Warhammer:Darktide is a co-op shooter heavily influenced by Left 4 Dead, albeit with several differences, such as playable classes, loot mechanics, and an unlockable skill tree. Oh yeah, and instead of zombies, you're killing heretics and mutants, enemies of the Imperium or some such. Honestly, I know next to nothing about the Warhammer license, but it seems cool. The techno-gothic empire you serve has a sweet taste in architecture, favoring immense cathedrals and cobbled together apocalyptic shanty-towns brimming with orange skies, their labyrinthine corridors filled with spikes, skulls, and other heavy-metal shit. Darktide is a nice-looking game, featuring a level of detail uncommon in multiplayer-focused titles, and the contents of my screenshot folder increase every time I play. The ray-traced illumination of its industrial factories and sewers comes with a heavy cost, however. With all the graphical options set to High or Extreme, and ray-tracing set to low, I get a frame rate that fluctuates between 100 and 60, with a few drops below, with DLSS upscaling set to Balanced. Bump the ray-tracing up to High, and the framerate drops into the 40s and 30s. Just keep in mind that this is a game that can't be maxed out unless you possess an RTX 4090.
Gameplay consists of working with your four-man team to slaughter hundreds of zombies (heretics, I mean) while traversing the map, working toward the completion of some objective (replace the powercells on a giant chemical dispersion unit, for example), after which you'll beat it like hell to the extraction zone. There are missions that further the story, but I'm not far enough to write about that. My Sharpshooter, a ranged lasergun expert, is at level ten, so I'm still grinding the lower level pickup missions until my gear is good enough for the harder levels. There's something immensely satisfying about slaying hordes of enemies, and although you're limited to two weapons (melee and ranged), the sight of a mutant's head exploding in a shower of giblets is just what I need after a hard day's work to relax. Also, the soundtrack is great, reminding me of Vangelis's Blade Runner score run through an industrial filter.
I would recommend Darktide to any fans of Left 4 Dead or anyone who likes co-op shooters. People with low-end pcs might want to stay away, however, since it's a beefy title. Screenshots below.
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