Prison Break.
From the farthest reaches of space to its more fantasy roots, Warhammer is a property that makes for some excellent videogames across several genres. While Vermintide and its 2018 sequel were extremely enjoyable outings, I was eager to see them adapt that Left 4 Dead format to serve the Emperor within the 40K universe, making Dark Tide a game that I have been waiting years for. Now that it has finally been released on Xbox consoles, does it live up to the hype? Oh, very much so.
When Warhammer 40K Dark Tide was released last November, it did so solely on PC as the Xbox version was delayed without a release date in sight. However, despite the delay, the PC version was in pretty rough shape with major technical flaws and numerous other issues leaving players with little reason to keep playing. However, with the Xbox release finally ready for prime time, it does so with a whole new patch alongside its PC counterpart that has resulted in a far more improved game across the board. It’s not perfect, but it certainly is a much better experience all around.
While Dark Tide takes place within the 40K universe, it does so without a Space Marine in sight. This is largely due to the fact that Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 is going to handle that portion of the universe on its own, leaving Dark Tide to focus on a variety of other characters, all there to serve the Emperor in their own unique way. This places you as a Reject, one initially serving their time in prison before a war breaks out and causes them to join the inquisition and attempt to stop a Chaos takeover on Atoma Prime, within the city of Tertium.
While there are bits and pieces of a story here, one fueled by the trust you earn as you level up more so than through any of the missions you’ll undertake, the story is one set around making those missions desirable to complete more so than a compelling or engaging story on its own. While you’ll unlock cutscenes here and there, as you reach certain level milestones, the bulk of the actual narrative just doesn’t satisfy on really any level apart from maybe entertaining the franchise faithful with nods and winks to the greater lore at play.
Progression throughout the story happens at various intervals since the missions you’ll tackle are randomized and don’t feel like they truly connect to what you are doing. From assassinations to recon to several other objectives that always result in you slaughtering hundreds of exploding meat sacks, the act of completing several of these missions triggers a variety of cutscenes that largely have characters insulting you and telling you to get back to work. Sure, you’ll have a few words of encouragement come your way here and there, but for the bulk of the campaign, you are looked at only as a prisoner with as many rights as an empty clip has bullets. It’s hard to really see much progress here for hours on end.
Before you take to the variety of missions on offer, you’ll choose from four classes; Veteran is your typical soldier type, Zealots are the religious sort who are a bit of a pyromaniac, Psykers can use psychic powers for their attacks and support skills, and lastly, the Ogryn, who are massive ogres that tower above their companions. While there is a character creator, the limited tools don’t allow for too much customization here. It’s decent, but I ended up seeing a lot of folk online playing with characters that look exactly like mine. Sure, you’ll unlock outfits that change up your overall look, but earning those tends to be a tedious grind given how expensive the costs are given that you’ll be spending a bit of coin to enhance your arsenal between each mission. Be prepared to play for a few hours in the standard outfit you have from the start.
The missions themselves are in random order with matchmaking into them with three other players. There is a quickplay option that grants you bonus earnings, but there are set missions below that vary in what mission they are and the difficulty you’ll face should you accept them. Again, missions have a central objective and a loose story, but they largely come down to one of the central NPCs shouting in your ear about what is at stake and what you are tasked with doing. While the banter between your characters is a nice touch, it is a surface-level narrative and nothing more.
Each mission follows the standard Left 4 Dead formula. You’ll move through a fairly linear map and arrive at your destination as you navigate corridors, open areas, and maze-like tunnels as you encounter waves of enemies and numerous bosses that can pack a punch. Ammo, health, and upgrade currencies all litter the map with some medical stations requiring that you track down a power component to make them operational. One aspect of the pickups you’ll find is that they are not instanced for your character, so it is fairly common to see online players hoarding everything and leaving you with scraps. Generally, the players I have joined up with have been fairly good with few going their own way or grabbing everything before you have a chance to even know it was there. Thankfully, you can tag or mark pickups with your character mentioning them to the team.
