 → 0.75
Scab Vanguard 0.5 → 0.65
Change to Damage over Time type damage behaviour. The initial hit will inflict stagger as expected, but the DoT damage itself will not contribute to the impact required to ”open” the shield.
Reduced the unlock requirements of the following Skitarii Penances:
Curse of Malfunction: 500 → 75
Corpuscarian Disciple: 5000 → 1500
Voltaic Warrior: 5000 → 2500
Fixes
General Fixes
Fixed an issue where the ‘Voltaic Emitter’ Ability could be obstructed by terrain, and improved the consistency of the Weapon Malfunction of Voltaic Emitter.
Fixed the ‘Heretical Artefacts’ coherency buff reducing rather than increasing the coherency radius.
Fixed an issue where Skitarius-specific height scaling where not applied in Mission Lobby and End of Round menus.
Fixed an issue where hogtied players could be moved to another respawn location when an alive player was right next to them.
Fixed an issue where the game would crash when trying to set keybindings in the options.
Fixed an issue where using the Skitarii ‘Chordclaw Strike’ Ability would not consume a Capacitance Charge after starting to sprint while aiming the ability.
Vanguard Enemies:
Fixed unaligned Stagger settings for post-broken shield state; all stagger animations should now play correctly.
This issue did not affect the enemy while the shield was active.
Fixed an issue that made it very hard to make a Vanguard enter its heavy Stagger state.
Fixed an issue where the Skitarii ‘Veteran Skitarius” Penance could fail to track progress if the player joined an already ongoing mission.
Fixed an issue where the Skitarii ‘Voltaic Resistance’ upgrade Talent for the ‘Integrated Refraction Emitter’ Blitz could fail to generate any Arc lightning when expiring.
Fixed an issue where Ability cooldown could not be decreased when the cooldown was paused while an Ability was active. E.g. Psyker Psykinetic's Aura with Scriers Gaze.
Fixed an issue where the Phosphor Blast Pistol could display an incorrect animation status if a reload was interrupted at a very specific timing.
Fixed an issue where the 1st person camera position for Ogryn operatives would scale incorrectly depending on the Height value of the character.
Fixed an issue where Poxbusters could fail to be staggered by melee Pushes in some situations.
Fixed a missing variable in the description for the Skitarii ‘Advanced Combat Doctrines’ Ability Mortis Trials legendary buff.
Fixed Skitarii ‘Progressive Plating Matrix’ Talent buff icon using the wrong image.
Fixed Hive Scum ‘Speedloader’ Talent showing in the Tactical Overlay without description while active.
Fixed an issue where smoke from Veteran ‘Smoke Grenades’ was difficult to see under certain lighting conditions and video settings.
Added missing Vanguard localisation text.
Fixed a crash that could occur when calling in a Valkyrie Airstrike on Expeditions missions.
Fixed an issue where chat bubbles would appear below Skitarius characters instead of above them in the Mourningstar hub.
Cosmetic Fixes
Fixed an issue where the Lens Colours could incorrectly blend between eyes on Skitarius Body 1.
Fixed visual issues with Thrice Blessed Eye of Admonition (Scorched Ironmantle/Mordian Pride/Darkweald Battleshade).
Fixed a visual issue with Mordian Cap with Psykana Collar.
Known Issues
Sometimes hogtied (respawned) players will be moved to a later respawn point despite the Strike Team not having moved past their area.
Fixed!
No loadout is equipped after Personality Scourging as DLC classes
Happens on Hive Scum, Arbites, and Skitarii.
Hive Scum specific issue:
When personality scourging as Hive Scum, the headgear is changed to the chosen gang’s starter headgear (instead of the headgear equipped by the player).
Skitarii specific issue:
When personality scourging as Skitarii, all loadouts are unequipped AND all loadouts get a yellow exclamation mark, pointing to some error with the backpack slot.
Changing the equipped backpack resolves the issue.
Fixed!
The initial section of the Chasm Station HL-16-11 mission has some navigational issues that might cause enemies to navigate unpredictably.
MECCHA CHAMELEON Cyberpunk 2077 Dead by Daylight The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Steam Deck Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® II EA SPORTS FC™ 26 Baldur's Gate 3 Red Dead Redemption 2 * excluding free to play games View top 100 on SteamDB
Warband! Hotfix 1.12.1 is now being rolled out on all platforms. This hotfix has a couple of bug and crash fixes, including a fix that solves the issue where Skitarii Deluxe Edition cosmetics weren’t immediately available at initial character creation. Hotfix 1.12.1 patch notes F
Warband!
Hotfix 1.12.1 is now being rolled out on all platforms. This hotfix has a couple of bug and crash fixes, including a fix that solves the issue where Skitarii Deluxe Edition cosmetics weren’t immediately available at initial character creation.
Hotfix 1.12.1 patch notes
Fixes
If you bought the Deluxe Edition of the Skitarii DLC, the Deluxe cosmetics and customization options should now be available when attempting to create a new character immediately, without having to enter the hub or restart the game.
Fixed an issue where Skitarii characters could not equip starter gear from other Forge World origins.
Fixed a crash occurring when an Arc Grenade targets an enemy that died from another source before spawning the Arcs.
Fixed a rare crash when using the Skitarii Integrated Refraction Emitter Blitz.
Fixed an issue where players received notifications multiple times for penance rewards and when purchasing new cosmetics.
Fixed some crashes that could occur when deploying the Skitarii Servo Skull.
Fixed a bug where the new Vanguard Enemy would be locked in a stagger animation when hit with a Soulblaze attack.
Known Issues
Skitarii Deluxe Edition cosmetics and customization options will only unlock once you enter the hub for the first time.
As a workaround, please enter the hub with one of your existing characters before making your Skitarii to create it with Deluxe Edition customization options (or you can create your Skitarii and then change the customization options at the Chirurgeon).
Fixed!
Sometimes hogtied (respawned) players will be moved to a later respawn point despite the Strike Team not having moved past their area.
No loadout is equipped after Personality Scourging as DLC classes
Happens on Hive Scum, Arbites, and Skitarii.
Hive Scum specific issue:
When personality scourging as Hive Scum, the headgear is changed to the chosen gang’s starter headgear (instead of the headgear equipped by the player).
Skitarii specific issue:
When personality scourging as Skitarii, all loadouts are unequipped AND all loadouts get a yellow exclamation mark, pointing to some error with the backpack slot.
Changing the equipped backpack resolves the issue.
Following in the footsteps of some Hive Scum , Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has been descended upon by another new DLC class - the Skitarii. Alongside the arrival of the the Machine God's elite the game's gotten a fresh patch with some free additions. Read more
Following in the footsteps of some Hive Scum, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has been descended upon by another new DLC class - the Skitarii. Alongside the arrival of the the Machine God's elite the game's gotten a fresh patch with some free additions.
Warband! Introducing New Class: Alpha Primus Skitarius Darktide’s third Class DLC is out now! Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of
Darktide’s third Class DLC is out now! Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war.
Arm your Skitarius Alpha Primus with deadly Adeptus Mechanicus weapons! Rip your enemies apart with melee weapons such as the Mechanicus Power Sword, the Paired Transonic Blades or the Arc Maul. Decimate the enemies of the Omnissiah at range with weapons such as the Arc Rifle and the Mechanicus Phosphor Blast Pistol, or assassinate them with precision with the Galvanic Rifle.
This class also features a unique talent tree layout built for extreme versatility, and unique customization options! See under the robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus, choose from four distinct personalities and even customize your voice!
Hadron has been granted access to an ancient Adeptus Mechanicus facility in the wastes outside Tertium. This Alpha Primus Shrine grants her the ability to upgrade veteran Skitarii warriors into Skitarii Alpha Primus: elite combatants with access to a vast array of specialised weaponry and blessed with superior combat protocols, allowing them enough freedom to operate alongside warband strike teams.
Talent Tree
As a Skitarii you have a wide variety of options in how you wish to customize your talent tree. It is the first Talent Tree that starts from the center, and lets you expand your build in any direction. You will have more nodes to choose from than from any previous Class.
Let us quickly go through the more impactful choices you can make in the Talent Tree.
Combat Abilities
Your Abilities are powered by your Motive Engine. You have 3 Base Charges. Abilities require at least 1 Charge to be activated, and can spend up to 3 charges.
Generate 2% Capacitance each second. At 100% Capacitance you generate 1 Charge and the Capacitance is reset. You also generate 2% Capacitance on Kills, increased to 4% on Elite and Specialist Kill.
Voltaic Expander
Your base Ability. Uses up to 3 Charges.
Unleash an Electric Discharge around you. Enemies within 6m are Electrocuted for 2s, Stunning them and dealing damage
Using the ability at 2 charges extends the Range to 9m. Using the ability at 3 charges extends the range to 12m.
Voltaic Emitter
The improved version of Voltaic Expander. Uses up to 3 Charges.
Unleash an Electric Discharge around you. Enemies within 12m are Electrocuted for 2s, Stunning them and dealing damage.
Using the ability at 2 charges or above causes Ranged Enemies within 30m to have their weapons Malfunction for 12s.
Using the ability at 3 charges or above makes your attacks Electrocute enemies hit for 2s, dealing damage.
Chordclaw Strike
Perform a Powerful Heavy Melee Attack using a Chordclaw. The Attack is a Guaranteed Critical Strike and has +50% Rending. Uses 1 Charge.
Advanced Combat Doctrines
Spend 25% Capacitance and Swap to your Secondary Weapon. Your weapon locks onto enemies close to your targeting reticule, granting you inhuman accuracy. You gain -90% Spread and -60% Recoil for its duration.
While active, you drain 10% Capacitance per second, and an additional 1% per shot. The drain is paused while reloading.
The Ability is disabled if you switch from your Secondary Weapon, if you reach 0% Capacitance and 0 Charges, or if you reactivate it. Only usable if you have at least 1 Charge available.
Servo-Skulls
When you have created your Skitarius, you will be accompanied by a Servo-Skull. If you choose, you can improve it in different ways.
Servo-Skull
The base Servo-Skull.
Equipped with a Laspistol it will shoot at your enemies, and you can order it by double-tapping your Tag input. If you encounter a Data Interrogation minigame, you can also double-tap your Tag to have your Servo-Skull solve it for you.
You can empower your Servo-Skull by using your Blitz Ability Input. For 8s it gains +100% Fire Rate, +25% Damage, its attacks apply 1 stack of Burn (Max 8), and causes the target to take +15% more damage for 5s.
16s Cooldown.
