Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has today received a huge free update alongside the Skitarii class DLC.

While fans will be most excited about the arrival of the $11.99 Adeputus Mechanicus unit to the first-person action game, the free update makes a number of important changes to go alongside it. The headline here is the addition of new enemies, the Scab and Dreg Vanguards. These are human melee bruisers who use breakable shields. The Scab variant has a harder more durable shield that will last longer, but comes in more scarce numbers, while their Dreg are more numerous but only equipped with scrappy handmade shields that are more prone to breaking.

There's also a new event, starting today, in which players can join missions with the ‘Relics in Ruins’ modifier to recover relics from the cultists. Once back in the Mourning Star, visit Sire Melk to deliver your recovered relics, and choose which faction to give them to (each gives the player a different buff). Rewards include Ordo Dockets, Plasteel, Diamantine, and a brand new Portrait Frame.

As for balance changes, with the release of the Vanguards, developer Fatshark has ‍reduced the amount of Bulwarks throughout the missions. Patch notes, courtesy of the Darktide website, are below.

While Darktide got off to a rough start when it came out on PC in 2022, it is now in great shape, and continues to receive meaningful updates. The thing to note about Darktide is it does not let you play as a Space Marine, Warhammer 40,000’s famous genetically enhanced super soldiers. Instead, you pick a class lifted from other factions within the setting. The aforementioned Skitarii, for example, is from the Adeptus Mechanicus (tech priest) faction. You can even play as an Ogryn, an enormous abhuman from the Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) faction.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide update 1.12.0 patch notes:

Enemies

New Enemies - Scab & Dreg Vanguards

A new threat approaches…

• Human melee bruisers equipped with breakable shields, these new enemies will bolster the enemy hordes and make them tougher to crack!
• The Scab variant is equipped with a harder more durable shield that will last longer, but comes in more scarce numbers, while their Dreg equivalents are more numerous but only equipped with scrappy handmade shields that are more prone to breaking
• Even without the shield, these vanguards are stronger than their non-shielded counterparts.

Balance changes

As part of our ongoing balance commitment continuing on from the previous reduction to Ogryn enemies (and at the time, specifically the Crusher), with the release of the Vanguards we’ve reduced the amounts of Bulwarks throughout the missions.

Packmaster

The Packmasters have moved beyond the wastes of Atoma to reinforce their brethren in Tertium

• Packmasters will now appear outside of Expeditions, across the other gamemodes starting from Heresy level difficulty and up.
• Improved mobility: the Packmasters will now have an easier time keeping up with a retreating player
• The amount of Pox Hounds spawned with the Packmaster has been changed to be based on the difficulty, with an increase of the armoured version at higher difficulty levels.

Plasma Gun Mk III

A brand new Mark has been added to the Plasma Gun, the Mk III! Available to the Veteran class and the (releasing today!) Skitarii class, this Plasma Gun variant has less focus on piercing through enemies in favor of devastating explosive power. Give it a try!

Expeditions Update

This update also sees an injection of new content into the Expeditions game mode, as well as various quality of life changes and reworks of certain systems!

• New time of day: Dawn
• New Expeditions level content, including:
  • New Scavenge Zone
  • New Sites of Interest, with electric hazards!
  • New Deadsider Sanctuary.
• Reworked how Tech-Remnants are shared.
  • Players no longer have a personal Tech-Remnant pool. Instead, Tech-Remnants picked up by a member of the strike team are added to the team’s shared pool.
  • Whenever a player dies (does not apply to bots), the team’s pool is reduced by 25%.
    • This only happens if the team has more than 100 Tech-Remnants.
    • 50% of this value is dropped at the spot where the player died.
    • The team can retrieve the remaining 50% of the deducted value if they rescue the player that died.
  • If a hog-tied player is teleported to a Deadsider Sanctuary, the Tech-Remnants attached to them are lost.
  • For each alive player missing from the Valkyrie at the moment of extraction, 25% of the pool is reduced in the End of Round screen.
• Improvements to the Auspex:
  • Sites of Interest, Scavenge Zone exits, and extraction points can now be marked on the Auspex by up to four players.
  • Data Reliquaries show up on the Auspex once they’ve been picked up for the first time.
  • Hog-tied players are displayed on the Auspex.
  • Pressing the equip button for the Auspex while already equipped will now switch back to the previously equipped weapon or item.
  • The Auspex map does not start in focused mode if the player is moving while equipping it. You can unfocus the map by sprint or dodging.
• Added more respawn points to all Scavenge Zones.
• Improved Ordo Docket and Experience rewards for failed runs.

