From the moment the Rejects arrived on Tertium, Interrogator Rannick harboured suspicions that there was more to the invasion than met even his over-suspicious eye. Now, with the forthcoming Grim Protocols update, there are signs that the Battle for Tertium is entering a new phase.
We sat down with Narrative Producer Michael Knight and Lead Writer Matthew Ward to find out more.
So, Tertium’s in trouble then?
Mike: It’s always in trouble, isn’t it? But yes, things are about to get worse.
Matthew: Are they though? Isn’t it more the case that Rannick’s finally about to realise just how bad they’ve really been from the start?
Mike: I know, right? He’s probably known something was badly wrong ever since the Orthus Offensive last year, but that’s the problem with suspecting everyone and everything: occasionally you don’t see something until it’s bang in front of you.
Matthew: Even paranoids have enemies.
Mike: Exactly. Rannick’s about as paranoid as they come, and he has a lot of enemies.
We’re talking about Wolfer, right?
Matthew: Wolfer’s involved, sure. He’s been our Rejects’ dark mirror since the moment Zola stepped aboard the Tancred Bastion prison ship.
Mike: Maybe even before that.
Matthew: We can’t talk about that, can we? Dan (Abnett) will kill us.
Mike: Dan wouldn’t do that. He’s actually a very nice man. But let’s play it safe. Wolfer isn’t nice. He’s been the face of the Battle for Tertium right from the start. He spearheaded the invasion. Every soldier of the Traitorous 6th - the ones we’ve seen anyway – answer to him. But he’s a purely military threat. It turns out that Tertium’s been rotten for a long time.
Matthew: We’ve seen the cultists fighting alongside Wolfer’s traitors. So far, Rannick’s assumed that their goals are the same and that they’re just a rabble militia fighting for Wolfer. The first is kinda-sorta-maybe true. The second? Not at all. To the leaders of the cult, Wolfer’s just fulfilling his part of a long-awaited prophecy. He’s a tool, nothing more.
Mike: I’m not sure he realises that.
Matthew: At the very least, he’s in denial. But we’ve all been there.
Hang on, back up a bit. The cult’s leaders? Who are they?
Mike: We’ve met one already. He rescued Rinda after she and her brother (Rodin) fell foul of the Rejects and then set her loose during the Terror in the Dark event. We’ll meet the others soon enough. The hour of prophecy is fast approaching and they’re not the kind of people that lurk in the shadows for ever. They’re starting to flex their muscles. After all, it was the cult, not Wolfer, who attacked Commissar Dukane’s Moebian 53rd during the Rolling Steel mission. What we’ve seen so far is only the beginning.
That’s the second time you’ve mentioned a prophecy. Can you tell us more about that?
Mike: Only that Dan’s really excited about it. The rest you’ll have to find out as it unfolds.
In the Grim Protocols update?
Mike: It’s a watershed moment. Rannick, Wolfer, Zola… they’re all starting to see that there’s more going on than they realise. In the end, Wolfer and the 6th are pursuing victory the way the Imperium taught them. Theirs is a conventional war. The cult deal in dark sorceries and blasphemous powers. For them, the path to victory lies through embracing the Grandfather’s blessings. In life … and beyond.
Matthew: So much of what’s happened over the last year has fallen neatly into the cult’s plans, but now they’re taking an active role in the Battle for Tertium. Unknown to Rannick (and Wolfer) they have a ritual in the works. One that the warband need to stop if there’s to be any hope of winning. The Rejects are about to be tested as never before.
Mike: I’m sure it’ll work out. Right?
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide in "Labor of Love" Category
Hotfix #53 (1.5.11) - Patch Notes
Hey Everyone,
Hotfix #53 (1.5.11) is live now on Steam and it will shortly follow on our other platforms. You can read the patch notes below! This is only a smaller update before we release Grim Protocols next week. Bug fixes and tweaks will be wrapped into that larger patch next week.
QoL updates
Tertium Logo Animation and Text Update: In this update we’ve added some small changes to transitional screens in Darktide, which will appear while you are loading.
The animated spinning Tertium logo is now present in more places, such as after a mission.
Text has been added to indicate on what step the game process is currently at.
Dev Note: The intent with this addition is to make it more transparent to players what happens during these transitions, and give more clarity to troubleshooting in case players run into longer-than-expected waits.
Cosmetic Fixes
Fixed instances where the hands and arms would clip on the Veteran “Arlo Tohmasson’s Battledress” upperbody cosmetic.
Fixed a small gap between arms and body on the Veteran “Tanker Commander’s Battlegear (Moebian 110th Armoured)” upperbody cosmetic.
Known Issues
We have temporarily removed Chasm Station HL-16-11 and Magistrati Oubliette TM8-707 from the mission board until Grim Protocols releases (Dec 3) due to an issue that would sometimes occur and prevent players from ending the mission.
A fix for this has been included in Grim Protocols for December 3rd.
There are some rare instances where a weapon keeps shooting while in secondary braced stance even after the trigger button is released. It is possible however to end the input by performing another action, like reloading or removing the braced stance.
A fix for this has been included in Grim Protocols for December 3rd.
[Console Only]: We have identified and are working to fix a memory leak issue when loading textures that could cause an out of memory crash after longer sessions of gameplay.
A fix for this has been included in Grim Protocols for December 3rd.
[Console Only]: After resuming from Rest mode, players may not be able to join text or voice chat when joining back into the Mourningstar.
Dev Note: It is advised to return to character selection or restart the game as a workaround to solve the issue.
[Console Only]: No error message will be displayed when a console player attempts to join a party with a player on a different platform who has Cross-Play disabled.
[Console Only]: The Brightness and Motion Blur settings are not available in the Video options.
