Darktide gets two free updates – co-op shooter improves its Steam ratings by 20%

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On November 30, 2023, the co-op shooter Warhammer 40,000: Darktide celebrates its 1st birthday. After a somewhat mixed start, the Fatshark developers changed their strategy. This seems to be paying off, as the current ratings on Steam show.

What is the situation at Darktide? The successor to the successful Vermintide series reached more than 100,000 players when it was released in 2022. But the enthusiasm didn’t last long. Players were disappointed by the lack of depth, performance and balancing issues led to dwindling player numbers and ratings.

Overall, Darktide has “balanced” reviews: On Steam, around 61% of players recommend the dark co-op shooter. In response, the developers announced that they would shelve paid content and first take care of getting the game in order.

The strategy seems to be working, as player numbers and ratings are currently recovering. There will now be two free updates for the birthday.

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Developers impress with class rework, announce free update

What is the situation currently? At the beginning of October 2023, the announced “Class Overhaul” was released, which gave the co-op shooter real RPG skill trees. As figures from the analysis site SteamDB show, Darktide achieved player numbers last seen in December 2022.

The peak for the last 24 hours is almost 20,000 simultaneous players – almost five times the numbers before the update.

The work of the developers is also reflected in the reviews: for the last 30 days, they are “very positive” at 86%. However, a look at the reviews shows that players are still quite conflicted:

  • The Box Ghost™ (not recommended): “I’m VERY close to recommending the game, but not quite yet. The game is significantly better with the class reworks, so I would almost-but-not-quite recommend it, but there are two big things it needs to improve: [Das Crafting-System überarbeiten sowie neue Maps hinzufügen und mehr Deckung zu vorhandenen Maps hinzufügen.]“
  • Zarmanos (not recommended): “Hi, this is my 100 hour review. Good: The Devs. Bad: The managers. […]“
  • Mr.Exterminatus (recommended): “Okay, it’s better now. Don’t pre-order games.”
  • DeviousSquirrel (recommended): “It’s worth buying the game now.”
  • Warnstaff (not recommended): “I previously recommended this game, but the continued broken promise to add solo play ‘shortly after launch’ and the lack of accessible mod/exploit options for my Steam Deck […] led to the game’s premature demise for me.”

    • So it seems as if Darktide is on the right track, but the dissatisfaction and distrust of the players is deep and cannot be eliminated so easily.

    What’s next? A two-part birthday update is now to follow with “The Traitor Curse”. The first part is scheduled to start in November, the second part will follow in December. The developers promise the following content for the first part:

  • A new cinematic is intended to show the motivations of the Moebian 6th.
  • The “Carnival” is supposed to be a “disreputable zone” that attracts people with cross-border distractions and entertainment.
  • With the new zone there is also a new mission.
  • There will also be a new “Investigate” feature and an update for the veteran skill tree.

    • Now it remains to be seen whether Fatshark can achieve a miracle similar to that of CD Projekt with Cyberpunk 2077:

    Players start a direct comparison in Cyberpunk 2077 before and after 2.0, showing what they want

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