Artificer Servo-Skull
The Improved Servo-Skull. The previously temporary bonuses of your Servo-Skull are now made permanent.
Medicae Servo-Skull
You have an additional Servo-Skull equipped with Adapted Medicae Syringes. Target a Knocked Down, Hogtied, or Netted Ally to inject them. The injection Revives them, as well as granting them +75% Toughness Damage Reduction and 20% Toughness per second, for 5s.
4 Charges. Charges are shared with the Purgator Servo-Skull.
Purgator Servo-Skull
You have an additional Servo-Skull equipped with a Flamer. Target an Area to deploy it. Use your Primary Action to switch between a Dispersed or Focused Fire Mode.
4 Charges. Charges are shared with the Medicae Servo-Skull.
Additional Blitz Abilities
If you don’t wish to bring your Servo-Skull along, you can choose to swap it out for one of the following Blitz Abilities.
Arc Grenades
Throw an Arc Grenade, creating an electrical explosion that Arcs 4 times, prioritizing Armoured and Specialist Enemies, dealing massive Damage and Impact.
Charges: 3.
Integrated Refractor Emitter
Surround yourself in a shield that absorbs all incoming Ranged Damage. Lasts 8s. Upon activation and again when it ends, cause an electric explosion around you, applying Electrocution to enemies within 5m.
Charges: 3.
Auras
Resurgence
You and Allies in Coherency regenerate 25% Coherency Toughness regardless of enemy proximity.
The upgraded variant increases the Coherency Toughness percentage to 50% and increases your Toughness by +25.
Foe-Render Creed
Gain +25 Toughness. You and allies in Coherency gain +15% Cleave and 7.5% Rending.
Ammunition Deposit
Gain +25 Toughness. You and your Allies have +10% Ammo Reserve. This effect is deactivated if you die.
Keystones
Redline Capacitors
Spending or gaining a Charge grants +5% Toughness Damage Reduction and +5% Capacitance generation for 12s. Stacking 4 times. Stacks decay one at a time. Additionally, you have +1 Max Ability Charges.
Power Overload
Kills by you and allies in coherency grant 1 stack of Power Overload. Elite and Specialist enemy kills grant 2 stacks. Max 30 stacks. Reaching max stacks causes an overload and reset to 0 stacks.
The overload grants you and allies in Coherency +15% Damage and +15% Toughness Damage Reduction, for 8s.
Flensing Protocols
You have up to 6 stacks of Flensing Protocols. Each stack grants +2.5% Damage and +2.5% Toughness Damage Reduction. Taking damage removes 1 stack. Can only occur once every 1s. Elite and Specialist kills restore 2 stacks and restore 15% Toughness.
Absorbing voltaic energy in its coil with each swing, the Arc Maul is capable of releasing hi-intensity Arc lightning.
Even while not activated, this rod still has respectable Damage and a good amount of Stagger potential through its multiple Relentless and Strikedown attacks, ideal to control both hordes and larger enemies.
Additionally, each swing of the Arc Maul applies a 5s Electrocuted debuff on each enemy hit.
Against Electrocuted targets, the weapon gains a +10% Damage bonus and triggers additional Arc lightning jumps.
Weapon Special
When the weapon is not activated, Special charges are gained slowly over time and much faster upon hitting enemies in melee.
When at least one Special charge is stored, performing the Special action activates the weapon.
The attack chain is not disrupted by the activation, allowing to continue the combo.
While the Arc Maul is activated, successful attacks trigger an Arc lightning discharge on the first enemy hit by each sweep, consuming a Special charge.
Arc lightning deals a large amount of Damage and applies the Electrocuted debuff, and can jump up to 2 enemies if the previous target was already Electrocuted.
Arc lightning Damage and Impact values increase after each jump.
Additionally, a unique Push-attack is available while the Arc Maul is activated.
The exquisitely crafted and religiously maintained power weapons of the Adeptus Mechanicus don’t suffer from the common failings of other similar instruments used in the Imperium, providing instead a constant disruption field which can be channeled momentarily into devastating Energised strikes.
The moveset of this weapon features multiple stab attacks and a flow rich in quirkyness and personality, inviting rigorous precision and study from its wielder.
Weapon Special
The Mechanicus Power Sword’s energy core can store up to 6 Special charges, which are replenished over time with a short cooldown after any is used.
Each available Special charge provides a stack of +4% Melee Strength to all attacks, both standard and Energised (max +24% at full Special charges).
Pressing the Special input consumes a Special charge and initiates the next attack in the combo chain, granting it Energised properties.
Energised attacks have enhanced offensive properties, with in particular higher Damage and better Armour Damage Modifiers against all enemy armour types.
If the Special input is released immediately, the weapon will perform a Light Special attack; if the input is held, the weapon will enter the windup for an Heavy Special attack.
If this windup is maintained for a longer period of time, the Mechanicus Power Sword will accumulate up to 4 stacks of +12.5% Melee Strength (max +50%) for the following Heavy Special attack. The animation during the windup, alongside the visual and sound effects, can be used to recognize when the maximum amount of stacks has been reached.
straight through the material they are attuned to.”
Overview
The Transonic technology is a secret heavily guarded by the Cult Mechanicus, for in the hands of a skilled warrior these blades can cut and pierce through enemies like they weren’t there, leaving only a gory, sliced mess.
The Paired Transonic Blades are a dual-wield weapon combining a long Transonic Blade with a nimble Transonic Razor, and they can be adapted to face any kind of opposition by rapidly switching their resonant attunement between two modes: Slayer and Dueller.
Each attunement mode is targeted against a specific set of armour types, gaining enhanced offensive properties towards them (Damage, ADMs, Cleave). However, the performance against the non-attuned armour types will be diminished.
Additionally, entering each mode will switch to a different moveset, with an ample selection of Vanguard, Assassin and Strikedown attacks.
Finally, through the Special action it is possible to switch attunement during a combo, seamlessly continuing the attack chain in the new mode.
In Slayer mode, the Light and Heavy chains consist of mostly Vanguard attacks with enormous Cleave, while the Push-attack grants access to a short Strikedown chain.
This mode is enhanced against the Unarmoured, Infested and Maniac armour types.
In Dueller mode, the Light and Heavy chains consist of mostly Strikedown attacks with high Damage and Finesse properties, while the Push-attack grants access to a short Vanguard chain.
This mode is enhanced against the Unyielding, Flak and Carapace armour types.
Weapon Special
Activating the weapon Special while not in an attack combo will swiftly toggle the current attunement between the two modes, and then return to the idle position.
If the Special input is pressed while in an attack combo, the weapon will instead toggle the attunement while entering a stance with Block properties.
If an Attack input is chained from this stance, a unique powerful followup attack will be performed.
(The Special followup attacks’ properties depend on the mode that was just entered)
Unleash the power of Adeptus Mechanicus Arc weaponry. A heavy electrocuting, slow firing but fully-automatic rifle. High magazine capacity but slow reload speed.
The Arc Rifle shares the Arc mechanic with the Arc Maul and Arc Grenades. Shooting a target will deal damage and mark the target with the Electrocuted debuff. If a target is hit while already Electrocuted, an Arc jump will be triggered to damage an additional target within proximity.
Primary Fire
Slow rate of fire, fully automatic
Secondary Fire
Braced stance with lowered mobility but iIncrease accuracy. Enables shots to Arc to an additional target.
Special
Bash with the Arc coil of the weapon; useful to push away close enemies.
The Galvanic Rifle is an accurate and high powered semi-automatic rifle, with a small clip. In the right mechanical hands it can deal a great amount of damage.
Very effective when hitting weakspots.
Primary Fire
Shoots from the hip. Accurate at first shot but builds up spread when shooting quickly. Has good spread recovery so pacing your shots is advisable.
Secondary Fire
Aim down sights for pinpoint accuracy at the cost of mobility.
Special
A forward Thrust with the weapon, which can interrupt attacking enemies.
A mighty fine pistol. Used by the Skitarii to mark high priority targets. Limited ammunition but packs a good punch.
The Phosphor sticks to enemies, slowly and painfully burning through armour and flesh:
Hitting a target causes a minor Phosphor splash. Targets affected by the direct hit or the Phosphor blast are more susceptible to damage and have reduced hit-mass, allowing attacks to Cleave through them more efficiently.
Primary Fire
Shoots from the hip, with decent accuracy but a fair amount of recoil.
Secondary Fire
Aim down sights for improved accuracy at the cost of mobility
Weapon Special
Bash with the grip, to quickly stagger enemies in melee range.
To celebrate the release of this new class, the Commodore’s Vestures will see a new rotation of Premium Cosmetics with tons of goodies, including a brand new Regimental Bundle - the Mordian Iron Guard!
Drilled to perfection, uniforms crisp and medals gleaming, the Mordian Iron Guard pride themselves on their immaculate appearance and strict, disciplined drills. This isn't all show, though. These fierce warriors have gathered a reputation for efficient and effective warfare. It just doesn't hurt that they look good while doing it.
There’s also the Ecclesiarchy Faithful bundle coming with the same rotation, and plenty of other cosmetics! Make sure to check them out!
As the Battle for Tertium rages, more and more converts and zealots flock to emergent Imperial cults, throwing themselves at the enemy with curses on their lips.
That’s all for today!
Praise the Omnissiah!
We’ll see you on the Mourningstar.
– The Darktide Team
PSA ABOUT DELUXE EDITION CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS
Due to an error, Skitarii Deluxe Edition cosmetics will only unlock once you enter the hub for the first time.
Until the bug is fixed, please enter the hub with one of your existing characters before making your Skitarii to create it with Deluxe Edition customization options (or you can create your Skitarii and then change the customization options at the Chirurgeon).
Warband! We’ve just released a major new update, containing tons of changes and fixes, alongside some new enemies! The long-awaited Skitarii DLC class release later today, as will a new live event to go along with it! Special Live Event: Heretical Artifacts - 14:00 CEST The Admon
Warband!
We’ve just released a major new update, containing tons of changes and fixes, alongside some new enemies! The long-awaited Skitarii DLC class release later today, as will a new live event to go along with it!
Special Live Event: Heretical Artifacts - 14:00 CEST
The Admonition have been sighted gathering relics and sacred effigies and doing…unnatural things to them. Strike teams have been tasked with retrieving these stolen artifacts and returning them to Tertium's clerics.
Starting from later today, at 14:00 CEST, players can participate in the event by joining missions with the ‘Relics in Ruins’ modifier to recover relics from the cultists. Once back in the Mourning Star, visit Sire Melk to deliver your recovered relics, and choose which faction to give them to.