[Console Only]: The game may crash when changing multiple times in rapid succession between Performance and Quality mode the Video options.
Grim Protocols - New Weapons - Dev Blog
Hey Everyone,
Welcome to the first dev blog for our next update, Grim Protocols. Today, we’re talking about weapons. This dev blog will give you more of a behind the scenes look at creating these weapons for Grim Protocols. We’ll include more information about their special attacks work and in-game information in the patch notes at release.
We’ve got 3 brand new weapons coming to you with this update:
Two-Handed Power Sword (2 Marks) - Zealot
Munitorum Mk X Relic Blade
Munitorum Mk II Relic Blade
Two-Handed Force Sword (2 Marks) - Psyker
Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword
Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword
Heavy Stubber (3 Marks) - Ogryn
Krourk Mk IIa Heavy Stubber
Gorgonum Mk IIIa Heavy Stubber
Achlys Mk II Heavy Stubber
Remember the Itemization trailer? 😉
For this dev blog, we’re going to talk to some devs about the general design direction, creating the animations, formulating the sounds, and bringing them to live through visual effects.
General Design Direction
For the design direction of these weapons, we spoke to Matteo A., Game Designer on Darktide, who worked on them.
What is the design target for the Heavy Stubbers? Was it difficult to place when the Twin Stubber already existed?
The design intent for the heavy stubbers was to give Ogryns some more precise long-range capabilities. Since we already had the Twin Linked Stubbers, it didn’t sound super interesting to only make them a less rapid fire version. Instead, we went with another approach.
Ogryns being Ogryns, we imagined them using the Heavy Stubber as a sort of DMR (marksman rifle) weapon. This would allow them to lay down supportive fire with the primary fire and be very precise with the alternative fire. This broadens the Ogryn player's toolkit, enabling them to take on a wider variety of roles within the team.
We’ve also added a flashlight to the Heavy Stubbers for the big guys, because they’ve been in the dark too long.
Why is the Two-Handed Power Sword on the Zealot, when the Veteran already has the One Handed Power Sword?
The Two-Handed Power Sword is a giant greatsword with barely contained energy: its huge, sweeping swings and a unique sprinting Heavy stab attack, it just asks to get stuck in melee while frantically lobbing off the heretics' heads.
The weapon also sports a new bespoke activation mechanic: instead of having a fixed, stable amount of empowered swings (more appropriate to the ex-Guard regimented Veteran), a Heat gauge will increase while the weapon is activated. Upon reaching the Heat limit, the weapon will overheat and lock the player out of the Special activate for a short period.
Controlling the rising Heat while engaged in the thick of combat felt very much suited to the playstyle and fantasy of the Zealot: melee-focused, unbridled and overwhelming power.
I’ve noticed Veterans haven’t received a weapon this patch. Will we be left hungry?
Veterans won’t be left out for too long. They’ll be receiving more next year.
What about the Force Swords?
> Drops a video of the Force Greatsword special attack
> Refuses to elaborate further > Leaves
Animation
Next up to speak about animation for the new weapons is Jonas B., one of our Gameplay Animators.
What was the process like to animate the two-handed swords compared to the other swords in game?
It was quite a similar process actually! Although this time around, I had to think more about weight shifting and gripping both hands instead of just one. Especially since they're, you know, pretty big. Usually, when I animate new weapons, I try to re-use and adjust some of the old animations if they’re similar or fitting enough to be something new. This time around it wasn’t the case, though.
In the very beginning, I collected some references of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) / Sword dueling videos. I also looked a bit into sword stances to gather inspiration. In the end, a lot of these inspirations were a bit subdued, or they were changed a bit for the sake of highlighting the personalities of the Psyker and Zealot. But changes were also made to make the weapons unique and fun with the weapon specials in mind.
Specifically, the Two-Handed Power Sword is more forceful, reckless and heavy (Emperor guide my path!). Conversely, the Two-Handed Force Sword has more “flowy” finesse and flair to its movements, which showcases Psykers using psi-assisted techniques instead of proper training.
In other words, you could find me posing and swinging around prop swords sometimes at my office desk or in the animation room to get a feeling of how to animate and handle the swords. (I'd like to think I looked pretty cool acting as a reckless and fervent Zealot, but it was probably quite silly. Maybe you can bribe StrawHat to show it to you one day.)
(NOTE: Also I want to shout out Oliviero M., for making an awesome solid groundwork for the Two-Handed Force Sword.)
How long have you been working on these weapons?
Hard to say to be honest. All the weapons have been in varying stages for a long time. Some were more functional than others. I think animation-wise the new Heavy Stubbers have been in a good place for a while. (Note: This only refers to animation-wise. We still needed to do testing and tweak numbers to make sure they felt right in-game.)
I started working on the Two-Handed Force Sword full-time a few months ago. It had quite a lot of solid groundwork done during the prototyping stage and functional stage. I think the groundwork was done earlier.
The Two-Handed Power Sword had its very basic groundwork a while back, but we wanted to focus on other weapons first. Coincidentally, I started working on the Two-Handed Power Sword roughly at the same time as the Two-Handed Force Sword.
In general, these weapons have been worked on bit by bit. It’s taken time, because they’ve both gone through quite a lot of reworks and iterations. We’ve changed how the weapon special attacks worked. We began taking a new approach by adding unique conditional actions that lead to different attacks depending on whether a player is running, sprinting or sliding. This meant I had to return and change some animations and transitions on these weapons to make sure they worked as intended.
What were some of the challenges you faced while working on the animations?
The biggest challenge this time around was probably making sure the Two-Handed Power Sword Weapon Special did not feel disruptive in the attack chain flow, yet still be visible enough for activating and deactivating. Considering how the activation system works for the Two-Handed Power Sword, it meant that the weapon needed an activate/deactivate animation for most cases after swings (left-side, right-side, idle, sprint).
