Trusting Fatshark with Warhammer 40k: Darktide (2020)
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They made Vermintide and Vermintide 2 and those were excellent games. The word is that they were set to rehash Vermintide 2 and that some stakeholders wanted better monetization. This was late in the release cycle, and resulted in an absolutely HORRIBLE experience. The game is... bad.
Play Vermintide 2 and maybe circle back to Darktide in a year or two if they reverse course and implement the systems it should have had (and were promised) in the first place.
Steam links to see reviews:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1361210/Warhammer_40000_D...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/552500/Warhammer_Verminti...
Edit: oh, I forgot, they actually advertised that one of the big name 40k writers, Dan abnett, had written the story for their game. That was a large selling point. But there is no story currently implemented, and the setting is pretty generic, so people are unsure what it is exactly that he wrote.
I also think the game WILL get better. Hence me recommending circling back to it.
Perhaps you misjudge your ability to frame posts, and that's okay! We all have things in life that we can improve on :>
If I state something that is reasonably an opinion, which anyone’s judgement of a game is, then I don’t need to make it explicit. Making it explicit simply clutters up communication.
Perhaps you need to improve your ability to be swayed by simple statements and your ability to evaluate what is and isn’t opinion?
I really enjoyed their Warhammer Fantasy games but could not get friends to play them. The loot system may have been too grindy.
I’m not really a Warhammer superfan so I don’t know about the overall lore-accuracy, but the games generally feel like they really put a lot of effort into coming up with interesting character differences and mechanics, it generally had the feeling of a labor of love to me. I honestly believe that there’s a kernel of truth in the story here about being huge fans. But I wait for reviews on Fatshark games at this point. Glad I waited this time, based on the reviews.
Honestly, the spawning-on-top seemed like an old school game where you had to have static placements of things and to make it difficult things would spawn on top of you, or right behind you. There is no ability to clear a room and move on.
For a steam return, you only get a 2 hour window, but in those two hours my sharpshooter was 90% hit things with a shovel.
They deemed a fully operational cash shop, which works like a charm and updates without any issues, a necessity. Here is a list of things they thought weren't needed:
It doesn't need mission select
It doesn't need a campaign
It doesn't need a story when they hired a 40k writer
It doesn't need weapons they've shown in gameplay trailers
It doesn't need the 70+(PLUS) weapons promised
It doesn't need a 5th class like vermintide on launch
It doesn't need 2nd and 3rd careers like vermintide on launch
It doesn't need crafting like vermintide on launch
It doesn't need the promo outfits
It doesn't need enemies shown in trailers
It doesn't need to run at >30 fps even on 30 series cards
It doesn't need their PR to post outside of their discord
It doesn't need to be finished on "launch"
It doesn't need basic mob patrols
It doesn't need better spawning
It doesn't need a scoreboard
It doesn't need penances not to require griefing entire team
It doesn't need shared inventory with all characters
It doesn't need shared set of weeklies for all characters
It doesn't need unified currency
It doesn't need crossplay with Game Pass users
It doesn't need Launch stabilisation
It doesn't need an option to disable RTX
It doesn't need to prioritise core features over a virtual store
It doesn't need options to unlock store cosmetics with in-game earned currency
It doesn't need to fix crashes of the game before crashes of the store
It doesn't need a positive review score
The lead designer of FS thinks that the armoury shop, map rotation and crafting system are all fine. Even though people except improvements regarding these issues. Communication is nonexistent.
It's a shame, because the core gameplay loop is really fun.
It is just about how good that is, and if that then captures enough non-40k fans for Amazon to justify the series as an 'Iron Man' moment. I think it has a chance because of how grim the younger public's perception of the future is and how very similar it is to the past where we were much more into the horror and Godzilla vibes at the movies. Where seeing something as dark and grim as 40k will scratch an itch we didn't think of until now.
So, I’m somewhat hopeful in this case, in the sense that he’s got a producer role from the start and he probably knows that a flop here will hurt his reputation a bit. On the other hand, knocking it out of the park might make him invincible. Also it’s Amazon, right? So it isn’t like there are a bunch of other super prestigious creatives he’ll be butting heads with.
There's the draconian amount of control GW has exerted across youtube in recent years, showing their narrow vision. Look at the trail of terrible games and limited CGI media, to see how GW's vision does not scale.
Also, I really would have preferred the Horus Heresy -- which could have a real endgame. Otherwise, 40k could be a series without a point and could be more nimble in it's presentation so that might work better.
I had a hard rule against reading anything where the toy came first, but I've been surprised by HH and 40k. It's not the best writing/storytelling ever, but it is self-consistent and presents such a different view of things I'm enjoying it. They seem to understand what a galaxy wide fight means (it's big!). And the stakes at hand are very high and require obscene efforts from our point of view, but the threat is existential to humanity and it's all justified (?).