The Adherents of Saint Messelina, which will bestow players with an increased coherency radius, alongside boosted attack and movement speed.
The Scourge of the Faithless, which endows players with increased damage, burn damage and burn duration.
Participating in the event will reward players with Ordo Dockets, Plasteel, Diamantine, and this brand new Portrait Frame!
Enemies
New enemies: Scab & Dreg Vanguards
A new threat approaches…
Human melee bruisers equipped with breakable shields, these new enemies will bolster the enemy hordes and make them tougher to crack!
The Scab variant is equipped with a harder more durable shield that will last longer, but comes in more scarce numbers, while their Dreg equivalents are more numerous but only equipped with scrappy handmade shields that are more prone to breaking
Even without the shield, these vanguards are stronger than their non-shielded counterparts.
Balance Changes:
As part of our ongoing balance commitment continuing on from the previous reduction to Ogryn enemies (and at the time, specifically the Crusher), with the release of the Vanguards we’ve reduced the amounts of Bulwarks throughout the missions.
Packmaster
The Packmasters have moved beyond the wastes of Atoma to reinforce their brethren in Tertium
Packmasters will now appear outside of Expeditions, across the other gamemodes starting from Heresy level difficulty and up.
Improved mobility: the Packmasters will now have an easier time keeping up with a retreating player
The amount of Pox Hounds spawned with the Packmaster has been changed to be based on the difficulty, with an increase of the armoured version at higher difficulty levels.
Plasma Gun Mk III
A brand new Mark has been added to the Plasma Gun, the Mk III! Available to the Veteran class and the (releasing today!) Skitarii class, this Plasma Gun variant has less focus on piercing through enemies in favor of devastating explosive power. Give it a try!
Expeditions Update
This update also sees an injection of new content into the Expeditions game mode, as well as various quality of life changes and reworks of certain systems!
New time of day: Dawn
New Expeditions level content, including:
New Scavenge Zone
New Sites of Interest, with electric hazards!
New Deadsider Sanctuary.
Reworked how Tech-Remnants are shared.
Players no longer have a personal Tech-Remnant pool. Instead, Tech-Remnants picked up by a member of the strike team are added to the team’s shared pool.
Whenever a player dies (does not apply to bots), the team’s pool is reduced by 25%.
This only happens if the team has more than 100 Tech-Remnants.
50% of this value is dropped at the spot where the player died.
The team can retrieve the remaining 50% of the deducted value if they rescue the player that died.
If a hog-tied player is teleported to a Deadsider Sanctuary, the Tech-Remnants attached to them are lost.
For each alive player missing from the Valkyrie at the moment of extraction, 25% of the pool is reduced in the End of Round screen.
Improvements to the Auspex:
Sites of Interest, Scavenge Zone exits, and extraction points can now be marked on the Auspex by up to four players.
Data Reliquaries show up on the Auspex once they’ve been picked up for the first time.
Hog-tied players are displayed on the Auspex.
Pressing the equip button for the Auspex while already equipped will now switch back to the previously equipped weapon or item.
The Auspex map does not start in focused mode if the player is moving while equipping it. You can unfocus the map by sprint or dodging.
Added more respawn points to all Scavenge Zones.
Improved Ordo Docket and Experience rewards for failed runs.
Features & Tweaks
General Changes
The Title awarded for completing the Prologue can now be equipped by all Classes.
The displayed title will change according to the Class it's equipped on:
The original classes keep "Reject"
Arbitrator displays "Deputy"
Hive Scum replaces the current "Reject" with "Juve"
Skitarius displays "Tech-Warrior""
Poxbursters:
Changed targeting behaviour to make them more predictable. They should no longer be able to change targets while in their lunge state.
They should now always enter their explode state after being staggered by a Push from a Melee Weapon, even if they weren't in their lunging state.
Poxburster explosions triggered by navigation issues (e.g. failing to climb over terrain), or other non-player related events, should no longer cause damage; they will still knock players away if caught in them however.
Poxbursters will only initiate their lunge when facing the player, to prevent poxbursters jumping around corners.
Instances of "Cyber-Mastiff" terminology in the Operative view have been changed to use the term "Companion".
Ogryn Borovian Mk III Delver's Pickaxe
Sprint will now be allowed during the windups for the Light 3 and Heavy 2 attacks.
Blaze Force Greatsword
The weapon Special 'Warpshock Slash' projectile can now trigger the 'Blazing Spirit' weapon Blessing.
Reframed the camera used to preview Accessory cosmetics to better show the top of them.
Slightly reframed the camera used to preview Head cosmetics to better show taller headgear (especially belonging to Arbitrators).
Updated the posing and framing of cosmetic icons and player portraits to center and straighten the head of the character.
Updated the camera framing and positioning and added support for Zooming when inspecting Companion cosmetics.
Smoke Grenades - Veteran Blitz
Updated the visual effects of the smoke cloud to be less obscuring and to more clearly show the affected area.
Updated item notifications to present item type in addition to rarity, and to align the visuals with item names and rarities presentation in the inventory.
Ogryn - Point-Blank Barrage Max Cooldown 80s -> 60s
Weapon Blessing Changes
Ogryn Ripperguns
Changed the calculation for "on continuous fire" Blessings to give a stack for each 8% of Magazine spent instead of 10%.
Affects the following Blessings:
Blaze Away
Inspiring Barrage
Cavalcade
Dev Note
This is to avoid these Blessings counterintuitively having a stronger effect on lower Ammo stat values, due to the scaling of the magazine size.
Bloodletter Blessing
Changed behavior so that Bleed stacks will be now applied on each damage instance of Special active attacks, instead of only the initial hit.
Affects the following weapon families:
Heavy Eviscerators
Assault Chainswords
Assault Chainaxes
Dev Note
The Heavy Eviscerator version of this Blessing has a lower Bleed stacks value due to the Cleave properties of its Special active attacks, allowing it to spread Bleed on multiple enemies. This however caused the Blessing to be less effective in delivering its bonus when actually ripping into an enemy. Note that the total Bleed stacks are still capped
Tenderiser Blessing
Updated the bonus from general Strength to Melee Strength, and changed the value scaling from +10/15/20/25% to +15/20/25/30%
Affects the following weapon family
Ogryn Cleavers
Quality of Life changes
Added two new controller button layouts (Alternative 6 and Alternative 7), with access to the Special input on bumper/shoulder buttons.
Added a new feature to Zoom Out when inspecting your Weapon while on a mission. This lets you view your character in Third Person."
Added the info for past Live Events to the events tab in Sire Melk menu.
The party invitation notification now requires the player to hold the button and confirm the party request to be able to accept an invitation during a mission.
Changing keybindings now notifies the player if the new binding key is already in use, and asks for confirmation before setting the binding.
Commodore's Vestures now uses a category and sub-category selection to better handle navigation and different store pages.
Updated all items acquired externally to show their source, similar to items from Penances, Class DLCs, Commissary, and Commodore's Vestures.
Updated the character selection screen to correctly show the actual selected height for each character.
Fixes
General Fixes
Expeditions:
Dead players will no longer respawn until the Deadsider Sanctuary is reached if the exit event has been started or if the timer has run out
Blocked off out of bounds areas in some Scavenge Zones
Players and enemies now drop loot on their last ground position if possible, to avoid it getting lost in pits, being stuck in air, etc.
Data Reliquaries dropped on the ground in the Valkyrie during extraction now correctly count for the penance gain
Fixed an issue that caused Medicae stations in Expeditions to display as empty even though they had full charges
Fixed an issue that caused Medicae stations to consume Scrap from the wrong player
Fixed an issue where more than four players could be displayed inside the Valkyrie in mission intro loadings
Fixed an issue in which lightning strikes could damage players during the extraction cinematic.
Dark Communion - Fixed an issue where sound would not propagate correctly through the archway leading to the end event cathedral area.
Clandestium Gloriana - Fixed an issue where enemies could appear covered in snow/frost effects also in the initial Void areas.
Tenderiser Blessing - Fixed an issue where the HUD icon for the Blessing would not appear in server-hosted environments, and added a counter to the icon displaying the remaining empowered attacks.
Tweaked handling of Loadout presets under specific cases to avoid having a preset deselected due to mismatch when opening the inventory.
Fixed an issue that could display an incorrect last wave in Mortis Trials if a player joined mid-match.
Fixed an issue where the Personality Scourge would return an error by wrongly detecting no changes when modifying an Arbitrator character.
Fixed an issue in the Expedition Map Selection screen where the Play Button sometimes would show as being disabled when selecting an unlocked node while Private Game is enabled.
Fixed an issue where the ‘Enemies Within, Enemies Without’ Zealot talent would fail to display the correct number of stacks.
Fixed an issue where the 'Power Up' Psyker Penance would not count kills from 'Kinetic Flayer'.
Fixed an issue where the 'Perfectionist' talent could refund Cooldown multiple times on the same attack.
Fixed an issue where players could get instantly downed or killed by a Captain's Shield exploding.
Fixed issue where the 'Penetrating Flame' Blessing would show incorrect values in its description.
Fixed an issue where the bash animation of Dual Autopistols could play twice if transitioning to braced during a bash.
The ‘Long Bomb' Veteran penance can now be completed only using the intended Frag Grenade.
Fixed an issue where bots sometimes would remain stuck in crouching state.
Fixed an issue where the Data Interrogation minigame in Power Matrix HL-17-36 would not stop the alarm sound when finishing the minigame.
Fixed an issue where the Talent Tree tooltip for the selected Blitz, Ability and Aura could clip through the bottom of the screen.
Fixed an issue in the start area of Dark Communion where bots would not help players when in a hangledge.
Updated the description for the ‘Inspiring Barrage’ and ‘Cavalcade’ weapon Blessings with more accurate values
Fixed an issue where enemies would attack the player when leaving the Meat Grinder.
Fixed an issue where the 'No respite' weapon Blessing would not apply its damage bonus.
Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck in a hangledge or fall onto a part of the ceiling below without dying in the Theatre of Castigation in Mortis Trials.
Fixed an issue in the character creator where the camera would snap to a new position when changing height.
Fixed a rare crash that could occur if a character would not have a height defined.
Fixed an issue that caused multiple people to be able to interact with the same Data Interrogation minigame.