But it also needed support for activate/deactivate when sprinting due to being able to start attacks while in a sprint. There were quite a few custom animation transitions made for the activate/deactivate animation to make sure it could blend into the action from any point in the gameplay, such as hitstops, shield-hitstops, blocks, etc.
Another challenge for both the swords was that we allowed them to be able to start charging a heavy attack while being in a sprinting state. This itself is not a very large deal, but this change caused a lot of unexpected animation bugs leading into attack chains, which needed to be addressed.
Any comments or thoughts on what it was like to animate the Ogryn stubbers?
It’s always a treat to animate Ogryns. There’s something magical about them when it comes to animating them. I think it might be because they’re such brutes that allow you to animate ridiculous, but lovable actions. You’ll see an example of this when you turn on the flashlight for the heavy stubbers. Most of their problems are usually solved by brute force or heavy firepower.
That said, it was very satisfying to animate a weapon that is quite heavy and powerful in fire-power and brutish in handling such a weapon.
Are there any fun bits of trivia?
In the very beginning the Two-Handed Power Sword was known as the “Ogryn Jousting weapon” amongst some of the animators of Fatshark. This is mostly because the unique sprinting pose very much resembled someone charging forward ready to strike. We joked around about how the humans were piggy-riding on Ogryns with the swords pointed forward, in a joust-like fashion.
Also, the sprint stab animation (Sprint > Heavy Stab attack) on Two-Handed Power Swords was just a fun prototype thingy, which kinda led us to add conditional attacks for the weapons, things such as attacks made from equip, slide and such.
Sounds
Our next section is about building the sounds for the new weapons. For this, we have Jonas H. entering the blog!
What was it like designing the sound for the new Power Sword and Force Sword? Did you do anything to make them distinct? What was your thought process?
My first focus was to make both two-handed swords feel heavy, so I needed to make foley* and hit sounds that gave that feeling.
(* You might be asking what foley means: Foley is the sound for handling the weapon. It’s all about the small details: like touching and grabbing the sword, the small clinks and clanks when you walk, etc.)
For the Two-Handed Power Sword special attacks, I wanted it to still feel like it was in the same family as the 1H counterpart, but I tried to embrace the fantasy that when activated it should both feel and sound cool when hitting enemies. And as the window of the activation was fairly short, I could make the hits a bit louder, while not making it tiresome in the long run.
The Two-Handed Force Sword took the longest to make because the way the special worked was changed a lot during development (like the other Jonas mentioned above). I wanted the wave and the explosive hits on the enemies to also feel satisfying, so it took some time to find a good balance. It was also important to me to make the warp sound design surrounding this weapon to feel connected to its sibling, the 1H Force Sword. A lot of experimentation was done to find the right vibe in swings and activation information for this weapon.
When it comes to designing guns for Ogryns, are there any differences compared to designing the sounds for the human classes?
Compared to the swords, the stubbers are more grounded. I tried to make them feel different from the faster Twin Stubbers. I did this by making more mechanical sounds in the background while shooting, and adding another flavor to the shots. They are slower and heavy, and that was the goal sound wise, as well.
Visual Effects
To round this BTS dev blog off, we’ve got Felicia K., one of our VFX Artists, to talk to you about her process.
Hi everyone, I’m Felicia and I work with visual effects (VFX) for Darktide. To start off, for those who don’t know what a Visual Effect Artist does at a game studio, I create effects for both environment and combat. For the environment, it can be things like rain, fire, dust, smoke, steam and much more. For combat, it’s more muzzle flashes for guns, impact effects on enemies like blood and explosions, the list goes on. I work very closely with a lot of different roles at the studio. Most of the time my role comes in later in the process, since I need to know what is happening in the levels or the combat to be able to brainstorm my part of the process.
When I started to work on the new swords I was very hyped. I knew that these weapons would be a little bit different from what I’ve worked on before, especially the Two-Handed Force Sword.
Two-Handed Force Sword
I heard from the combat designers that the Two-Handed Force Sword would have a force cleave coming out of the sword that you would charge up. Almost like a wind slash in some other games. But of course we would need it to look much more brutal and more Warhammer 40,000.
From here, the brainstorming begins for me. How does the effect feel? How does it behave? What is it? What is the style for this effect? So this is what I wrote down as the description:
Style/Mood: Wispy/Souls to separate the Force Sword from the Power Sword that already has lightning. The Power Sword feels a lot more “rough” than the Force Sword. Make it “Wispy” in the effects as a whole.
I wanted the Two-Handed Force Sword to be soft and smooth but still feel very powerful. It has 3 different stages on the cleave depending on how powerful the charge is. To show this visually, I made them different sizes and added some extra effects on the most powerful one, like smoke and sparks.
After the cleave was done, I worked on the charge that you do on the sword itself before you can shoot the cleave. There was some back and forth on how it should look. We knew it should indicate that you can have enough power to charge up the cleave, and to make that clear I created a screen space effect (AKA an effect that spawns on the screen). I also added a small blue fire-like effect that would spawn on the sword when you have enough power.
It’s always a challenge when working with visual effects to make sure you as a player understand what is happening, but not take over and be too much, so you can focus on your gameplay. It needs to be balanced. You don’t want effects all over your screen just to indicate something. But you still need to see the effects enough, so you can understand “oh I have enough power to charge my forcesword” even in the middle of an intense combat fight.
My own beautiful (not so beautiful) sketch of the indicator of when you have reached a certain charge. It turned out a little bit different when I actually started to work on it, but it’s always good to go back to your mood board/description to not lose track of what you’re aiming for, because you can easily forget along the way.
