Hey Everyone,
Today we’re showcasing the new tools of justice coming your way just for Arbites. In addition to the arsenal already at your disposal in the game (five melee and nine ranged weapons), four new unique weapons have been crafted to bring swift judgment to lexbreakers. We’ll also take you behind the scenes, sharing how these righteous implements were forged.
Here’s what’s hitting the field with the Arbites DLC:
Exterminator Shotgun: Unleash righteous fury with Special Issue shells.
Subductor Shotpistol and Riot Shield: Darktide’s first hybrid ranged/defense combo.
Arbites Shock Maul: Crush dissent with every electrified swing…
Shock Maul and Suppression Shield: …And if that’s not enough, bring the bash too.
Design
For the design direction of these weapons we spoke to Matteo and Erik, Designers on Darktide who helped bring these weapons to life.
How does the Arbites shotgun special shell work?
With the Arbites shotgun, we are introducing a new type of limited specials.
New Functionality:
Limited Special Shells
The number of special shells are limited and visible on the weapon’s top rack.
Special shells are replenished when picking up ammunition.
Both shotgun variants’ special shells retain their (high) regular damage output, plus special properties.
Specific Shell Variants:
Mk III: Electric Shells - Stun enemies upon impact and give Electrocution debuff with Damage over time.
Mk VIII: Rending Shells - Gives armor-breaking debuff.
Notes: The design intent for this is to give room for them to have a high impact. To be powerful with utility but scarce, so that you should consider saving it for difficult encounters.
Are there synergies planned between the weapons and the rest of the Arbites’ Talent Tree?
The Arbites talent tree has several nodes which enhance and/or are triggered by Blocking, which the Shock Maul & Suppression Shield and the Shotpistol & Riot Shield can easily utilize due to their strong block properties.
The Arbites Shock Maul can benefit from any source of Electrocution to trigger its powerful Special Stun, while also having the ability to slot in the High Voltage weapon blessing.
How does the special work on the Shock Maul & Suppression Shield?
Upon blocking attacks, the absorbed energy is converted into the Special gauge, indicated diegetically from a display in the inner side of the shield. The Special gauge also slowly refills passively over time.
When the gauge is at least half full, performing the Special input consumes half of the gauge and then triggers a high intensity shockwave in a cone in front of the shield, staggering nearby enemies and inflicting a high amount of Suppression in a large area.
The Block properties of the shield are active while performing the Special, meaning it can be used as a safe way to turn the tempo of an engagement from defensive to offensive, but also to disorient ranged enemies before closing in for the kill.
What were the influences for these weapons?
The inspiration for the shotgun was actually the Kill Team: Exaction Squad miniatures. A large Will of the Lex dispensing shotgun!
Arbites shotgun Mk III:
To elaborate. We imagined a large pump-action shotgun. Mk III comes with a duckbill muzzle (Horizontal spread with dynamic choke).
The intent for it is to be great at clearing large hordes with hipfire, and competent elite single-target Aim Down Sights. Excelling at close to mid range. This should make for a versatile gun with interesting second-to-second gameplay.
Arbites shotgun Mk VIII:
While still being a large pump-action shotgun, the Mk VIII comes with an extended barrel and is a standard spread heavy-hitter variant. Intended for mid range, with armor piercing capabilities - it serves better as a single target focus weapon.
Shotpistol & Riot Shield:
Introducing the first ranged weapon with a shield in Darktide.
We wanted to create what you would expect from an Arbites hand-cannon and shield, offering a unique playstyle that blends offense and defense.
The Shotpistol unleashes devastating pellets and allows blocking while firing. This is a different weapon compared to existing revolvers. For close encounters and melee combat, use the special to push attack or heavy shield swipe.
Shock Maul + Suppression Shield:
The idea for this weapon was to use the shield to promote blocking as a useful tool alongside the other damage-avoiding mechanics, whilst also giving it a Special which can be activated to turn the tide from defense to offense.
We also added some attacks using the shield itself, giving it a dual-wielding feel.
Arbites Shock Maul:
The Adeptus Arbites field a large amount of mauls, so we wanted to explore the niche further by playing on their shock/stun repressive properties.
This weapon employs a primer mechanic, where the Stun from the Special attacks is triggered only if hitting an already Electrocuted enemy.
Since staggering with any attack triggers Electrocution, this creates a two-stage combo structure where players want to be looking at sources of bonus Impact and Electrocution to be able to follow-up immediately with a Special attack.
Do the shield weapons have any unique blocking properties?
The Shock Maul & Suppression Shield can block Ranged attacks coming from a frontal angle, while also being able to block normally unblockable attacks (e.g. Crushers’ overhead slams).
The weapon also has a high base Stamina value and a stronger than usual Push.