Multiple minor bugfixes in Adventure Mode:
The following missions have had player collision added or adjusted:
Excise Vault Spireside-13
Comms-Plex 154/2f
Chasm Station HL-16-11
Smelter Complex HL17-36
Hab Dreyko, Chasm Logistratum
Silo Cluster 18-66/a
Vigil Station Oblivium
Magistrati Oubliette TM8-707
Relay Station TRS-150
Enclavum Baross
Dark Communion
Fixed unreachable items and chests in the following missions:
Excise Vault Spireside-13
Warren 6-19
Comms-Plex 154/2f
Consignment Yard HL17-36.
Cosmetic Fixes
Munitorum Issue Mk III & Command Cap - Fixed hair masking for when these cosmetics are equipped.
Reduced clipping on Smiter Power Maul.
Zealot Hooded Krieg Mask (Rictus) - Added missing voice effect.
Ogryn Vostroyan Hat - Fixed visual bug where the neck clipped through the headgear.
Heavy Battlegear (Moebian 110th, Greysteel XXXXL) - Fixed an issue where armour clipped through the character’s shoulders.
Krieg Greatcoat (With Psykana collar) - Fixed baked shadowing behind the leather pouch.
Fixed headgear masking for Human Hair Style 7.
Blessed Memento Mori - Fixed offset to players back & other visual bugs.
Detio's War Plate - Fixed backpack offset.
Known Issues
Skitarii Deluxe Edition cosmetics and customization options will only unlock once you enter the hub for the first time.
As a workaround, please enter the hub with one of your existing characters before making your Skitarii to create it with Deluxe Edition customization options (or you can create your Skitarii and then change the customization options at the Chirurgeon).
Sometimes hogtied (respawned) players will be moved to a later respawn point despite the Strike Team not having moved past their area.
No loadout is equipped after Personality Scourging as DLC classes
Happens on Hive Scum, Arbites, and Skitarii.
Hive Scum specific issue:
When personality scourging as Hive Scum, the headgear is changed to the chosen gang’s starter headgear (instead of the headgear equipped by the player).
Skitarii specific issue:
When personality scourging as Skitarii, all loadouts are unequipped AND all loadouts get a yellow exclamation mark, pointing to some error with the backpack slot.
Changing the equipped backpack resolves the issue.
The initial section of the Chasm Station HL-16-11 mission has some navigational issues that might cause enemies to navigate unpredictably.
Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war. In case you missed it, check out the reveal trailer here . This is part of an ongoing ser
Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war.
This is part of an ongoing series of feature highlights focused on the upcoming DLC class: The Skitarii.
In our previous highlight we talked in depth about the design of the class itself and its talent tree. This feature highlight will focus on the arsenal available to Skitarii in Darktide, exploring the design philosophy behind the unique weapons and talking about what existing weapons they have access to. We’ve interviewed our Game Designers Erik and Matteo for this!
“I’m Matteo, I’m a Game Designer specializing in Weapons. My favourite class is Psyker, and I make a sick tiramisú.” ~ Matteo
“I’m Erik, a Game Designer also specializing in Weapons. My favourite classes are Zealot and Psyker. I can confirm that Matteo makes a sick tiramisú. I can't cook or bake but I'll make you a perfect 'Last word' cocktail.” ~ Erik
Weapons Design
As always, the first thing that went into the development of the Skitarii’s weapons was sitting down and choosing what options from the source material’s arsenal to include. The Adeptus Mechanicus has a very rich and varied set of weapons that are unique to them, many of which are specifically Skitarii weapons, too. So there were definitely a lot of possibilities to choose from, especially on the ranged side.
“So we needed to say, okay, if we have to choose a subset of this, what are the ones that we say are unique, diverse, and capture the gameplay fantasy of the Skitarii the most.” ~ Matteo
“We both look at not just what’s available in the lore - what they actually use in the tabletop and in the universe - but also what type of gameplay slots we’re trying to fill, what weapons we have on the existing classes, what type of role we want this class to have...” ~ Erik
After deciding on these options, the design team goes through several iterations of implementing ideas, trying them out, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and so on. This is especially true of the Arc weapons, which use and enable a brand new mechanic unique to this class, the Arc mechanic.
If you missed our explanation of how the Arc mechanic works for Arc weapons and talents, check out the previous Feature Highlight here!
At the same time, a couple of the non-Arc weapons coming with the Skitarii exist in a similar thematic space as some of the existing weapons in Darktide, and so we took great care into carving a unique gameplay space for them so that they stand out even from those.
For all weapons, the Weapon Designers worked closely with the Class Designers to make sure that the class’ abilities and its weapons synergized and supported each other well.
With all that said, let’s take a look at the brand new weapons, which will be exclusive to the Skitarii class.
New Weapons
Arc Maul
The Arc Maul is a powerful blunt weapon that can electrocute enemies and trigger the Arc mechanic. Since other classes already have access to similar weapons in the form of Shock Mauls, we wanted to make sure that this weapon felt and played very differently from those.
Normal attacks will electrocute the enemies. Hitting enemies also starts building up charges for the weapon’s special attack, up to a maximum of eight.
Activating the weapon special will switch to an amped up state where attacks will drain charges and trigger an Arc effect with each attack until you either run out of charges or manually deactivate the mode.
“So the loop is that you hit enemies to electrocute them and accumulate charges, then you activate the weapon and hit them again to trigger an Arc.” ~ Matteo
Beyond its special mechanics, the Arc Maul is a relatively safe weapon with strong stagger and crowd control properties, but it relies on the Arc mechanic for most of its damage.
As an added bonus, this weapon deals more damage with all attacks when hitting a target that is already electrocuted.
Paired Transonic Blades
Our second dual-wield melee weapon for Darktide, the Paired Transonic Blades are composed of a short Transonic Razor in the off hand and a longer Transonic Blade in the main hand.
Using the Weapon Special, this weapon can switch between two ‘attunements’, which give the weapon two different movesets, each specialized to deal with different types of enemies.
“This makes the weapon very versatile, and probably one of the most complex weapons we have in Darktide.” ~Matteo
The default moveset is attuned to most effectively deal with unarmoured enemies, featuring wide, sweeping attacks that can easily cleave and mow through hordes. The second attunement specializes in eliminating armoured enemies, and the moveset switches to a more single target, high damage set of stabs and vertical attacks that easily pierce through Flak and Carapace.
While you can switch between modes when idle, pressing the Weapon Special in the middle of an attack chain will allow you to perform a unique attack as part of a transition into the other mode, letting you switch seamlessly in the middle of combat.
“It’s a weapon that players can immediately play with; you don’t need to study hours to understand it. But the more you play with it, the more you find different ways to approach the situation in a more efficient manner. It’s also a really cool looking weapon, hehehe.” ~ Matteo
Mechanicus Power Sword
Power weapons are a very iconic melee choice for Adeptus Mechanicus as a whole, and so we definitely wanted to give the Skitarii their own version of this weapon. To differentiate them from the existing Darktide Power Swords in gameplay, we leaned into the fact that the Skitarii’s version is much better maintained and looked after than the requisitioned ones our other classes have access to.
As such, the Mechanicus Power Swords are considered to always be in an active, low power mode and are a powerful weapon even without using their Weapon Special. The weapon will start with 6 charges, which can be spent by pressing the Weapon Special to perform a single, high-powered powered attack (a tap will perform a light attack, while holding the button will perform a heavy attack). Each Special Attack consumes one charge, which recharges over time.
However, holding onto these charges also provides a passive buff to the weapon’s normal attacks, which is the source of the weapon’s power.
“So the idea is that the player can say ‘Okay, I’m not using the charges so the weapon remains at maximum strength because it has all the stacks’ or ‘I’ll spend the charges to immediately get a strong attack but momentarily reduce the strength of the weapon’.” ~ Matteo
The Special Attacks are empowered versions of the normal Mechanicus Power Sword moveset, sharing animations and chained actions. Said moveset is also very different from the existing Power Swords, featuring a bigger focus on thrusts and stabs.
Galvanic Rifle
The Galvanic Rifle is a powerful, semi-automatic precision rifle that fills a niche that hadn’t been covered in Darktide’s arsenal yet. Each shot deals relatively high damage and can do a good job at piercing through armour, although it has a low ammo count.
“I wouldn’t call it a sniper, but definitely a precision weapon.” ~ Erik
While you can run and hipfire it with decent accuracy (although with strong recoil), the weapon excels when aiming down sights and landing weak spot hits, such as headshots. It is a simple, but elegant weapon that feels extremely satisfying to shoot with.
“It behaves like you would expect it to after looking at it, and I think we got it to an interesting gameplay spot as well. It’s a simple design, but extremely effective!.” ~ Erik
Arc Rifle
The Skitarii Alpha Primus’ Arc Rifle in Darktide is a high ammo, heavy, slow firing ranged weapon that shoots bolts of lightning. Unlike the Psyker’s Smite Blitz, these are not sustained streams of electricity but rather quick, instant bolts that hit their target and dissipate. While it has a high ammo capacity, reloading it takes longer than most weapons, so be careful not to waste your shots!
“With the other Skitarii weapons being relatively low ammunition, we wanted to make the Arc Rifle like a slow firing heavy machine gun, but with Arc properties.” ~ Erik
Each shot will apply an electricity effect like other shock or Arc weapons, and when hitting an already electrocuted enemy it will Arc to a nearby enemy (which will also electrocute it, or Arc again if it’s already electrocuted!). This means that it takes prolonged, sustained fire on a horde of enemies to really build up the damage as the electricity spreads, but becomes unstoppable once it’s properly enabled.
Phosphor Blast Pistol
“It’s a gigantic hand cannon is what it is.” ~ Erik
The Phosphor Blast Pistol is a powerful and unique ranged weapon. While it has a limited ammo capacity and isn’t all that accurate, it excels in both damage and support. Each shot of hot-white phosphor blasts deals high damageto the target and then splashesPhosphor to enemies nearby.
“It does a fair amount of damage, it’s not weak by any means, but the support utility is what makes it super interesting.” ~ Erik
Both the initial target and the enemies in the splash zone will suffer a powerful debuff from the lingering Phosphor compound, which makes them not just take more damage from all sources, but attacks will also cleave through them more easily.
“It’s got a super cool effect where you can see it actually burns pieces of the armour off and exposes the flesh on some enemies.” ~ Erik
Beyond looking gnarly, this effect also helps communicate to your teammates which enemies are debuffed by the Phosphor Pistol, encouraging them to take advantage of the situation.
Existing Weapons
Plasma Gun Mk III
On top of all of these brand new weapons that we’re adding for the Skitarii class, this update will also see the release of a new mark of the Plasma Gun! Available to both the Veteran and Skitarii classes, this Plasma Gun variant will have less focus on penetrating through enemies and terrain, and more on devastating explosions, which will trigger when hitting most enemy types.
