Okay, so here’s the thing about Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. It kinda exploded recently, and I’m not talking about some grim sci-fi explosion in the game. No, I mean player numbers. It was this “Battle for Tertium” update that dropped on, um, June 23. Funny how these things always happen when you’re paying the least attention. Anyway — boom, player count jumped from 10K to 43K. Yeah, like that.
So Darktide, developed by Fatshark (weirdly named, right?), takes place in this Warhammer 40k world. You’re in this fight for Tertium, which is kinda a mess with all these enemies around. Initially, the game looked cool and all, but seriously, it had issues. Picture this: missing features, bugs — the works. But hey, they’ve been mending things with updates, adding missions and whatnot. The community seems to dig it now. Interesting how patches can turn things around, right?
Oh, and that image — yeah, I’ll get distracted if I try to describe it too much. Something about the armor feels… familiar, like deja vu with a twist. Anyway… back to the numbers! After the update, the player peak was 43,000. Before that? Around 5,000. Imagine that jump. It’s one of the biggest since the launch when it hit over 108,000. Quite the rollercoaster!
Here’s a funny bit: on March 25, they did another update — Mortis Trials, time-limited events, and all that jazz. But the boost was just meh compared to now. Only got up to about 12,000 players then. Now, the average is closer to 25,000 and slowly creeping down. Soooo, there’s this new class, the Arbites. Costs about $11.99 if you want to shell out for it.
The core experience got a shake-up too. Fatshark went and overhauled things, bringing a new campaign. It’s like they suddenly decided to get their act together and, well, they kinda did. People are into it, but whether this will keep the numbers solid is like asking if the sky will be green tomorrow. Impossible to say, right?
The game hit the shelves on November 30, 2022, rated M for all the usual violent reasons. Not that surprising, it’s Warhammer after all. Fatshark made and published it — same team on both fronts. They used this engine called bitsquid. No idea why, but that name sticks with me for some reason. Gave it a 7/10 if you’re into scores and stuff. Seems fitting, considering the rocky yet intriguing journey Darktide’s been on.