Two-Handed Power Sword
So if the Two-Handed Force Sword would feel smooth and powerful, I wanted the Two-Handed Power Sword to feel more rock ‘n’ roll. I wanted this sword to feel more rough when it comes to the effects. To accomplish this, the lightning is spawning and it is pretty big when you activate the weapon.
You also have a time limit before it overcharges. For this, I thought it should look/feel like an engine on a car that’s failing and there’s smoke coming out of it to indicate “you should probably de-activate so it doesn't break”.
This is another example of a sketch I did. It’s for when you’ve reached the overcharged.
Heavy Stubbers
But hey, let’s not forget the new Heavy Stubbers! As a hardcore Ogryn player, I was super happy to get some more ranged weapons for the Ogryn, and even more happy to be able to work on them.
First of all, when you work as a visual effect artist, you have a lot of odd search history. I look at a lot of military videos as reference when working with guns, and also explosions. The Heavy Stubbers are big and powerful, and like I’ve written before, I need to decide: how do the effects feel? How do they act? How much of the effects do you see when you shoot?
When you look at the video, the gun is so powerful that you can almost only see smoke, almost no muzzle flash at all. But since this is a video game, we need some more feedback than just smoke when shooting. For this, I added a very small muzzle flash and smoke for the heavy stubbers to indicate that this weapon has such force when shooting, that you can’t see a lot of fire like when shooting a shotgun (and shotguns also have more spread when shooting in general).
Hope that you find this interesting and that you like the new weapons, it was a blast to work on them!
Alright, that’s our BTS dev blog on the making of the new weapons coming to Grim Protocols on December 3, 2024.
On release, we’ll include more information about how the weapons work in-game and their special activations.
Let us know if you have any questions for the team in the comments below!
– The Darktide Team
Introduction to Havoc Q&A - Dev Blog
Hey Everyone,
A couple of weeks ago, we released an Introduction to Havoc dev blog. Similar to when we released the Introduction to Itemization dev blog over the summer, we’ve received a lot of comments and questions.
For Itemization, we answered these in the form of a couple of Q&A posts, and we thought it would be a great format to use for discussing Havoc, as well.
We’ll compile the most common remaining questions after this post and we’ll answer them in the patch notes when it is released on 3 December.
Something that has changed since the last dev blog is the nomenclature used in this game mode. From now on we will be calling what was previously known as a Havoc Order a Havoc Assignment (aka the current mission a player is assigned), and what was previously known as your Havoc Rank will now be known as your Havoc Clearance Level (the highest Havoc Assignment you’ve cleared - whether it’s your own or through the party finder).
We’d also like to say these are the answers we have NOW. Our plan is to evaluate further after release and read player feedback to the game mode. From there, we can see if anything needs to be adjusted or changed by working with the community. We see this as the start of a long journey and will keep tweaking it just like any other system in the game.
Thank you for your passion for Darktide and we hope we can answer the most burning questions we’ve seen.
Question Are FS concerned about people alt-F4ing this? For the Auric titles it was just the title but this is an entire game mode.
Answer “Alt+F4:ing” to circumvent the system is something we’ve taken into account, there are two solutions to this issue, one which is bespoke to Havoc and the other a general solution. If a Havoc Assignment (Havoc Order) owner leaves mid-mission without reconnecting it will automatically count as a loss regardless of the result of the mission for that player. It will also mean that the player receives no rewards for the attempt, and it will use up one of the three attempts for that specific Havoc Assignment level.
However, players who remain in the Mission will still be able to complete the mission; if they do, it will count as a win for the remaining players.
ALT+F4:ing to circumvent being “downed” to complete harder penances has been an issue with the Auric penance, and to this end, we’ve introduced more checks when players reconnect.** Players will now respawn back with the health count they had upon leaving, instead of being spawned with a minimal % of hp, and players who ALT+F4 to get around being downed will now spawn back hogtied.
**This is a game wide change coming with Grim Protocols, it is not exclusive to Havoc.
Question Do we select the 1-5 difficulty level when playing Havoc or are these missions working on a completely different system, where difficulty is fixed?
Answer Havoc has its own difficulty structure that is loosely based on the normal difficulties. The way players can choose difficulty is by either starting their Havoc Assignment (Havoc Order) by gathering some friends or by starting a group through the party finder. Likewise if you fancy another mission configuration you can look through the party finder and join one there.
Question If I complete my Havoc Assignment (Havoc Order) as soon as it’s available, do I have to wait a week before I’m given a new one?
Answer You can complete as many Havoc Assignments in a row as you like. The only thing that is on a weekly cadence is the weekly reward which is based on the highest Havoc Assignment you were able to complete during the previous week.
Question I’m confused about how the decay system works for Havoc.
Answer Yes, let’s clarify the fluid ranking system using the new nomenclature written in the intro of this dev blog. It has changed a bit since the last dev blog after reading feedback.
A player’s Havoc Clearance Level will update on a weekly basis based on the highest Havoc Assignment they completed the previous week (whether it was their own Assignment or played through the Party Finder).
As long as a player is active within the Havoc system during any given week they will not automatically decay at the end of the week. We will however keep an eye on how this system plays out in reality and adjust the rules accordingly.
Question Can you replay your completed Havoc Assignment levels? Like if I was at level 20 but wanted to bust down to 5, could I do that on my own? Or would I need to find someone with a level 5 Assignment to join?
Answer You cannot replay depleted / completed missions since the missions are uniquely generated. If you’d like to take a break and play a lower-rank Assignment you can instead find a compatible team on the party finder with the Assignment you like. The same goes for the opposite: if you want to try your hands on an Assignment that is higher than the one you currently own, you can find a team that is playing a higher one and ask to join them.
Question Is Havoc level character locked like Melk contracts (well trust level is, so…) so we’ll have to level our 4 characters at the same time each week?