Beyond that, the Skitarii class will also have access to the following weapons that can already be found in Darktide’s arsenal:
Ranged Weapons
Infantry Autogun
Braced Autogun
Vigilant Autogun
Heavy Laspistol
Plasma Gun Mk II
Quickdraw Stub Revolver
Shredder Autopistol
Melee Weapons
Assault Chainsword
“Devil’s Claw” Sword
Shock Maul
Power Falchion
Combat Blade
Bonus: Which of the new weapons is your favorite?
“The Dual Transonics! It’s a design idea that I’ve had for a while, it kinda builds upon the Hive Scum’s Crowbar and Bone Saw [...] It’s basically two movesets in one weapon, and I think it turned out extremely nice, so yeah.” ~ Matteo
“I’m gonna say the Galvanic Rifle and the Arc Maul. Ping and bonk.” ~ Erik
That’s all we have for today! We hope you enjoyed this early look at the Skitarii class’ weapons!
The Skitarii Alpha Primus class will be available on the 23rd of June, but you can already wishlist it now.
Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war. In case you missed it, check out the reveal trailer here . This is part of an ongoing ser
Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war.
This is part of an ongoing series of feature highlights focused on the upcoming DLC class: The Skitarii.
In our previous blog we went over the Skitarii’s unique character creation features! This Feature Highlight focuses on the design of the class’ gameplay, going over its core principles, abilities, talents, and unique mechanics! We’ve interviewed Design Director Victor and Game Designer Gunnar to get their insight.
“I’m Victor, I’m the Design Director on Darktide. I’ve been at Fatshark for 17 years, working as a designer in different ways.” - Victor
“My name is Gunnar and I am currently a Game Designer, but I started at Fatshark in 2018 as a Gameplay Coder on Vermintide, and a few years ago I switched to become a Designer instead.” - Gunnar
Design and Concepts
For the sake of doing this class justice, we spent a lot of time working on various concepts and ideas, finding a balance between the options available in the lore and what works in a game like Darktide.
“Even way before Arbites, we started thinking about something like this. But, over time, it has evolved into what it is today, which is a Skitarii Alpha Primus, something completely new.” ~ Victor
Working on other classes first also allowed us to get used to that workflow and formula, so we’re more confident both in being able to craft a great class and also in pushing the boundaries of class’ gameplay design.
The Adeptus Mechanicus’ unique cybernetic nature gave us a great opportunity to work outside the box, to represent how removed they are from your typical human. You’ll see that there’s unique elements even in core aspects of the class, such as how Ability Cooldowns work or even the talent tree itself!
When talking Adeptus Mechanicus, or even just Skitarii, there’s a ton of ground to cover in terms of abilities and tools to explore. This both gave us tons of inspiration, but also a lot of ground to cover in terms of what to implement and how to best represent them in-game, which was an everpresent guidance during development.
We tried to incorporate as many elements of the Skitarii and the Adeptus Mechanicus as a whole as we could fit, to give everyone the chance to play around with their favorite part of this beloved faction.
“We want to for sure fulfill the fantasy of what it is to be a Skitarii. So when we’re thinking of abilities and playstyles, or different types of builds, we’re always trying to fit that within the Skitarii theme. While there are a bunch of other cool things about the Adeptus Mechanicus, we don’t want to lose the Skitarii just to chase those.” ~ Gunnar
On top of that, the design team for the class and the talents is in constant communication with the design team for the weapons and blessings, making sure that everything works together smoothly, that there’s synergy, and that both areas support each other to create a strong design pillar for the class.
Unique Mechanics
Before we get into the talents and overall gameplay, we wanted to break down the new, unique mechanics coming with the Skitarii. These are features that are exclusive to this class and affect core aspects of how the class plays, whether it be through its Abilities, Talents or Weapons.
Combat Ability Capacitance Charge
While most classes’ Combat Abilities function on a strict Cooldown, where you either have your Ability available or you’re waiting for it to refresh, the Skitarii’s Ability depends on Capacitance Charges. Having a single Capacitance Charge enables you to use your Combat Ability from the get go, but accumulating multiple Charges empowers your Ability!
This means that the Combat Abilities that the Skitarii has access to have devastating potential even with little talent investment, but require patiently accumulating Capacitance Charges to access it. With the exception of the Chordclaw Strike Ability (more on that later), activating your Combat Ability will consume all available Capacitance Charges to empower it.
“They’re not just being recharged through cooldown, as it is on existing classes. [...] You will generate the most Capacitance through your actions. Both through killing basic and Elite enemies as a baseline, but also through other talents that will allow you to generate more Charge by doing specific actions.” ~ Gunnar
You’ll find that many of the talents in the Skitarii’s talent tree also synergize with this mechanic, such as by triggering effects when gaining Charges or by giving you different ways to charge your Capacitance.
Servo Skull - Blitz and Companion
The Servo Skull is the default Blitz available to the Skitarii; a floating companion that can provide aid in combat by shooting at your enemies, or even complete Data Interrogation minigames for you on your command. Similar to the Arbites’ Cyber-Mastiff, you can direct your Servo Skull towards a particular enemy or Data Interrogator by double pinging it, and it’ll comply.
“It is super nice in those events, where you can just send your Servo Skull to complete the Data Interrogator and keep doing what you’re doing.” ~ Victor
“Currently it takes more than what it would take a good player to do it manually. So it’s a trade-off; it’s slower, but you can continue fighting.” ~ Gunnar
However, why just stop at one? By investing more talent points into the Blitz, you can unlock additional, more specialized Servo Skulls to accompany you! You’ll be able to add a Servo Skull with an integrated flamethrower to focus on more firepower and cleansing of heretics, and one with Medicae functionality, to better support your team! You can even take both, if you’re willing to spend the talents.
Concept art of the three types of Servo Skulls.
While the primary Servo Skull is controlled with your pings, the Flamethrower and Medicae Servo Skulls are commanded with your Blitz input, depending on whether you’re targeting an enemy or an ally.
“So if an ally is knocked down, or netted, or hogtied, then you can revive them using your Medicae Servo Skull.” ~ Gunnar
Of course, since it is only one of the three Blitzes available to the Skitarii, the Servo Skull is not as key to the class’ identity, but it is nonetheless an iconic piece of gear that we think really helps sell the player fantasy of playing a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
And, also! Your primary Servo Skull is customizable! There will be a variety of skins to change the appearance of the initial Servo Skull to suit your preferences, available by obtaining the relevant cosmetics!
Concept art of Servo Skull cosmetics.
Deluxe edition cosmetic for the base Servo Skull.
Arc Weapons and Effects
Unique to certain Skitarii weapons and talents is the Arc mechanic, an effect that interacts with the pre-existing Electrified state on enemies! How it works is that the weapons and talents that have an Arc effect hit an Electrified enemy, the electric attack will immediately jump to the nearest enemy, dealing damage and also electrifying them!
If, instead, the attack hits an enemy that isn’t Electrified, it will Electrify them, so that follow up attacks can trigger the Arc!
“So the more enemies that are affected by it, the more it will bounce, basically. Or, arc!” ~ Victor
This creates not just an interesting gameplay loop for yourself, but it can really take off with teamwork! Multiple Skitarii bearing Arc weaponry can build off of each other’s electrified enemies, and while other classes cannot trigger Arcs, someone like a Psyker could still Electrify enemies to set them up for a Skitarii’s Arc weapons to capitalize on.
And if you’re curious about said weapons, keep an eye out for the next feature highlight, where we cover the Skitarii’s arsenal, including the new Arc weaponry!
Gameplay & Talents
The Skitarii is a very versatile class that is designed to be able to fill many niches, both in terms of gameplay and of Adeptus Mechanicus’ player fantasy. The class is extremely flexible, and it is up to the player to decide how to build their Skitarii and what aspects to focus on.
“So you can slot into pretty much any role that you can find in Darktide, but you might not be the best at it.” ~ Gunnar
To support that, the Skitarii has a unique layout to its talent tree: Rather than going top to bottom following different branches, this class’ talent tree starts from the center, and allows players to expand outwards in different directions, taking a cog-like shape. This gives an incredible amount of flexibility to the talent tree and allows players to pick exactly what they want with as little restrictions as possible. You can even opt to not pick any Blitz, Combat Ability or Aura talents if you’d rather focus your talent points on other things!
We’ve been experimenting with different layouts for a while (even as far back as when we first reworked the talents in Patch #13!), and after six successful classes, we were confident enough to push the boundaries of what works for a talent tree in Darktide to try this out. Skitarii’s design as a flexible jack-of-all-trades, as well as the ‘modular’ nature of an Adeptus Mechanicus’ mechanized bodies, gave us the perfect opportunity to implement this type of talent layout and deviate from our norm.
This flexibility also means that this talent ‘web’ doesn’t have as much of a hard emphasis on pre-existing archetypes or playstyles, as opposed to the existing classes in Darktide. Nonetheless, the design behind most of the talents can still be considered to support one of four themes that players can follow and build towards.
“[...] you will be able to take some from that section, some from that section, some from that section… It’s more open in that sense, but if you look at [the talent tree] more as a map, different sections of that map are themed in different ways.” ~ Victor
This layout of talent tree can perhaps look a bit daunting for newer players, since there’s no easy paths to follow. We suggest that if you feel lost, you take a look at the available Blitzes or Combat Abilities and focus on pathing towards them. The talent nodes near them are bound to have good synergy with each other, which can hopefully make initial builds more intuitive.
While we can’t show you the entire talent tree right off the bat, we can show you a sample of some of the talent nodes available in each of those four themes that we mentioned.
Melee talents
These talents allow you to improve your melee combat capabilities or trigger from being in the thick of the melee. Some examples:
Electro-Strike Conduit: Melee Critical hits Electrocute the first target hit.
Target-Neutralization Feedback: Weakspot kills grant Stun and Suppression immunity for a short duration.
Uncapped Arrestor: Successful Melee Attacks grant a stacking bonus to Attack Speed for a short duration.
Ranged talents
These talents allow you to improve your ranged capabilities or otherwise synergize with ranged combat. Some examples:
Ammunition-Restoration Pod: Replenish 1% of your Ammo Reserve every 15 seconds.
Rad-Sink: After not shooting for at least a second, gain increased damage on your next shot.
Gunsmith: Gain increased reload speed. Additionally, after not shooting for a few seconds, reload a portion of your magazine from your Ammo Reserve each second.
Support talents
These talents give you boosts to your character and squadmates, or help you aid them. Some examples:
Salvation Doctrine: Gain increased Damage Reduction and Revive Speed while reviving an ally.
