Recent reviews by Duncan Imperium

As a big fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, witnessing the inner workings of a hive city such as Tertium, the characters are very believable and the environments are just what I imagine based on lore. On the line of worldbuilding, A+ from me, but I need to go into further detail about the entire game and my opinions on it, as well as some noticable bugs.

Audio is great all around, almost every single track of music is perfectly set for what it's used for, the weapon sounds are all satisfying, from the melee, the guns (especially the Bolter), and the sounds of what this world would emit. All of the voice actors, from operatives, to fellow inquisitors, even to the enemies you kill, are all perfectly executed.

Visuals, almost perfect in every way. All of the environments from the Mourningstar, to every mission you descend down into on the planet, are spectacular. Each weapon and their respective animations are as good as they can get, enemy designs are unique from other WH40k games partially due to the semirealistic approach, and are amazing from it. My only real gripe is the movement on the enemies, they seemingly move in static static speeds and turn in an instant, rather than believingly easing, and this is especially noticable with the Plague Hounds. Classes such as the Sniper, Bomber, Gunner, Reaper and Trapper seem to instantly stop and face the enemy in the blink of an eye when they begin to perform their primary attack, which is an immersive turn-off sadly. But other than the enemy animation issues, everything else is great, Tertium is surprisingly comfy looking, despite the horrors in-universe.

Gameplay, for what it is, is alright for me. It can be a fun game where you just turn your brain off and start blasting, smashing, or slashing, while at the same some appreciating the feel of all your weapons. That said, threat levels beyond 4 are a massive difficulty spike and most (at least for me and my skill issues) are only enjoyable or even doable when the mission is labeled as a low intensity engagement zone. I'm still working on mastering all classes at the moment, so I'll need time to keep evaluating this, but my primary complaint is how little reward there is for missions, other than the pretty sights of course.

Temporary Bugs, at least from what I've seen, aren't too big of a deal. Most of them are only an issue when first booting up the game, and they iron themselves out after doing a mission... but that said; they are the following:
- It takes a minute or two to get past "Inquisitorial Clearance", and even longer when you confirm an operative to play as. This issue is seemingly resolved if you reboot the game or switch operatives, until you shut down or restart your device.
- Sound, primarily music, cuts out in brief moments the first time you select an operative, enter the Mourningstar, and descend into a mission, but this only happens once per each instance, entering those same menus/areas again doesn't continue music cut-off.
- When first appearing on the Mourningstar for the first boot-up of the day, your operative will only render certain parts of itself, usually just the head, hands, and boots, but this fixes itself after a minute or two, when customizing your operative, or when entering a menu (aside from the main menu)
- Sometimes, the UI indicators on certain objects (vendors, boxes, the mission terminal) are offset by a noticable amount, but this is only visual and can be fixed with a restart of the game.

Consistent Bugs, however...
- Explosions cause a 1-2 frame freeze, disrupting smoothness, regardless of graphical quality.
- Sometimes, items such as Grimoires or Scriptures can't be grabbed because they clip into level geometry, even if they're fully visible.

But my overall conclusion on Darktide, as a whole, is that I find it to be a very great game.
especially if you both like to immerse yourself and think about the Warhammer 40,000 universe at large, whilst also slaying Nurgle's underlings and listening to bangers. It has bugs to fix, and they can be a problem, there is no denying that. It has missing features that were not available at launch, which is also an issue. However, I am confident these issues will be addressed in due time, whether they be soon or much later. For what the game is as it currently stands, I am content and will continue to enjoy what it currently provides, and look forward to future content.

Overall a very fun experience, good story and interesting character design across the board.

This game is so good, I bought it twice, purchased the edition book, and purchased the full soundtrack.

Controls very well on foot, takes a little bit to realize what you need to do, but you're quick to learn. Space combat could use some work. No performance issues on my part, only dropping FPS when using warpdrive, which is understandable.

Now ask yourself, how many of the reviews are from people who have spent a good amount of time on it?

Besides minor clipping issues, the game is very visually appealing. I would have to say this feels like a fasion of Minecraft and Dark Souls, but I've only played one of the two. The game still needs some slight patches and nerfs, but it feels complete overall. I would suggest mod support upon full release.

Best possible game for creative and realistic building in space.