Combat is where I feel Dark Tide really succeeds in that I don’t mind replaying levels I have already blasted through because the earnings from those missions increase my funds to where I can start to afford better weaponry or hopefully unlock a new outfit, which can happen from time to time. Guns feel appropriately messy and weighty and your melee options are as bloody and brutal as you want them to be. While the gameplay can feel very rinse and repeat, that is the general nature of what is supposed to be the gameplay loop. Personally, I would have loved more objective-based things to keep missions fresh and unique from one another, but the hack and slashing of countless mobs and the splatter they make when you line up a great shot is still as addictive on the twentieth mission as it is on the first.
As you complete missions you’ll unlock additional items in the shop as well as rewards that you’ll keep. While it’s rare that you’ll unlock outfit items or whole kits, you’ll add to your ever-growing arsenal of primary and secondary weapons. That said, there are systems in play that do unlock new gear, they just require a bit of grinding to pull off. Your primary will focus on your melee options such as axes, heavy swords, or chainswords, whereas your secondary options are your firearms, consisting of autoguns, lasguns, and more. Each option has its own damage, stability, penetration, and additional stats to allow you to find what works for you. Each weapon also features its own blessings that work off a particular perk such as granting additional power, bleed damage, or cleave percentage on hit. Weapons can be upgraded as well, but reach a certain limit should you only be playing on Sedition difficulty, which will refuse to see Diamantine drop, which is the only way to upgrade weapons from Anointed to Exalted.
Alongside upgrading your weapons, your own Reject will earn experience and gain Talent points. These help you flesh out your skill tree, which is pretty substantial and generally works through three distinct lanes, given the depth it can reach. These skills range from increasing your overall toughness, which acts as your shield, to boosting your melee damage, speed, and strength. You can also unlock skills called Blitz, Aura, Ability, and finally Keystone skills that enhance your Reject even more, granting you additional powers and increases to your toughness. And thankfully, you can reset your points at any time, ensuring you don’t go down the wrong path for a build you might be looking at investing in.
After you have completed your missions and want to tend to those upgrades, you’ll travel around the Mourningstar, the local hub that will occupy your time between excursions. While the ship is pretty impressive as well as letting you navigate it in third person, I do wish there was a better way to navigate where you want to go. Shops are only labeled when you get up close to notice which icon is present to interact with. I wish there was some sort of a system to hold down a button to have descriptors pop up to show me where everything is. Hell, even a top-corner map would work.
Apart from leveling up your weapons, and taking on the various contacts available, you can purchase cosmetics for your Reject. While some outfits are real money only, there is a pretty decent selection of gear you can earn in-game. The problem is that gear is outrageously expensive. For most missions you’ll be lucky to earn around 5-8K, and with outfits ranging from 180k to over a million credits, having to spend hundreds of missions just to afford even a small handful that are here, per character. While the allure of putting in the effort to get rewards, especially those you can earn in-game is one thing, I feel some are priced at outrageous and unrealistic costs.
While raytracing is currently not an option on Series X/S, the game does present a choice between a very stable 30fps in its graphics setting whereas performance will get a fairly solid 60fps with minor dips here and there. Now that said, there are some issues with the current state of the game, and issues I hope are fixed in an upcoming patch. According to Digital Foundry, performance mode runs at around 864p being upscaled to 1440p with some poor anti-aliasing. Quality mode hits around 1368p and is upscaled to 4K, but at the cost of the game playing at 30fps. On Series S, you only get a single mode which features a 720p image upscaled to 1080p. Now, despite all those numbers, I still think Dark Tide looks fairly impressive with some suitable lighting and ambiance that sells the Warhammer tone almost perfectly. Still, there is work to be done, that is for sure.
While I certainly am not too fond of the live-service feel of its story, Dark Tide is nonetheless a blast to play and I’ve enjoyed a great deal of it. I’m still grinding like mad for some of the game’s best outfits, as well as relishing in the loot that I am constantly upgrading. I think Dark Tide will be something special in a few patches to iron out its performance hiccups and hopefully get a better picture for its performance mode. Still, if you enjoyed Vermintide but prefer the Warhammer 40K universe, then I think you’ll quite enjoy what Dark Tide has on offer.
For the Emperor!
Developer - Fatshark. Publisher - Fatshark. Released - Nov 30th, 2022 (PC) / October 4th, 2023 (Xbox) Available On - Xbox Series X/S, Windows. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Intense Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - Warhammer 40K: Darktide was downloaded and played via Xbox Game Pass.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.