Power Overflow: When at full Toughness, a portion of your excess Toughness Replenished is distributed to each ally in Coherency.
Protectorate Protocol: Incapacitated Allies in Coherency have increased Damage Reduction. If you free them, gain Stun Immunity and increased Damage Reduction for a short duration.
Electrocution talents
These talents synergize with the Skitarii’s unique Arc mechanic, either taking advantage of it or helping enable it. While these talents are not necessary to make good use of Arc effects and weapons, players who want to specialize in them can do so with these talents. Some examples:
Voltaic Burst: Staggering enemies with a Push applies Electrocution, dealing damage and stunning enemies on a cooldown.
Weakness Analysis Doctrine: Gain increased damage for a short duration when hitting any enemy suffering from Electrocution, Soulblaze, Burning, Bleeding, or Toxin.
System Shock: Electrocuting an enemy applies 4 stacks of Brittleness to them.
Combat Abilities
Voltaic Emitter
Unleash an electric discharge around you, stunning, electrifying and damaging enemies near you. With multiple Capacitance Charges, the effect is improved, such as by also disabling the weapons of enemies in a nearby area!
Chordclaw Strike
Perform a powerful, heavy melee attack using a Chordclaw. This Ability does not consume multiple Capacitance Charges, allowing you to store multiple to perform several attacks in succession.
Advanced Combat Doctrines
For a short duration, your weapon locks onto enemies close to your targeting reticule, granting you inhuman accuracy.
Blitzes
Artificer Servo Skull
You are accompanied by a Servo Skull that can shoot at enemies or complete Data Interrogations. Further talents allow you to bring specialized Servo Skulls.
Arc Grenades
Throw an Arc Grenade, creating an electric explosion that Arcs several times.
Integrated Refraction Emitter
Surround yourself in a shield that absorbs all incoming Ranged Damage for a short duration.
Coherency Auras
Resurgence
You and allies in Coherency regenerate 50% Coherency Toughness regardless of enemy proximity.
Ammunition Deposit
You and allies in Coherency have +10% Ammo Reserve.
Foe-Render Creed
You and allies in Coherency gain increased Cleave and Rending.
Keystones
Redline Capacitors
Gain increased Toughness Damage Reduction and Capacitance generation whenever you spend or gain an Ability Charge. Additionally, you have +1 Max Ability Charges.
Flensing Protocols
Killing Elites and Specialists grants Flensing Protocol charges, which increase your damage and Toughness Damage Reduction. Charges are lost when taking damage.
Power Overload
Killing enemies grants stacks of Power Overload. When reaching the maximum amount of stacks, trigger an overload, which improves the damage and Toughness Damage Reduction to you and allies in Coherency for a short duration.
Bonus questions!
How many major iterations of the talent tree have there been?
“I guess… fifteen? We’ve been working on the Skitarii since before Hive Scum was released, and during that time it was just… Me and a few coders prototyping, trying things out… and back then, we were throwing everything at the wall and doing all sorts of weird iterations.” ~ Gunnar
“And this time around we had the talent tree up and running, in some form, very early on. [...] Earlier than we’ve ever had it before when building a class.” ~ Victor
What’s your favorite part of the Skitarii’s talent tree?
“I think the Chordclaw is really cool and super satisfying to use. Even the first version that we got in - I was already in love. That’s gonna be my go-to when we release it, for sure.” ~ Gunnar
“I really like the weapon-disabling one [the Voltaic Emitter], it’s super cool. It’s one that at face value maybe doesn’t sound super powerful, but in the right situation it’s a life saver and really powerful. Like, with how the game works, it actually is very, very powerful.” ~ Victor
What did you have the most fun working on?
“I think the talent tree layout has been really enjoyable to work with, since it’s a bit different to what we already have. So trying to come up with different configurations that work with different types of weapon setups has been very enjoyable.” ~ Gunnar
“I would say the Servo Skulls, seeing that coming together has been super cool.” ~ Victor
That’s all we have for today! We hope you enjoyed this early look at the mechanics and the talents, as well as a glimpse into what goes on when designing a new class!
Stay tuned for the next feature highlight, which will focus on the Skitarii’s weapons, coming soon!
Praise the Omnissiah!
The Skitarii Alpha Primus class will be available on the 23rd of June, but you can already wishlist it now.
Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war. In case you missed it, check out the reveal trailer here . This is part of an ongoing ser
Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war.
This is part of an ongoing series of feature highlights focused on the upcoming DLC class: The Skitarii.
In our previous highlight we went over the overall vision of the Skitarii’s visual design! This feature highlight focuses on unique options available to the class as far as character creation and customization goes, from unique physical options to voice modification! We’ve interviewed our Associate Art Director, 3D Technical Artist, and Sound Designer to get you all the details!
“My name is Lucas. I am the Associate Art Director on Darktide and I’ve been involved in overseeing the art delivered in the production of the Skitarii class, working closely together with the different disciplines in our production development team. [...] As a huge Warhammer fan myself, getting the opportunity to explore something from the Adeptus Mechanicus faction was very exciting. ~Lucas
“My name is Erik Lindqvist, I’m a Senior Technical Artist at Fatshark. I’ve been at the company for about 10 years, mainly working on Vermintide and Vermintide 2, and now I’ve also been leading work on Skitarii on the Technical Art side.” ~ Erik
“I'm Ola, I'm the VO Designer at Darktide. I'm in charge of wrangling all the VO we record, processing it and getting it to play in the game. Sometimes I show up to bother Matt and the actors with strange requests in a recording session. Other than that I like to get my fingers in some UI code on occasion (Personality Scourge and this upcoming Voxcaster Tuning for example).” ~Ola
Not Quite Human Anymore
“When we started talking and discussing about how we’d go about presenting this class, a lot of our ideas went naturally to the character creation of it.” ~ Lucas
While Arbites and Hive Scum fit quite comfortably using the base ‘human’ body as the core classes, the same isn’t true for the Skitarii. Due to their cybernetic nature, there were a lot of visual aspects we wanted to represent that warranted a brand new body type to go with it.
But this also gave us a unique opportunity to show something rarely seen in other Warhammer: 40,000 media, which is how they look under the robes and the hood, something that the entire Art team was eager to work on.
“There wasn’t really an established visual reference for what a Skitarii looks like underneath the robes and armor, so that was a mystery which we needed to solve. The idea of them being flesh fused with machine raised a lot of questions. And because this was such an interesting hook for us to think about, it naturally evolved into a focus for the class!” ~ Lucas
Because this is rarely depicted, we found most of the relevant information (and inspiration!) in written narrative mediums – books, lore excerpts in codices, and so on. While we always collaborate closely with Games Workshop when bringing all aspects of Warhammer: 40,000 to life in Darktide, this was especially true when working on the Skitarii character creation.
“I don’t think we left any ideas out. It was more the other way around, that we added ideas as we went!” ~ Lucas
We worked extensively on concepts and design, shaping together the look of these seldom explored facets of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Things like how their bodies look after such extensive modification, the type of scarring left on their flesh after all the assignments and environmental hazards they’re often subjected to. How exactly it looks where machine meets flesh.
Customizing your Skitarius
As you might expect, many of the customization options available to the Skitarii are very different from our other classes, in part because of the fusion of man and machine, but also because they’ll be almost completely covered up once you’re done. We had to figure out how to let you add your personal touch in ways that would still be visible under those bulky robes, after all!
“The character creation flow became very different. We cannot use skin colors, we cannot use faces in the same way, to express the character. So we need to find something else.” ~ Erik
Like our other classes, you’ll get to pick from several background options to shape your character’s history, and you’ll get to tweak their height (although they are on average taller than the regular human classes!). Additionally, you’ll also be able to pick your Skitarius’ Forge World of origin, which plays a similar role as the Hive Scum’s choice of Gang, such as altering your starting cosmetics!
One of these Forge World options, Branx Minor, is linked to Atoma itself!
Eye color
Their natural eyes have long been replaced with bionic upgrades, giving you several color options to choose from! There will be a primary and a secondary lens color option, and of course you can pick the same option for both to have the lenses look the same. Not only that, but these colors will show up no matter what headgear cosmetic you end up using for your Skitarius!
“And that is a bit different depending on the headgear. Some only have two eyes, so you’re basically picking the right and the left eye. Some have smaller diodes and things, as well. Some only have one, so then there’s only the Primary that’s showing.” ~ Erik
Mechanical Limbs
The Skitarii’s arms, legs, hands and feet have been upgraded with cybernetic replacements, and during character creation these will also be customizable! You will be able to choose different models for the arms and legs, and you will also get to pick from different metallic textures as the Primary and Secondary metals, including a separate setting to handle the oxidation level.
These customizations will also remain and be visible no matter what cosmetics you’re using, giving you more freedom to craft a unique look. And of course, the arms and hands will also show up in first person!
Voice Modulation
The Skitarii class will have access to four distinct personalities, something only the Ogryn class can match! But, taking advantage of the Skitarii’s cybernetic nature, we added the ability to customize how the voice itself can sound!
The voice modulation system found in certain headgear cosmetics gave us a solid starting point for the feature, but we pushed the concept further, giving the player different ways to tune it to their heart’s content and find the perfect sound.
There are three different settings that you can gradually tweak to modify the base voice of the chosen personality. As you play around with these dynamic parameters, you’ll get to listen to the changes in real time through the example voice lines playing from your chosen personality, or even switch personalities to hear how specific setups sound on all the voices!
As you might expect, one of these parameters controls the pitch… among other things! While there is some correlation with increasing this slider to make the pitch higher, or decreasing it to make the pitch lower, it is not so straightforward. There are various effects being influenced by this parameter, purposely making the pitch shift unpredictably in certain ranges, and sometimes making the normal, unmodified voice shine through.
The second parameter is a delay effect, which can sound like multiple voices at once, or like the voice has an almost immediate echo. Like with the pitch parameter, modifying this parameter is not as straightforward as it might seem, affecting not just the intensity of the effect, but also other sound effects linked to it to create some unpredictable variations.
“You will hear stuff change as you move this around, but our goal is also to… You know, we want you to stumble into something that sounds cool, rather than necessarily be like ‘Oh this goes up and this goes there’, you know. [...] We modulate it along the way so that different aspects of each effect comes in and out to get as much variance as possible.” ~ Ola
The final parameter modifies the distortion on the voice, with various different crunching effects modifying and distorting the sound. Once again, we wanted to make players experiment, so as you move the slider along you’ll notice that certain aspects of the distortion lower in intensity while others pick up, varying independently to create unique sounds as you explore the possibilities!
