While Space Marine 2 continues to rip and tear its way through the Steam charts, my personal pick of the best Warhammer 40k games is readying for a major update. Warhammer 40k Darktide takes the frantic Left 4 Dead style four-player action that developer Fatshark honed in Vermintide 2 and inserts it into the muck-slicked, grimdark 40k setting. It’s an absolute blast to play, but it really shines when you’re with a squad – so the upcoming Darktide Unlocked and Loaded update makes finding the perfect team easier.
It’s tough to build for one play style without impacting others, and so the best co-op games often tend to feel a little awkward if you try and jump in solo. Computer-controlled companions can help, but it’s just not the same as having a squad of real people at your back. “First and foremost, Darktide is a co-op game,” Fatshark agrees in its new blog, “it’s meant to be played with others. But right now, players are a bit limited in forming a team.”
“We’ve noticed players using third-party places to find parties, such as Discord, Reddit, and the Fatshark forums,” the developer continues. That’s only increased since the Path of Redemption update, it explains, as players look to group up and work on earning Darktide penances and tackling harder content. The update’s new ‘Rolling Steel’ mission, for example, throws you into a high-stakes race against time to stop a moving train – it’d certainly be good to have a coordinated team for the job.
“Our goal was to provide a place for players to find other like-minded players within the game for whatever content they wanted – maybe it’s hardcore grinding, [or] casually trying Auric (without worrying about being flamed). Further, we wanted to improve the overall social aspect of Darktide in general.”
The new party finder feature will launch alongside the Unlocked and Loaded update, and will begin by offering four criteria to choose from. You’ll be able to set your game mode between Adventure, Maelstrom, and Special Assignments, and name the difficulty level you’re looking to play at. You can also set a preferred language, along with a range of tags indicating if you’re looking for quickplay, prefer a more casual or hardcore approach, want to power level, grind, or work on contracts or penances.
It’s a very welcome addition, and one that Fatshark plans to continue developing. “When we were planning this feature, we came up with a lot more tags and ways to form a party,” it notes. “We could have added 200-plus tags, but we didn’t want to add clutter that players might not engage with in the first place.” As such, Fatshark asks players to test out the tool and let the team know what extra features or tags you’d like to see. “We saw someone ask if you can do an Ogryn-only team – this is something we could implement on the tag side.”
Darktide continues to update and evolve over time, and this is certainly a particularly welcome feature. As someone who’s long benefited from the ability to search for like-minded players in other games like FF14, I can already see this being a huge benefit to the Darktide community. The Unlocked and Loaded update arrives on Thursday September 26.
Be sure to grab one of the best Darktide weapons when you jump back in for the new update. If you’ve got a burning desire to stomp Chaos under your boot that a single game can’t quench, the best Warhammer 40k games are the place to be.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.