If you're at all curious about the soon to release first person shooter co-op Warhammer 40K: Darktide, its developers have produced a 7 minute video which summarises it neatly.

The buzz around this game is overwhelmingly positive.

We're not into the Warhammer franchise but have watched beta gameplay to get a sense of its design and are impressed.

Do we wince at the thought of making peoples' heads explode? A psyker ability.

Yes.

But dead is dead, digitally or otherwise and perhaps there's admirable honesty in its brutal portrayal.

Psychic or magic systems in games vary widely but often the result is gimmicky rather than immersive.

This one utilises mechanics we've seen before - building up a negative effect (chaos) on ability use which you need to manage - but cleverly.

Other abilities consume chaos and you have one ability dedicated to simply expelling it.

And some innovation.

Exploding heads requires line of sight to lock onto a target, but you can and generally should take cover to finish executing it.

Since most opponents can be killed relatively quickly and easily with weapons, you're meant to use it primarily on tougher or more dangerous (eg. sniper) opponents.

Serving both an offensive and defensive function and requiring psyker's to strategically manage the battlefield.

There's no healing or support class in this game but its developers have injected that level of sophistication into psyker.

We'll give them a clap for that.

What little we've seen of co-op mission design is also simple but clever.

Eg. in one your team has to move heavy items between the ground floor of a room and a platform above.

Carrying those items slows you down immensely, you're surrounded by swarms of enemies, and can't defend yourself.

The stairs up to the next level aren't close by so it's a proper crawl to carry them.

Or team members can be clever, split up, and throw them up.

Warhammer 40K: Darktide launches on PC and Xbox X|S on November 30.

[ Main Image: Warhammer 40K Darktide. Credit: Fatshark via YouTube. ]

References

Fatshark (November 23, 2022). Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - This is Darktide | Overview Trailer. YouTube.