“There is always a built-in effect on the voices, so they will never sound fully human. [...] Even if you skip through the character creation and don’t mess with any of the dynamic settings, the character will still sound like a Skitarius.” ~ Ola
Bonus: What was your favorite part about working on the Skitarii?
“I do think that going deeper into what the character creation of the Skitarii looked like, and exploring the character under the suit, was especially interesting to me.” ~ Lucas
“I think it’s interesting to work on something this mechanical. It’s a different process! In some ways it’s more complex, because you have to make things mechanically work.” ~ Erik
“I think the class itself is really cool, there’s a lot of fun stuff you can do in regards to voice for the class. But this [the voice modulation] is definitely, for me, the stand out fun feature. It’s been super fun tweaking these effects and having these moments where you go ‘ohh, this sounds really cool, this sounds really cool, let’s try that, oh that also sounds really cool!’.” ~ Ola
That’s all we have for today! We hope you enjoyed this early look at the character creation of the Skitarii class!
Stay tuned for the next feature highlight, which will focus on the Skitarii’s game design and talents, coming soon!!
Praise the Omnissiah!
The Skitarii Alpha Primus class will be available on the 23rd of June, but you can already wishlist it now.
Warband! Last week we revealed the new Skitarii Alpha Primus class to the world. We are so excited for these specialist warriors of the Machine-God to join the fight on Atoma, bringing their wargear and combat expertise to the fight against the heretics! Today we are joined by Ma
Warband!
Last week we revealed the new Skitarii Alpha Primus class to the world. We are so excited for these specialist warriors of the Machine-God to join the fight on Atoma, bringing their wargear and combat expertise to the fight against the heretics!
Today we are joined by Matte and Lucas, our Art Director and Associate Art Director, to chat a bit about how we visualised this new class in Darktide.
Take it away guys!
“As a huge Warhammer fan myself, getting the opportunity to explore something from the Adeptus Mechanicus faction was very exciting”
Lucas
We already touched upon the fact that the entire Darktide team has been waiting for a chance to add an Adeptus Mechanicus themed class to the game for a long time, and for many of us this really is a dream come true.
The ritualistic elements of this faction, combined with their technology is something we find really interesting, and getting to pour all of our combined knowledge and ideas into this has been such a fun journey. It’s been great to collaborate together with Games Workshop to make sure we get the look and feel of these warriors just right.
We realised early that if we are doing an Adeptus Mechanicus class, it would be represented by the Skitarii, as they make the most sense, both for the power level of the Inquisitorial Warband, but also from a good gameplay experience perspective.
“I think this is the closest we have been to the core of Warhammer 40.000 for a class in the game”
Matte
Since the Skitarii are so iconic for Warhammer 40.000, we knew that this would be an immense task to represent in the game. Not only did we want to honor the lore, but we also wanted to make sure that the class ticked all the boxes, being represented correctly and fun to play!
Skitarii headgear concept
Skitarii backpack concept
One of the most interesting (and important) parts of the Skitarii is the blend between human and machine. The Skitarii are at their core humans, but they have been augmented by bionics to better suit the battlefield conditions they are faced with. Their limbs have been upgraded to mechanical ones, and their faces are covered in different optical enhancements and other gruesome details, all to make them better warriors. We thought a lot on how to represent this, and we hope that when you get to see the coming reveals, you can see how much care and consideration went into this.
Bionic arm concept
The bionics themselves have been very fun to work on. Since we have always hoped to bring this class to the game, we have consciously not added too much of these to the cosmetics of the other classes. We felt that if we ever get the chance to visualise the Adeptus Mechanicus as a player class, that was going to be the time to go all out on this.
And that time is finally here!
“This has been a project long vision for the team, and I was excited for us to finalise this class”
Matte
Another really cool thing to work on was their iconic weaponry and adding some of them to the game. It is always a challenge to take something from the tabletop game and bring it to life. The weapons are front and center in Darktide, so it’s something we take great pride in trying to figure out how to represent in the best way possible.
Phosphor Blast Pistol firing & reload concept
Together with Games Workshop, we always try to make the weapons believable, especially the ranged ones. A lot of work goes into trying to figure out how parts move, how the reload mechanism works and how the weapon acts as you pull the trigger. Not to mention the sound and VFX of the shots.
The weapons of the Adeptus Mechanicus are works of art, and we spent a lot of time making sure that this is also shown. The blend between high-tech, ornate wood work and fine metals make them really stand out. We thought along the lines of making them feel both archaic and advanced at the same time.
Galvanic Rifle Concept
One good example of this is the Galvanic Rifle. We took the existing concept art, the look of the miniatures themselves and then mixed this with references of how historical weapons work and sprinkled the advanced technology of the Adeptus Mechanicus on top. This all blends together to make the weapon you will see in the game. It’s a long process to get everything right, but a very rewarding one when it’s done.
“There is also the gameplay aspect of it, we want to make sure the weapons look and act in a way that makes sense for the player while using them”
Matte
Another huge task was to visualise the room where you will create your player character. It’s the inner sanctum of the old Adeptus Mechanicus facility that Hadron Omega-7-7 has gotten access to, and it is here standard Skitarii are upgraded into the Alpha Primus variant.
Skitarii Alpha Primus character creator ideas
There is so much detail that has gone into this. First and foremost we wanted the mood of it to be just right. In the center there is this giant machine, the main component of the upgrade process, but the room is also filled with censer smoke and candles. We really tried to nail the feel of this being both a machine and ritual chamber.
Skitarii human parts concept
It is here you will see the full display of the gruesome nature of the Skitarii. Suspended in the middle will be a disfigured torso and head that is the core of your character, and you get to pick the mechanical limbs and other details for it. We wanted it to feel like you are creating your very own Skitarii.
“The hood, the face and the bionic limbs are so iconic”
Lucas
Much of this will then be concealed by the hood and robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus when you are done. And since you also get to pick what Forge World your Skitarii initially came from, these come in some different colors to tie it all together.
Forge World color variations (Mars, Ryza & Branx Minor)
That’s as much as we will go into today, all in all this has been a very challenging, but rewarding, process for us, and we have so much to share with you in the upcoming weeks!
If you want to know more about the character customization, make sure to tune in next week as we will really deep dive into this. But for now, this is us signing off.
The Skitarii Alpha Primus class will be available on the 23rd of June, but you can already wishlist it now.
View game pageView game pageThanks to Matte and Lucas for sharing their thoughts and experience on the visual design of the new class, and thanks to all of you for reading!
It's official: Warhammer 40k Darktide's new class is, in fact, the Adeptus Mechanicus' Skitarii. My good friend Ben called it back in October 2025 based on a single teaser trailer alone, and wherever he is right now, I can feel him grinning. The Machine God's favorite toasters wi
It's official: Warhammer 40k Darktide's new class is, in fact, the Adeptus Mechanicus' Skitarii. My good friend Ben called it back in October 2025 based on a single teaser trailer alone, and wherever he is right now, I can feel him grinning. The Machine God's favorite toasters will enter the fray this June, with an impressive arsenal of weapons and upgrades that are nothing to smirk at.
Warband! Together with Games Workshop we just revealed the next class coming to Darktide as part of the Warhammer Skulls showcase! If you missed it, no worries, you can watch it here. The Skitarii Alpha Primus is coming to Darktide on June 23rd! We asked Juan and Victor, our Exec
Together with Games Workshop we just revealed the next class coming to Darktide as part of the Warhammer Skulls showcase! If you missed it, no worries, you can watch it here.
The Skitarii Alpha Primus is coming to Darktide on June 23rd!
We asked Juan and Victor, our Executive Producer and Design Director, to sit down with us and walk us through the new class at a glance. Following this we will have a series of Feature Highlights, deep diving into the different parts of the class, leading up to the release!
Take it away guys!
Why Skitarii?
We have known from the start that we wanted to add some form of playable Adeptus Mechanicus presence to the game. We also know that players really resonate with Adeptus Mechanicus, our Tech-Priest Hadron Omega-7-7 being a good example.
Many of you might ask why Skitarii, and not the more recognisable Tech-Priest? For us this really came down to two things. The first being that Tech-Priests don’t really operate on the strike team level of Darktide’s warband. The Skitarii are a better fit. They are the frontline warriors of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and we knew we could weave them into the scope and narrative of the game way better.
“You don’t often see Tech-Priests run around in larger groups”
-Victor
The second reason is that we felt the Skitarii was not very explored in the medium of video games. We saw this as an opportunity to delve deeper into, and we ended up working together with Games Workshop to find the best representation of these concepts for Darktide. The Skitarii that you will play in the game are called “Alpha Primus”, and they are a bit different from the standard Skitarii that you see go to war under the banner of the Adeptus Mechanicus in bigger battles. These specialist warriors can operate with more autonomy, and are more suited to the gameplay experience of Darktide.
Skitarii Alpha Primus
The Alpha Primus is a favoured soldier of the Machine God, blessed with mental and physical augmentations beyond those of their fellow Skitarii.. If you’ve played Darktide recently you probably have been out in the Deadside to help Hadron Omega-7-7 finding Tech-Remnants.
The success of these discoveries has led to several Forge Worlds deploying their forces to aid the battle for Tertium. Hadron has now been given the whereabouts of an old Adeptus Mechanicus facility that can upgrade a Skitarii Veterans into the more elite Alpha Primus variant.
The Skitarii Alpha Primus carry out delicate or specialised missions for their Tech-Priest masters, making them well suited to assist the Inquisitorial Warband. Their mechanised brains are force-loaded with advanced tactics, combat data and weapon proficiencies, freeing them to operate more independently from their fellow Skitarii.
This also let us, in collaboration with Games Workshop, to really come up with cool abilities and talents for them. As we said in the introduction, we always wanted to do this class. It was top of the list when we looked at what to add to the game years ago, it has just taken some time to really hone in how to make sense of them being part of the Mourningstars ongoing struggles on Atoma.
Workings of the class
“We have been working on this for a long time, in parallel with other classes, and we wanted to make sure that we got all the intricacies, abilities and weapons right. We hope it will be worth the wait”
-Juan
We knew going into the making of this class that it would take longer than other classes. We needed the time to explore how the class would fit, both on the level of the larger universe of Warhammer 40,000 and on an implementation level for Darktide itself.
The team has now made two classes, and we learnt a lot during this time. All of these learnings have gone into making the Skitarii Alpha Primus the best it can be!