Answer Havoc is not locked to a specific character, “ergo” Havoc is account-wide. With Havoc our intent is for players to adapt to the Havoc Assignment at hand by selecting the correct character, talents, weapons, blessing and curios to best take on the challenge. However, your character still needs to be level 30 to be able to join a Havoc mission.
Question Will new garb be also character locked then? (Level up operative to gain access to new Moebian cosmetics for that class).
Answer The cosmetics from Havoc are account-wide. (The same as any other cosmetic in the game.)
Question What determines the max difficulty that I can currently play?
Answer As long as a player is level 30 and can find a group that is willing to take them along, a player could in theory play any Assignment level at any time.
Question Do I get access to a difficulty, based on my current highest completed? Can I access all difficulties <= my current max, or only 1 diff at a time?
Answer At all times you have access to your own Assignment. If you feel like playing a lower Assignment level the way to do so would be to find a party with a lower Assignment level in the party finder and vice versa if you are looking for a higher Assignment level than what you currently own.
Question Does my max available mission difficulty get reset every week?
Answer Your maximum available mission difficulty will move forward with you into the next week. Each week players will get a new Havoc Assignment based on the highest Assignment they completed the previous week.
Question Do i need to play from diff 1-40 within a single week in order to get to rank 40, unless i just join someone else's high diff mission?
Answer No, you will continue the next week at the same level that you left off the previous week. The only thing that is weekly dependent is the weekly reward that is based on the highest-ranked mission you completed during the week.
Question What happens when my rank drops? Do I lose access to the higher difficulty missions?
Answer You will always be able to play any Assignment Level that you want to play and are able to find a group that will play with you. Your own Havoc Assignment only dictates which mission you can start yourself. But if you can find a group that is playing a higher-ranked mission that you can join you will be able to do so. Your weekly reward will be based on the highest-ranked mission you have completed. Next week your Havoc Assignment will be set to the highest mission you have completed the previous week.
Question To clarify, I’m pretty sure the modifiers at levels 1-40 are fixed for all players (possibly forever?). The only thing different for each player at the same level is the mission and mutators?
Answer Havoc Assignment’s difficulty is composed of two components, one is the static negative modifiers we apply per Level basis and are additive so each Assignment will include everything from the previous one, the other part is generated per Assignment basis and includes the Mission, Theme, and mutators.
Over time we’ll continue adding more mutators into the pool, but more on that at a later time…
Question I don’t understand how matchmaking is going to work with this. There is no quickplay, but you can just queue into it? What does that mean for matchmaking? will it try to find 3 other players who are close to your ‘level’?
Answer Due to the vast amount of permutations in the mode, there will not be any matchmaking in this game mode. Also the difficulty is so significant that you will want to tailor the group more specifically than a matchmaking service could do effectively. This is one of the reasons we created the Group Finder, which we hope will see a significant increase in use with the release of this feature.
Question Does this mean that it will take at least 40 weeks for the first players to reach Hacoc Clearence Level 40?
Assuming the answer to the previous question is no, (ie, that when you gain or lose an Assigment Level you can immediately attempt your new Assignment Level), if you are demoted from Clearance Level 20 to 19, but then beat Level 19 and move back up to Level 20, will your new Havoc Assignemnt 20 still be the same as it was the first time?
Answer You will be able to reach Havoc Clearance Level 40 as fast as you and your team can complete the Assignments required to do so. There is no time gating happening when it comes to the number of assignments possible to complete in a given week. When you complete a Havoc Assignment, a new one will be designated to you by Darinda Duakane as soon as you report back to her. The new Assignment will not be the same as the previous one if you go up or down in Assignment level.
Question I would like to ask what happens to a player’s Havoc rating if they quit before the match completes?
Answer Leaving before a Havoc mission ends will result in a loss for the player. It will also lock you out of starting another Havoc (only Havoc mission) until the mission has ended. If you are the Assignment holder, you will lose one of the attempts at the Havoc Assignment level.
[img width=624,height=29]https://lh7-qw.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdoZbRX-cWzyCOZVGm0HA7aXYhRTHwCSnWS65GCU3lJziMFiKYWK2f-zBsLcIVWUzBwW_rtxlhaOPlE_NV7-XXy2XHS_ssiNhTV7F4pjZ2Sjnre3eJXNe5XmHI4nZKnk_ojRnPMPqwMOxUk1R_6LHwSRlmF?key=m0osxNPqksATxB0XbddLg6p3[TAG-105] Question Does this mean your Havoc Clearance Level (“Rank”) will never go down, but that your access to Havoc Assignments will?
Answer The Havoc Rank will display the highest Clearance Level a player has completed and is not directly linked to the current level of that player's Havoc Assignment.
Question Does this mean your Havoc Clearance Level (“Rank”) will never go down, but that your access to Havoc Assignments will?
Answer The Havoc Rank will display the highest Clearance Level a player has completed and is not directly linked to the current level of that player's Havoc Assignment.
Question Will there be a way to see what the current havoc rank of a player is? With rewards on the line for mission completion, I just get the feeling that people not ready for the latter half of havoc ranks will just try and join as many high ranking parties they can, looking to get carried through it.
Answer You will be able to see the Clearance Levels of all prospective applicants to your group to be able to make the best informed decision.
Question Will there be a way to see what the current havoc rank of a player is? With rewards on the line for mission completion, I just get the feeling that people not ready for the latter half of havoc ranks will just try and join as many high ranking parties they can, looking to get carried through it.
Answer You will be able to see the Clearance Levels of all prospective applicants to your group to be able to make the best informed decision.
OK, that is our Q&A! Thank you to everyone who wrote questions on our previous dev blog. As mentioned above, we’ll compile any of the common remaining questions after this post and we’ll include them in the patch notes for Grim Protocols on 3 December.
