The gaming world recently experienced a disastrous new release; Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. A failed release for which its publisher, Fatshark, takes responsibility.
By bringing the potential of the dystopian universe of Warhammer 40,000 into a nearly triple-A game for the first time, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide had managed to generate enormous interest from a community of dedicated fans. Between impressive graphics, enjoyable gameplay and a rewarding gameplay loop, the promises of this recent release were numerous, so numerous that one could legitimately doubt the ability of its modest Swedish creator to keep them. A few months of postponement and a release later, the one that was to be a PC and Xbox exclusive remains at a standstill, having still not appeared on the Microsoft console.
It was therefore the PC players who were able to notice the pot-aux-roses from the first weeks of beta which preceded the release of the game: catastrophic optimization, crashes of all kinds, absence of a real progression and reward system, lack of crafting, lack of crossplay between Steam and the Game Pass, limited content… All covered with a sticky layer of paid cosmetics constituting the only possible touch of personalization for your characters. The game’s tests have spoken (including ours, which you can read below), Darktide is a technically unsuccessful release, although Fatshark proves its talent at times in gameplay and environments inhabited by a certain form of brilliance.
Sixty days, an astronomical amount of negative reviews later, Fatshark has finally come out of the silence in an open letter written by its CEO and founder Martin Wahlund to its gaming community, community until then outraged by the studio’s pronounced indifference. He takes his responsibilities there, fully assuming the failure of his product and taking into account the immense disappointment of all fans of Vermintide games and the Warhammer universe. You can read in particular:
“We take great pride in our ability to provide a game that millions of players can enjoy. That’s what we wanted to do with Warhammer 40,000: Darktide – create a highly engaging and stable game with a level of depth that could have kept you playing for weeks, not just hours. We failed there. Over the next few months, our only goal is to respond to the suggestions of many of you. Especially in creating a comprehensive crafting system, a more rewarding gameplay loop, and working on performance and game optimization.”
But the good news is often fleeting, since the studio later claims to have decided to to delay the launch of seasonal game content, as well as its release on Xbox Series X|S. To end on a positive note, Fatshark confirms to immediately remove the sale of cosmetics from its game, saying that the current state of the game does not allow the studio to legitimately continue on this path of monetization. A piece of advice that our editorial staff had given him a few weeks ago in our test of the game.