Warhammer 40,000: Darktide’s Xbox launch marks a recent begin, and Game Pass is all the higher for it

I used to be trying ahead to the discharge of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide from the second it was introduced. I’ve performed over 100 hours of Vermintide, and Vermintide 2, so I knew I may rely on developer Fatshark to ship a compelling motion sport.

But when Darktide got here out on the finish of November, 2022, the motion was strong, however every little thing round it felt unfinished, lacking, or frustratingly misguided. Performance on PC wanted large optimisations, particularly in CPU-utilisation. In-game itemisation was paper-thin, as soon as you set sufficient hours into the sport to get to a degree the place you wanted good loot.

Then there was the bizarrely aggressive monetisation. Darktide had fallen into the frequent entice of prioritising paid cosmetics and launching with an in-game retailer – in such a approach that it gave gamers the ick – particularly since giant elements of the sport clearly wanted a number of work.

All of that irked me, however the one factor I simply couldn’t recover from was the dearth of cross-play. Most of my Vermintide mates purchased the sport on Steam, whereas I opted for the Game Pass model. The two couldn’t play with one another, regardless of each being on PC.

While Fatshark has come a great distance in creating on-line techniques that assist solo gamers discover teams (including devoted servers, and making a extra social expertise by way of the hub world), the studio’s video games shine when performed with mates, not simply different gamers.

All of these issues mixed merely drove me away from Darktide. I do know that’s been the case for others, too. Even on the finish of September, as I write this, Darktide remains to be sitting at a Mixed consumer evaluation score on Steam, which is true for each latest evaluations, in addition to almost all 62,000 of them.

Then there was the Xbox model, which was initially purported to launch day-and-date with PC, however ended up being pushed again again and again, to the purpose that it began to by no means come up in common communication from the builders. It wasn’t till Fatshark formally introduced a launch date for the Xbox model final month that hope was restored.

But it’s not simply the October 4 launch of the Xbox Series X/S model that’s price celebrating – this additionally marks a recent launch for Darktide on all platforms.

The Xbox model arrives with Patch 13, which matches dwell on PC the identical day. Patch 13 is a serious milestone for Darktide. I used to be invited by Fatshark to play an early construct of the sport operating Patch 13, and bought to pattern every little thing it has to supply. The quick model: that is simply on the extent of Cyberpunk 2077’s Patch 2.0.

Patch 13 modifications the category sport fully, including new variations for each class. Class variety has at all times been one thing the Vermintide video games have been good at, however the best way Darktide implements this traditional design is Fatshark’s greatest. Each class now has a fully-fledged, multi-branch expertise tree, which felt surprisingly unrestrictive.

You can rigidly observe a linear path and create a extra commonplace subclass, or it’s possible you’ll as an alternative elect to spend your factors on the talents and passives you care about. Resetting your nodes is as simple as urgent a button; no foreign money or uncommon supplies to fret about. The better part is you can save loadouts, collectively together with your chosen weapons to create a coherent builds.

This is especially helpful for lessons just like the Veteran, which excels at utilizing firearms, however the previous class system would railroad you to spec right into a sure path. Indeed, after simply two hours of gameplay, I managed to pattern methods of enjoying the Veteran I by no means thought doable.

Even past the very thrilling class rework, PC gamers who deserted the sport (or by no means picked it up) have a way more feature-rich, and higher optimised model ready for them. All the work that went into the Xbox port means the PC model goes to be extra performant. This isn’t a magic bullet; count on framerate drops when giant hoards are on display, but when the final time you performed Darktide was when it got here out, you’re going to really feel an actual distinction.

While I used to be not in a position to play the sport on Xbox, Fatshark confirmed that Series X will supply two modes: one targets 60fps at 1440p, and the opposite sticks to 30fps at 4K. Series S is restricted to 1080p at 30fps for now, however the developer informed me it’s not ruling out a extra aggressive decision that targets 60fps down the road.

The better part about all that is that gamers on all platforms get to be on the identical web page, and everybody can play collectively. Future content material launches will probably be launched concurrently throughout PC and Xbox, which actually drives dwelling how a lot of a brand new starting that is for Darktide.

I’m typically cautious of rewarding corporations for fixing their video games months/years later. But you possibly can solely choose issues as they’re at the moment. The Darktide of late 2023 is a sport that helps cross-play on all platforms, runs higher, gives deeper loot, new methods to play, extra content material – and the massive one: a massively revamped class system that teases countless experimentation by itself.

The present model of Darktide is a straightforward suggestion, and anybody with Game Pass (particularly Xbox gamers who’d been ready very patiently for it) ought to completely obtain it and provides it a strive. It’s the proper evolution of Vermintide 2, and a enjoyable sport in its personal proper.