Thank you for your passion and we look forward to everyone getting their hands on Havoc and the rest of the update.
– The Darktide Team
Announcing Grim Protocols - Free Update Releasing 3 December
(Note: due to a technical issue stemming from formatting, we are reposting the announcement for Grim Protocols - click the cover above to watch our Narrative Trailer🙏)
Hey Everyone,
We’ve been cooking for you. We’re ready to announce our next major update, Grim Protocols. It will be released on 3 December on all platforms.
This update will include:
New Game Mode - Havoc: Think you’ve mastered the threat over Tertium? Think again. Havoc is a new end-game experience that will test the resolve of the most seasoned operative. Be ready to face daunting challenges and earn new cosmetic rewards. We’ve posted an initial dev blog about this, and we’re working on finishing the Q&A post to follow.
New Mission - Dark Communion: Return to the Carnival and explore its darkest corners. Steel yourself as you face hordes of cultists who will stop at nothing to achieve their Dark Communion. We are working on a dev blog for this.
Three New Weapon Families: Tear through waves of enemies by wielding the destructive might of the Two-Handed Force and Power Swords, and the Ogryn Heavy Stubber. We are working on a dev blog for this…but here is a sneak peek:
Two-Handed Power Sword (2 Marks) - Zealot: A massive, high-damage melee weapon with wide, sweeping attacks.
Munitorum Mk X Relic Blade
Munitorum Mk II Relic Blade
Two-Handed Power Sword - Unique Features:
Heat Activation Mechanic: Generates a heat gauge, building over time. Reaching the limit locks activation briefly (overheat mechanic).
Special Attack: Sprinting Heavy stab attack for unique engagement tactics.
Two-Handed Force Sword (2 Marks) - Psyker: A finesse-oriented weapon combining melee and psychic powers.
Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword
Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword
Two-Handed Force Sword - Unique Features:
Force Cleave: Special attack releases a psychic cleave with scaling based on charge power (three stages).
Smooth Flow: Psyker’s psi-assisted techniques make the weapon feel lighter and more agile.
Heavy Stubber (3 Marks) - Ogryn: A heavy, precision-support firearm for Ogryns, blending suppressive fire with marksman capabilities that will keep the darkness at bay.
Krourk Mk IIa Heavy Stubber
Gorgonum Mk IIIa Heavy Stubber
Achlys Mk II Heavy Stubber
Heavy Stubber - Unique Features: Primary Fire: Heavy, slow automatic fire for suppressive roles. Alt Fire: A more precise, single-shot mode for longer-range accuracy. Flashlight: Included to assist in low-light environments.
Anniversary Special Event: To celebrate the second anniversary of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, the game will host an event that will reward players with a unique weapon trinket.
And more: Including the expansion of the Penance progression track with new challenges and rewards, as well as quality of life improvements such as an extension of the Party Finder feature and idle animations to Stances.
Here are some complementary screenshots of the Two-Handed Force and Power Swords as well as a glimpse into Dark Communion.
We look forward to sharing more about this update with players in the coming few weeks. We’re finishing up dev blogs on the new weapons, the new mission Dark Communion, and more. Stay tuned!
– The Darktide Team
Announcing Grim Protocols - Releasing 3 December
(Note: The formatting on Steam is currently messing up, and it won't let us make formatting changes consistently on this post. We'll amend it to look better once Steam responds properly. 🙏)
Hey Everyone,
We’ve been cooking for you. We’re ready to announce our next major update, Grim Protocols. It will be released on 3 December on all platforms.
This update will include: New Game Mode - Havoc: Think you’ve mastered the threat over Tertium? Think again. Havoc is a new end-game experience that will test the resolve of the most seasoned operative. Be ready to face daunting challenges and earn new cosmetic rewards. We’ve posted an initial dev blog about this, and we’re working on finishing the Q&A post to follow. New Mission - Dark Communion: Return to the Carnival and explore its darkest corners. Steel yourself as you face hordes of cultists who will stop at nothing to achieve their Dark Communion. We are working on a dev blog for this. Three New Weapon Families: Tear through waves of enemies by wielding the destructive might of the Two-Handed Force and Power Swords, and the Ogryn Heavy Stubber. We are working on a dev blog for this…but here is a sneak peek:
Two-Handed Power Sword (2 Marks) - Zealot: A massive, high-damage melee weapon with wide, sweeping attacks.
Munitorum Mk X Relic Blade
Munitorum Mk II Relic Blade
Two-Handed Power Sword - Unique Features:
Heat Activation Mechanic: Generates a heat gauge, building over time. Reaching the limit locks activation briefly (overheat mechanic).
Special Attack: Sprinting Heavy stab attack for unique engagement tactics.
Two-Handed Force Sword (2 Marks) - Psyker: A finesse-oriented weapon combining melee and psychic powers.
Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword
Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword
Two-Handed Force Sword - Unique Features:
Force Cleave: Special attack releases a psychic cleave with scaling based on charge power (three stages).
Smooth Flow: Psyker’s psi-assisted techniques make the weapon feel lighter and more agile.
Heavy Stubber (3 Marks) - Ogryn: A heavy, precision-support firearm for Ogryns, blending suppressive fire with marksman capabilities that will keep the darkness at bay.
Krourk Mk IIa Heavy Stubber
Gorgonum Mk IIIa Heavy Stubber
Achlys Mk II Heavy Stubber
Heavy Stubber - Unique Features: Primary Fire: Heavy, slow automatic fire for suppressive roles. Alt Fire: A more precise, single-shot mode for longer-range accuracy. Flashlight: Included to assist in low-light environments.