There are some really cool unique things we have added to this class. But we won’t go too deep into this today, as we will cover all of this in future Feature Highlights, but let’s look at it from a top down perspective!
Looking under the hood
The Skitarii Alpha Primus comes with a completely new set of weapons. You will be able to wield Arc weapons, Phosphor Blasters, Transonic Blades and high-powered Galvanic Rifles.
“The Arc mechanic is really cool. It can hit several enemies if they are affected by the Arc condition, energy will arc between them. Good for handling hordes” - Victor
There are so many iconic weapons here, and it has taken us some time to really materialise them into the game. Many of these we had to figure out how to represent from the miniatures and art of Warhammer 40,000. Many ideas and iterations later, we are now really happy with how this entire arsenal came out in the game!
You will also be greeted with a new sight when you go into the Skitarii Talent tree. It’s quite different from the other classes , as it is now a wheel (or a cog if you will) that starts in the middle and you will be able to customize your play experience by going in different directions, instead of the normal top down progression that the other classes have. This makes the Skitarii Alpha Primus easier to really “make your own”, and have them fit several roles in the Inquisitorial party.
The Skitarii also comes with a Servo-Skull that hovers around and aids them as they fight.We will go deeper into this mechanic in a later Feature Highlight, but a small teaser is that you will be able to have different configurations of this, one of them being a Flamethrower!
“The character creator is quite unique from what we have seen before on Darktide”
- Juan
The nature of the Skitarii, being enhanced warriors with mechanical limbs and covered in armor, wrapped under their signature robe and cowl, also made us really have to think of the character customization. It is a unique experience compared to the normal process, as you will go through the process of being upgraded to an Alpha Primus. Picking the limbs you want and even being able to use a voice modulation on top of the voice acting! This quickly became one of our favorite things with the class, and it also adds a lot to the customization.
This class has been a labor of love for us. We are such big fans of the Adeptus Mechanicus lore, look and feel in Warhammer 40,000, and we can’t wait for you all to experience this first hand!
That will have to do for today. There is so much we could talk about, but we don’t want to spoil the upcoming Feature Highlights too much.
Next week we will be back with the Feature Highlight for the Visual Design of the class, so stay tuned! In the meantime you can wishlist the Skitarii Alpha Primus now and we hope you are as excited as we are uncovering more about them as we journey towards release on June 23rd!
Warband! Hotfix 1.11.7 is now being rolled out on all platforms. This hotfix only contains the following change: Fixed an issue that could cause players to disconnect when another player left a mission right when said mission failed. That’s all for today! We’ll see you on the Mou
Warband!
Hotfix 1.11.7 is now being rolled out on all platforms. This hotfix only contains the following change:
Fixed an issue that could cause players to disconnect when another player left a mission right when said mission failed.
Warband! Patch 1.11.6 is now being rolled out on all platforms, and while you wait for it to download you can read the notes below! This patch contains extensive balance changes , focused on Carapace Armoured enemies, particularly Ogryn Crushers. These enemies (and the tools used
Warband!
Patch 1.11.6 is now being rolled out on all platforms, and while you wait for it to download you can read the notes below!
This patch contains extensive balance changes, focused on Carapace Armoured enemies, particularly Ogryn Crushers. These enemies (and the tools used to counter them) have become a central part of the current meta. As we lower how frequently these threats appear, we’re also adjusting the most dominant anti-Carapace options.
In case you missed it, check out last week’s dev blog (you can find it just before this post in our Steam announcement section) where we go into more detail on the reasoning behind these changes.
Beyond that we also have a bunch of bug and crash fixes, and a few minor tweaks.
Balance changes
Enemy Balance Changes
Reduced Ogryn Crusher spawn amount
~35%
Due to how spawning works, this number isn’t exact and is more of an average result over the course of a mission.
This affects ambient spawns, Horde spawns and Event spawns
Havoc Changes:
An additional ~15% reduction in Ogryn Crushers, Bulwarks and Reapers
Rotten armour
Armour override has been changed from Carapace to Infested -- This allows for a greater diversity of weapons to be brought to a Rotten Armour mission
Lowered the amount of Rotten enemies spawns
Class Balance Changes
Ogryn
Increased the height at which the Ogryn is able to Vault over obstacles. This puts him at a similar level as the Human Classes and will hopefully smooth out how you traverse obstacles while playing as our favorite Big’Un.
Veteran
Split talent 'Demolition Stockpile' into different replenish timers for each Blitz
Krak Grenades from 60s to 90s
Frag and Smoke Grenades unchanged at 60s
Hive Scum
Boom Bringer
Max charges from 3 to 2 (With ‘Extra Pouches’, from 4 to 3)
Chem Grenade
Max charges from 3 to 2 (With ‘Extra Pouches’, from 4 to 3)
Chem Toxin DoT
Damage per tick while at max stacks changed from 440 to 350
Weapon & Blessing Balance Changes
Uncanny Strike
From Rending to Brittleness
Blaze Force Sword, Combat Blade, Duelling Sword, Sapper Shovel
From 12/16/20/24% Rending per weakspot hit (max 60/80/100/120%) to 2/4/6/8 stacks of 2.5% Brittleness per weakspot hit (5/10/15/20% per weakspot hit; max 40%)
Shivs
From 4/5/6/8% Rending per weakspot hit (max 20/25/30/40%) to 1/2/3/4 stacks of 2.5% Brittleness per weakspot hit (2.5/5/7.5/10% per weak spot hit; max 40%)
Melee Rending Blessings
From Rending to Melee Rending
Opportunist
Bladed Momentum
Sapper Shovel
Damage profiles (against 1st target of the attack)
Heavy Relentless ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.4 to 0.5
Heavy Relentless ADM vs Flak armour, Maniac, Unyielding from 0.75 to 0.8
Heavy Relentless Damage from {110,225} to {125,250}
Heavy Relentless Impact from {10,20} to {12,20}
Heavy Special Sticky second Damage instance ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.5 to 0.6
Heavy Strikedown ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.4 to 0.6
Heavy Strikedown ADM vs Flak armour, Maniac, Unyielding from 0.75 to 0.8
Heavy Strikedown Damage from {125,275} to {145,295}
Heavy Strikedown Impact from 15 to {12,20}
Light Vanguard ADM vs Carapace armour from 0 to 0.2
Light Vanguard ADM vs Flak armour from 0.75 to 0.8
Light Vanguard damage from {80,160} to {85,170}
Light Relentless ADM vs Carapace armour from 0 to 0.2
Light Relentless ADM vs Flak armour from 0.75 to 0.8
Light Relentless damage from {55,120} to {70,140}
Light Strikedown Damage from {95,180} to {100,190}
Light Special Sticky initial and second instance ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.4 to 0.5
Pushfollow attack ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.25 to 0.35
Pushfollow attack ADM vs Maniac from 0.5 to 0.75
Damage profiles (against secondary targets of the attack)
Heavy Relentless and Heavy Strikedown Damage scaled up on all targets
Blaze Force Sword
Damage profiles ADM vs Carapace armour (against 1st target of the attack)
Light Vanguard from 0.01 to 0.2
Light Strikedown Stab from 0.25 to 0.4
Light Assassin Uppercut from 0.25 to 0.35
Damage profiles ADM vs Carapace armour (against secondary targets of the attack)
Heavy Vanguard from 0 to 0.1
Obscurus Mk II Blaze Force Sword
Slightly delayed the active window for the Light 2 uppercut attack to make it easier to hit weakspots.
Shivs
Weapon Special
Direct hit Damage from 190 to 235
Finesse boost from 1.2 to 1.6
ADM vs Flak armour (near) from 0.5 to 0.6
ADM vs Flak armour (far) from 0.25 to 0.35
Mk I damage profiles
Crit boost curve on most profiles lowered by around 0.15
from around 0.8/0.7 to 0.65/0.6
Duelling Sword
Heavy Strikedown
Finesse boost from {1.1, 2.1} to {1.0, 2.0}
Crit boost curve from 0.5 to 0.4
Heavy Stab
ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.5 to 0.4
Finesse boost from {1.2, 2.4} to {1.1, 2.2}
Crit boost curve from 0.5 to 0.4
Inferno Force Staff
Direct hit ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.25 to 0.35
Damage over Time effects
Burn ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.1 to 0.2
Soulblaze ADM vs Carapace armour from 0.1 to 0.25
Soulblaze damage (at max stacks) from 250 to 255
Features & Tweaks
Added automatic file integrity checks to the launcher after crashes caused by corrupted game files. If corruption is detected, the launcher will prompt Steam file verification to repair the game install.
Reduced the time of Expedition capture zone objectives.
Made the ‘Scavenged Kantrael Mk XH’ helmets equipable for both Veteran & Zealot.
Fixes
Fixed a crash that could occur when having the inventory open while transitioning into a mission loading screen.
Fixed an issue where voice chat information would show with the team panel HUD visible when in a mission.
Fixed the Veteran ‘Survivalist’ Aura not going into cooldown when other players kill an enemy.
Added a Hud Icon to ‘Desperation’ to more clearly show its effect.
Fixed an issue where objects would end up slightly below the ground in the Expedition extraction.
Fixed an issue with themes not being applied correctly in expedition game mode.
Fixed an issue that caused players to die when joining while the team was at the exit of a sanctuary
Items sold in the Expedition Sanctuary can now be marked/pinged by players.
Fixed issues that caused zone progression to not display properly after hot-joining, there are still other issues that cause this that we are investigating.
Known Issues
When hot-joining an expedition, players might enter the mission as dead if it happened while the existing players were leaving a Sanctuary.
Fixed!
Players can use some of the new grenades while inside a Sanctuary. Please be nice to the locals.
Some of the new items found in Sanctuaries can’t be tagged.
Fixed!
Some textures can bug out when playing on AMD GPUs.
Players can hot-join private matches if they enter matchmaking through Quickplay. Fix worked on and coming in future hotfix.
Fixed!
[Xbox Only] Some level and enemy textures can take a while to load, leaving a low-quality texture visible until it finishes loading.
“It’s a big sledgehammer. And it’s big even for an Ogryn, so it’s HUGE, heheh.” ~ Matteo
“The Arbites shotgun was very well received, so we wanted to give something in that line to the other human classes as well.” ~ Erik
“This is basically a non-sawed off variant of the sawed off double-barreled shotgun.” ~ Erik
Concept art of Servo Skull cosmetics.
Deluxe edition cosmetic for the base Servo Skull.
Skitarii headgear concept
Skitarii backpack concept
Bionic arm concept 
Phosphor Blast Pistol firing & reload concept 
