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The short and sweet review:
Darktide, much like its predecessors in the Warhammer fantasy era, serves as a unique twist on L4D style gameplay with RPG elements. Recent updates have improved it a lot, including the new Havoc endgame mode! Worth picking up if coop-based FPS games with RPG elements are your cup of tea.
Solid 8.5/10 for me

The long version:
Please skip this part of your ADHD doesn't let you focus on waterfalls of text like these. This review is very thorough and gives a chunkier base of information to start with before you play the game.

Darktide has had its ups and downs over the years, and the game as it is today is a far more advanced version of what it was on launch.
Rather than playing a premade character with their own personality a la Vermintide, you make your own 'reject'. They're called that because they're rescued from a besieged prison ship and are given a slim chance to fight for a new place in the Imperium for helping an Explicator escape from the Chaos forces alive. (This is the tutorial mission, so no spoilies) To note, the rejects have their own personality as well, but some of the identity is mixed due to the 'create your own character' nature of the game.
The gameplay loop includes dodging, blocking, and dashing to add to the mobility factor and reward skill and timing. Also, stick together, because you're stronger and tankier when you're within allied Coherency!

There's five difficulties: Sedition, Uprising, Malice, Heresy, and Damnation. There's also mutator versions of each map that add more enemy types and hazards, and there's Maelstrom/Auric Maelstrom missions for people who want a bigger challenge.

The game features four classes:
1) The Veteran, a primarily ranged-focused class specializing in unique and varied ranged weapons at the cost of a more limited pool of melee weapons. Keep in mind, they have a lot of amazing options for both slots, so don't hesitate to try them even if you like melee! They have three distinct styles: Commander, Saboteur, and Gunner. Commander is support-based and makes enemies you mark take more damage, Saboteur uses smoke bombs to confuse enemies and stealths in for empowered attacks, and Gunner highlights enemies and kills elites like it's nothing.

2) The Zealot is a melee fanatic who serves the Emperor of Mankind in everything they do. They tend to focus on melee combat, an inverse of the Veteran in the way that they have limited ranged options but a plethora of unique melee armaments. Same thing as before, three styles: Stealth zealot that focuses on assassinating big targets, Scripture-reading zealots that stun enemies and empower allies, and charging zealots who specialize in heavy hits and crowd clearing.

3) The Ogryn, a big fella with even bigger weapons. They tend to be a bit more niche as their larger frame to block allied shots, so be ready to play them accordingly. Again, three styles: Brute, focusing on charging and knocking enemies around with heavy hits. Then there's the gunner, who makes their ranged weapon stronger, reload on skill activation and fire faster. And finally, there's the tank - they taunt enemies and take severely reduced damage when played correctly.

4) The Psyker, warp-specialists and likely the hardest the learn but the most satisfying to master. They wield warp staves and warp powers of their own in lieu of a grenade slot, but they have some solid guns and melee weapons as well. As before, there's three types: Support psyker focuses on crowd control and shielding allies, Blade psyker shoots telekinetic blades and empowers their psionics, and Blaze psykers who knock enemies back, set them on fire and clear their 'peril', a mechanic that simulates the warp invading a psyker's mind. TL;DR: These are the casters.

Now, keep in mind, all of the above can be customized using the in-game talent trees, so you can mix and match buffs, abilities and passives to suit your playstyle! All classes level to 30, so you have plenty of points to tinker with. The above are just a basic idea of some builds.

Once you've picked your class, you take on numerous missions: taking back a metal 'fab' (weapons/armor forges), investigating a zone of chaos corruption, assassinating high priority targets, and more. The mission names can be a bit confusing at first as everything is in 40k Imperium code, but you get the idea rather quickly.

The enemies forces are comprised of three types:
1) Poxwalkers: Little zombie fellas, easy to kill but numerous
2) Grunts: Tankier than poxwalkers, a bit less numerous but a little bit harder to kill. Some have melee weapons, others have guns!
3) Specials: These range from empowered versions of grunts to mobs that CC and enemies that are super tanky.

Now for the usual:

The Good
Gameplay is solid, gunplay even more so, melee weapons feel amazing, and some of the zones you go to are beautiful and truly awe-inspiring to look at. Each class feels unique and strong in its own way, and some weapons truly shine in combat. The gameplay loop can be addicting, especially with the Havoc mode they added (tl;dr: each Havoc mission you complete makes the next Havoc mission harder, but you get greater rewards at higher Havoc clearances). Music is incredible (Thank you, Jesper Kyd), and the sound design (enemy sounds, weapon noises, etc) is equally incredible!

The Bad
This section would have been beefier a year ago, but thankfully updates have improved the game dramatically. That said, it still has its problems. Namely, some weapons, or even just a version of a weapon, feel underwhelming. Please don't ask me to cite examples because, like the maps, the weapons have 'Mark/Mk' based names and titles in Imperium-jargon. Thankfully you can change the marks at any time if you have enough mastery with the weapon, so most of those issues were solved. Also, some bosses are a real slog if you don't have any classes that truly excel at boss killing. It's rare that that happens, but sometimes you have four people who are great at multi-target clearing but are terrible at single-target. Also, to hell with barrels. They knock players back 8000000000 miles to their off-the-map death but only politely nudge enemies. At the very least, I hope they make barrels just as devastating for enemies one day.

The Uhhh..gly?
Sometimes the netcode in the game can be a lil bit silly. Like when you have a Crusher swinging a big overhead strike at you, you dodge, and two seconds later you take the damage from the swing you successfully avoided. It's rare, but it's annoying when it happens, especially when there's Penances (Achievements) for not going down in a mission. Additionally, when queueing with randoms, sometimes you hit the jackpot and end up with a solid team, and other times you end up with a psyker who never casts, or a zealot who doesn't know what blocking is. It's a mixed bag out there, and some folks are fated to stay 'rejects' for the rest of their days.


Overall, the 'bad' and 'ugly' sections are very small problems in a game that I find really enjoyable to play. I'm sure some folks will mark this review with a clown medal because of how popular it is to hate positivity these days, but I wanted to give it a review all the same to help gives a thorough (if lengthy) look into the game they're thinking of purchasing it. Better with friends, still fun if you're a lone wolf.

Ratings:
Game Feel: 9/10
Audio/Music: 10/10
Visuals: 8/10
Mechanics: 8/10

Overall, as mentioned before, an 8.5/10. Worth buying if you're interested, wait for a sale if you're hesitant.