Anniversary Special Event: To celebrate the second anniversary of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, the game will host an event that will reward players with a unique weapon trinket. And more: Including the expansion of the Penance progression track with new challenges and rewards, as well as quality of life improvements such as an extension of the Party Finder feature and idle animations to Stances.
We look forward to sharing more about this update with players in the coming few weeks. We’re finishing up dev blogs on the new weapons, the new mission Dark Communion, and more. Stay tuned!
– The Darktide Team
Special Live Event - The Grandfather's Gifts
New In-Game Event: The Grandfather’s Gifts
The Lord of Decay has blessed his most beloved followers with hideous tentacles. So imbued are they with his foul pestilence that they explode when shot.
Dispatch them at close quarters to avoid this.
Complete missions featuring the blessed enemies to progress and collect rewards. This condition will only be available during the event and it will appear on both the Standard and Auric mission terminals. Look out for missions with the “Mutated Horrors” condition.
This event will start on Thursday, November 7, 2024. The rewards will be Ordo dockets, Plasteel and Diamantine. Those who complete the last tier of the event will receive a new Portrait Frame. (Dev Note:Be aware the frame might not show up immediately in players’ inventories after receiving the notification. Players may need to re-log, or at least leave and re-enter the Mourningstar.)
Introduction to Havoc Game Mode - Dev Blog
Hello Everyone,
We’ve long seen the comments from players saying they want more of a challenge from Darktide. Players would like to continually challenge themselves and improve their skills. You want to face the horrors of the tide.
We’re excited to announce the next major game feature we have been working on for Darktide: Havoc.
If you’re a player who relishes overcoming obstacles and seeks to measure and improve your abilities, then Havoc has been crafted specifically for you.
This dev blog is an introduction to Havoc and to answer initial questions. We’re still performing tests for it, and we’ll announce a release date as soon as we are confident! We will be following this dev blog up with another Q&A, similar to what we did with Itemization.
What is Havoc?
Commissar Dukane and the Moebian 53rd Steelheads have arrived on Atoma, keen to prove their mettle and quash this uprising. Havoc missions represent Dukane’s influence on the war for Tertium. She believes in firm, swift, decisive action, striking at the heart of the traitor forces and ensuring each mission takes the maximum toll on the enemy.
An uncompromising taskmaster, she demands the best from all her charges, rewarding those she deems worthy with yet more perilous missions, or as she might say, opportunities for greatness.
Let’s break this down further.
Havoc is a new tiered progression system we have been working on for Trust Level 30 players.* This system will consist of different levels, known as Order Levels. There will be 40 Order Levels in total for Havoc.
Each Order Level will incrementally increase in difficulty, with increasing negative modifiers and varying mutators. Players won’t only face increased hordes or enemies, they’ll also encounter 4 brand new mutators, including one the community has recently encountered: the Infected 21st Moebians.
** Only Trust Level 30 players will be able to access Havoc.
A player’s Havoc Rank is the highest level they’ve reached and successfully completed in Havoc.
A Havoc Order is the current mission a player is facing. Each Havoc Order is unique and personal to the player in terms of what mission and what mutators.
Key Features of Havoc
1. Tiered Challenges
There will be 40 Havoc Order levels for players to progress through for Havoc. With each level missions will become incrementally more difficult, allowing players to gauge their skill progression. To unlock Havoc, players must first complete an Auric or Non-Auric Maelstrom mission.
For each Order level, more negative modifiers are introduced. This increase is additive, meaning the previous modifiers will carry over to the next Havoc Order, plus any new ones on top of it. For example, if an Order level 1 reduces toughness regeneration, then Order level 2 will reduce toughness regeneration and another negative modifier on top of it. So on, and so forth until Order level 40 provides the most challenging content in the game.
A player will need to beat an Order level once in order to progress to the next Order level. A player will have 3 attempts to beat a Havoc Order level before being demoted down one Order level.
2. Personalised and Dynamic Havoc Orders
While the modifiers are pre-defined for each Havoc Order, the mission and mutators applied to each order level will be unique and randomized for each player. This means Order Level 1 for one player will not look the same as a level 1 Order for another player.
If a player fails to complete the Havoc Order after an attempt, the player can continue to attempt the same unique mission and mutator combination. However, the enemies and spawns will appear in different places throughout the mission, which brings a level of variety and unpredictability so no two runs are the same.
As mentioned above, players will have 3 attempts per Order Level before being demoted one level.
3. Fluid Ranking System
Havoc will update a player’s Order Rank on a weekly basis. If a player was unable to complete their Havoc Order before Havoc is updated for the week, they’ll remain at the same Havoc Order. But they’ll have a different mission and mutator combo to attempt.
If a player does not succeed in progressing forward in any Order Levels during the week, they will be decayed 1 Havoc Order the following week.
4. Cooperative Gameplay
Players are not alone in their journey. Havoc encourages inviting friends to help progress through the Havoc Ranks together. While using the Party Finder to form a team, players will choose which friends’ Havoc Order to challenge together. The only requirement is to be at least level 30. If players form a group, it doesn’t matter if one friend is Havoc Rank 1 and the others are Havoc Rank 20. They can all play together.
For example’s sake, let’s say we had a group of four players: Player A (Havoc Rank 20), Player B (Havoc Rank 19), Player C (Havoc Rank 19), Player D (Havoc Rank 1).
If those players formed a group and successfully beat Player A’s specific Havoc Order 21, at the end of the mission, all of the players will have a new Havoc Rank of 21. However, those players’ Havoc Order (aka the personal mission currently available to them in Havoc) will not change until the following week.
The following week, all players will be Havoc Rank 21 and they’ll have a Havoc Order level 22 to complete.
Players will always be promoted the following week based on their highest completed Havoc Order level the week prior. In this example, even though Player D started at Havoc Order 1, they are brought up to Havoc Rank 21 since this is the highest difficulty they completed the previous week .
