I’ve always found Fatshark’s development methods fascinating. The studio releases a decent core gameplay loop, but buying a Fatshark game at release is more about investing in what the game could become a few years down the line, rather than what it is right now.
After all, the studio still actively releases content updates for Vermintide 2, a game that still maintains an active player base over seven years after release. Fatshark even releaseda whole new player-versus-player modelast year.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktideis no different: a game that was relatively bare at release, but is being slowly fleshed out as the years tick by. The recently released Battle for Tertium is the biggest update Darktide has received to date, and includes the addition of a brand-new class in the Adeptus Arbites.
Heresy Never Sleeps
There are hordes of ‘latent’ players who play these games; people who don’t play regularly but will return whenever there’s a content update. This is evident in the concurrent player numbers, which have seen a tripling since the release of Battle for Tertium.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide was peaking at approximately 10,000 concurrent players before the update,which has now jumped to 40,000, though the number is already beginning to wane as the days roll on.
The update includes the aforementioned Adeptus Arbites class, but also a complete reworking of the new player experience. At release, players generally played missions in a random order, and the bare narrative elements were based on player level.
Now, new players play missions in a set order, setting out a coherent narrative that paves the way for the arrival of the Adeptus Arbites, synergising nicely with the introduction of the new class. This is a lot like how Vermintide 2 currently works, so Fatshark is pulling from its old playbook.
The difficulty system has also been overhauled. You’ll need to fill a bar by completing missions at your current highest difficulty to unlock the next difficulty. This ensures a sense of progression, but also prevents worse teammates from joining better lobbies, which can make difficult missions harder for everyone.
