Darktide's next update promises a complete overhaul of weapon progression: 'We took the philosophy with this game to not be afraid of doing quite massive changes'
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide may have had a rocky launch back in 2022, but you certainly can't fault developer Fatshark's dedication to improving its grimdark creation in the time since. While we have had new missions, enemies, and weapons, the biggest focus in the game's updates thus far has been improving the core experience and basic systems, from performance fixes to crafting changes to a complete overhaul of class progression.
And apparently that work is still ongoing. Following a major content drop with the Secrets of the Machine God update at the end of last month, Fatshark has revealed its next major project: a complete rethink of the itemisation system, to make investing in your weapons more satisfying.
«We took the philosophy with this game to not be afraid of doing quite massive changes,» says Victor Magnuson, Darktide's head of game design. «The start of that was the class overhaul. We felt at the launch that we weren't really happy with how we ended up with our classes. So we decided to rebuild it… and now we're doing the same sort of idea with itemisation.»
The current system is very focused on getting the right drops. Acquired weapons have their own max stats and randomly determined blessings (special abilities) and perks (bonuses), and can only be modified to a limited degree. A particular bone of contention among the community has been «locks». Blessings and Perks can be re-rolled, but only twice total—after that, whatever you've got is locked and can't be changed. If it's locked with the suboptimal qualities still on it, it can feel like a waste of the invested resources.
The new system will scrap locks entirely, and introduce mechanics called Mastery and Expertise (names not necessarily final). As you use a weapon, you'll gain Mastery XP for all weapons of that type (including all the different marks), which will unlock blessings, perks, and cosmetics for them. Meanwhile, the Expertise menu is where you'll be able to improve an individual weapon's
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