5. Party Finder Integration
One of the reasons we wanted to introduce the Party Finder was specifically for Havoc. Because the difficulty is so high, it wouldn’t work to simply Quick Play into a Havoc mission. Because of the varying combinations of mutators and missions, and the increasing difficulty, players will want to prepare their talents and weapons based on the challenge they’re facing. Using Quick Play would not allow players to properly prepare for the challenge.
There will be a separate section in the Party Finder for players to create and join Havoc parties. You can create a party based on your own Havoc Order or join others. If friends are forming a party together, they’ll need to choose which player’s Havoc Order they’d like to attempt together.
Again, anyone can join any party regardless of their own Havoc Rank or the current level of their Havoc Order, so long as they’re Trust Level 30.
Missions, Mutators and Conditions
When Havoc is launched, it’ll have 8 missions in the mission pool. These were chosen based on a few criteria, like zone, mission type, win rate in upper difficulties, etc. Operations (like Rolling Steel) are not planned to be a part of this rotating mission pool at this time, due to them being different in nature to our other missions.
Havoc will introduce 4 bespoke mutators which players will only find in Havoc. Havoc Order levels will be able to have up to 2 mutators active at one time. The community has already encountered one of these during the latest event: the Infected 21st Moebians. We think you’ll enjoy the other ones we have planned. We’re going to keep them as a surprise for now and share them closer to release.
Conditions will also be a part of the mix for possible Order levels for players to tackle. However, not every Order level will include a condition. It’ll be more spread out, with a condition being present ~5 Order levels. This includes Lights Out, Ventilation Purge and Tox Gas. (Note: Ogryns soon will no longer be suffering from the dark.)
Future Content and Updates
In the future, we’ll rotate the missions that are available for Havoc. Also, any time a new mission is added in an update, it will enter the mission pool. (As mentioned above, Operations are not planned to be a part of this rotation.)
We also plan to add more mutators over time for Havoc. So let us know if you have any ideas that you’d like to see in the future.
Rewards for the Brave
You might be wondering, how will players be rewarded? Players will receive materials and Mastery XP. There will also be a cache based on your weekly progress within Havoc, where players can earn extra Plasteel and Diamantine.
Beyond materials, there will also be frames, titles and insignia to be earned throughout the Penance system. We’ll also be adding an all black Moebian 53rd cosmetic set, which will be earnable through playing. (Note: Players will not need to get to Order Rank 40 to earn this cosmetic set, don’t worry.)
Ready to Face the Tide?
Alright, that’s a wrap on the Introduction to Havoc. We’re working hard on testing and putting together the final touches for this upcoming game mode. Once we’re ready, we’ll be able to share a release date.
Similar to our Introduction to Itemization, we’ll be following this up with a Q&A dev blog to answer any player questions we see! Please stay tuned and join the conversation.
Thank you for your support.
– The Darktide Team
Hotfix #52 (1.5.10) - Patch Notes
Heya Everyone,
New In-Game Event: The Grandfather’s Gifts
The Lord of Decay has blessed his most beloved followers with hideous tentacles. So imbued are they with his foul pestilence that they explode when shot.
Dispatch them at close quarters to avoid this.
Complete missions featuring the blessed enemies to progress and collect rewards. This condition will only be available during the event and it will appear on both the Standard and Auric mission terminals. Look out for missions with the “Mutated Horrors” condition.
This event will start on Thursday, November 7, 2024. The rewards will be Ordo dockets, Plasteel and Diamantine. Those who complete the last tier of the event will receive a new Portrait Frame. (Dev Note:Be aware the frame might not show up immediately in players’ inventories after receiving the notification. Players may need to re-log, or at least leave and re-enter the Mourningstar.)
Bug Fixes and Tweaks
Fixed an issue where the Social menu could fail to correctly display the status of other players and also block invitations/join requests.
Fixed memory leak crashes which could happen when inspecting weapon stats.
Fixed issues where the max potential for weapon stats could change when empowering a weapon.
Dev Note:Weapon level calculation is now handled in a more reliable manner. Some weapons that had their total stats below 380 at max Empower level will now be at 1 level below max (490 instead of 500) - meaning players will need to go to Hadron’s and empower from 490 to 500.
Fixed an issue where FSR 3.1 Frame Gen would appear as disabled when playing excessive fullscreen effects, using lens distortion or showing certain GUI elements (e.g. the screen effect when a Stimms buff is active).
Fixed an issue where Nvidia DSR/DLDSR would not work in fullscreen display mode.
Fixed an issue where weapon penances were unlocked in the Mourningstar and claimed, but were not shown as completed.
Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes render only in a corner of the screen while in fullscreen display mode but on lower resolution than the monitor.
Fixed an issue where Windows chime sounds could play when using Alt+Tab to switch between fullscreen and windowed display modes.
Fixed an issue where the “activated” status of weapon Special actions could be canceled by getting stunned. Partial Fix. (We've received some reports that this fix does not apply properly to the Power Sword or Thunder Hammer. We're investigating this. Thank you!)
Fixed an issue where the description text for the Armourbane blessing would display incorrectly for Tiers 3 and 4.
Fixed an issue where some sound effects (e.g. reload sounds) would be played predominantly only on one side.
Known Issues
Fsr 3.1 Frame Generation Does Not Do Anything During Excessive Fullscreen Effects(Fixed in this Hotfix)
Incorrect Rounding of Weapon Stats(Fixed in this Hotfix)
Penances Shown As Not Completed(Fixed in this Hotfix)
Purging Flames Penance is Bugged
Misaligned Weapon Skins in the Penance Preview Squares
There are some weapon skin rewards in the penance previews that are misaligned or don’t fit in the square.