Arbites Shotpistol + Riot Shield can be used to block both ranged and melee attacks, while maintaining the ability to shoot when blocking.
Animations
To round this dev blog out, we’re going to talk about the animations with some of our animators, Jonas and Julia.
What was it like animating these new weapons?
A different experience than usual for sure! There was quite a lot of going back and forth, adjusting the size and shape of the weapons to make sure that it fit well with the feeling of the combat loop of Darktide. The general feel that I wanted to go for with the Arbites weapons was heavy, methodical and relentless. I also looked up at some reference material of Arbites figurines and lore to get an idea of their behavior.
This time around I didn’t have any matching props for an assault shield, so I posed around using a cardboard cut-out to test and feel how to animate certain motions and actions. The Shotpistol reload actually came to be through me testing around with holding a prop gun in different unconventional ways. As usual, I probably looked like a reject finding out what guns are for the first time.
At first with the Shock Maul & Suppression Shield, I animated the shield much slower and heavier, but at some point it felt too similar to the Ogryn slabshield and I made it a bit faster and lighter in motion. This decision made it a bit easier to incorporate the shield into the light attack chains.
Instead of making the shield feel slow and sluggish, I tried to mix it up a bit by making the
Shock maul feel a bit more top-heavy instead. In the end I animated the Shock maul together
with the shield to have a bit more anticipation and windups in the animations and having the
impact feel a bit more like a baton. - Jonas
Were there any challenges in the development of the Arbites’ weapons?
In general I think there was a fun challenge in animating weapons with shields. Especially ranged weapons that kinda require you to use both hands when reloading or for a similar action. As an animator on Darktide I really want to highlight reloads or any other unique weapon interactions as much as possible.
I think Shotpistol and Shield have been the most challenging weapon overall because of how
you can cancel reload to go into a block. That is, since this weapon has a third state that allows
you to block when you run out of ammo in-clip, it creates a lot of unexpected interactions for when going to reload and from reload or to any other disrupting action. - Jonas
Which is your favourite weapon that you’ve worked on for Arbites?
Hard to say to be completely honest. I think I like the Shotpistol and Shield most because of
how different it is in comparison to other weapons. But I also really like how the new Shock Maul feels. - Jonas
My favorite is the Shotgun, I think the model itself is really cool with its chunkyness and with the special ammo casings visible on top, and the designers did a great job with how it plays. I feel like the law! - Julia
Are there any unique animations associated with them?
The Shotgun’s special ammo reload received a bit of a different animation than usual. There is special ammo attached to the top of the Shotgun model, which provided an opportunity to make an animation where you pick the ammo off one by one from the model itself instead of having the ammo arrive from out-of-frame. - Julia
How long do animations for these take?
It depends on the weapon and how it is going to work, but it can definitely take a while! Which was the case for the Arbites weapon family. Since we didn’t have any weapon family in Darktide that has a shield (Except for you Ogryn, you lovely brute), we chose to animate almost everything from scratch. Using Ogryn animations for this wouldn’t have worked because of rig and size differences.
There are about 220~ different animations for each weapon family/pattern that needs to work well together in a lot of different ways due to how fast-paced and high-action Darktide is. Around 50% of my time is spent on putting everything together in the state-machine, making sure that all the animations blend well. - Jonas
What is your creative process?
First I figure out how the weapon I’m going to animate actually functions, and try to find solid references for how they’re used. Then, for first person animations, I’m a big fan of using a GoPro as a sketching tool to showcase my early ideas and choreography. I attach it to my face (Yes, face! It looks ridiculous!) or chest, find a suitable weapon prop and then do some first person recording. It enables shaping and showcasing early ideas without having to spend any time in animation software or the game engine.
But even without a GoPro, I like to act out the movement for more complex animations, like reloads for example. For me, it enables my first blockout pass to have passable motions and pacing, and having that to begin with makes it easier for me to push and exaggerate the timing within the movements to a speed that I myself am not able to do, but will be smooth and believable in the game context. - Julia
The process I have is that I usually look up references for different weapons that I start working on, and learn more about the what, why and how on functionalities. Using those references on stances/poses/handlings I go further with the process of testing out motions myself with props and see what feels and looks convincing and good. After brainstorming ideas and testing around I start animating and tweaking so that it works for first-person view. - Jonas
Any fun bits of trivia?
When recording motion capture for the Shock Mine, we used a duct tape roll as our prop! - Julia
Thank you for reading our dev blog on the making of your new weapons in your new Arbites Class, releasing on June 23, 2025 on all platforms. We’ll be looking out for any questions over the weekend and we’ll do our best to answer them.
This is the Will of the Lex.
We’ll see you on the Mourningstar.
Wishlist the Arbites Class today!
– The Darktide Team