hive is, even if the odds are one in
trillions, it’s already happened. And
that’s just such a fun concept to play
with. It gives us a lot of room to just
keep growing and doing interesting
stuff for a long time.”
One mission could see your squad
navigating the hive’s disgusting
sewage system in the dark, while
your next misadventure could take
you to a well-lit habitation zone
that might even contain NPCs
who have yet to be killed or
transformed by Nurgle’s minions.
You probably won’t be making
your way through throngs of people,
but there will be reminders that
you’re fighting in a place that was
once teeming with life.
Revisiting an area that once
housed some NPCs and seeing it
taken over by enemies or emptied
by a deadly gas leak is also bound to
have more of an impact, reinforcing
the stakes and making it clear thatdevastating weaponry means you
can annihilate more enemies, and
Fatshark can throw even more at
you – but not all of the time.IN THE DARK
Making sure players aren’t entirely
sure what’s lurking around the
corner has been key to keeping
people around in Vermintide, and
Brigas says that Fatshark’s taken a
look at all of its systems to see how it
can throw more surprises at players,
rework maps and refine Darktide’s
ability to keep dragging everyone
back to the hive. The city itself gives
the team even more freedom to
experiment. These arcologies are
designed to house billions of people,
and while a hive world might contain
thousands of them, each is still a
self-contained city that functions
like a world within a world.
“The scale is huge,” says Brigas.
“For me, what’s really fun about aMEET THE NEIGHBOURS
Who you’ll be sharing the hive with
POXWALKERS
Poxwalkers are the cannon
fodder of Nurgle’s cursed
armies – shambling,
plague-ridden husks that serve
as the living weapons of the
traitor guard. They attack with
teeth and claws and whatever
simple weapons they can find,
and they keep mutating even
following death.
Like regular zombies,
poxwalkers gather in hordes
and can quickly swarm you.TRAITOR GUARD
The traitor guard are former
members of the Astra
Militarum who have pledged
themselves to Chaos. This
regiment is the Moebian Sixth,
deployed to help out the
Moebian government, but are
now attempting to seize power.
These treacherous
guardsmen fight with anything
from simple melee weapons
and chain axes to lasguns and
combat shotguns.“CO-OP IS SOMETHING
THAT WE’VE FOCUSED
ON EVEN MORE THIS
TIME AROUND”
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
COVER FEATURE
Try not to interrupt the
poxwalkers when they’re
shuffling around.