Features & Tweaks

General Changes

• The Title awarded for completing the Prologue can now be equipped by all Classes.
  • The displayed title will change according to the Class it's equipped on:
    • The original classes keep "Reject"
    • Arbitrator displays "Deputy"
    • Hive Scum replaces the current "Reject" with "Juve"
    • Skitarius displays "Tech-Warrior""
• Poxbursters:
  • Changed targeting behaviour to make them more predictable. They should no longer be able to change targets while in their lunge state.
  • They should now always enter their explode state after being staggered by a Push from a Melee Weapon, even if they weren't in their lunging state.
  • Poxburster explosions triggered by navigation issues (e.g. failing to climb over terrain), or other non-player related events, should no longer cause damage; they will still knock players away if caught in them however.
  • Poxbursters will only initiate their lunge when facing the player, to prevent poxbursters jumping around corners
• Instances of "Cyber-Mastiff" terminology in the Operative view have been changed to use the term "Companion".
• Ogryn Borovian Mk III Delver's Pickaxe
  • Sprint will now be allowed during the windups for the Light 3 and Heavy 2 attacks.
• Blaze Force Greatsword
  • The weapon Special 'Warpshock Slash' projectile can now trigger the 'Blazing Spirit' weapon Blessing.
• Reframed the camera used to preview Accessory cosmetics to better show the top of them.
• Slightly reframed the camera used to preview Head cosmetics to better show taller headgear (especially belonging to Arbitrators).
• Updated the posing and framing of cosmetic icons and player portraits to center and straighten the head of the character.
• Updated the camera framing and positioning and added support for Zooming when inspecting Companion cosmetics.
• Smoke Grenades - Veteran Blitz
  • Updated the visual effects of the smoke cloud to be less obscuring and to more clearly show the affected area.
• Updated item notifications to present item type in addition to rarity, and to align the visuals with item names and rarities presentation in the inventory.
• Ogryn - Point-Blank Barrage Max Cooldown 80s -> 60s

Weapon Blessing Changes

• Ogryn Ripperguns
  • Changed the calculation for "on continuous fire" Blessings to give a stack for each 8% of Magazine spent instead of 10%.
  • Affects the following Blessings:
    • Blaze Away
    • Inspiring Barrage
    • Cavalcade
  • Dev Note
    • This is to avoid these Blessings counterintuitively having a stronger effect on lower Ammo stat values, due to the scaling of the magazine size.
• Bloodletter Blessing
  • Changed behavior so that Bleed stacks will be now applied on each damage instance of Special active attacks, instead of only the initial hit.
  • Affects the following weapon families:
    • Heavy Eviscerators
    • Assault Chainswords
    • Assault Chainaxes
  • Dev Note
    • The Heavy Eviscerator version of this Blessing has a lower Bleed stacks value due to the Cleave properties of its Special active attacks, allowing it to spread Bleed on multiple enemies. This however caused the Blessing to be less effective in delivering its bonus when actually ripping into an enemy. Note that the total Bleed stacks are still capped
• Tenderiser Blessing
  • Updated the bonus from general Strength to Melee Strength, and changed the value scaling from +10/15/20/25% to +15/20/25/30%
  • Affects the following weapon family
    • Ogryn Cleavers

Quality of Life changes

• Added two new controller button layouts (Alternative 6 and Alternative 7), with access to the Special input on bumper/shoulder buttons.
• Added a new feature to Zoom Out when inspecting your Weapon while on a mission. This lets you view your character in Third Person."
• Added the info for past Live Events to the events tab in Sire Melk menu.
• The party invitation notification now requires the player to hold the button and confirm the party request to be able to accept an invitation during a mission.
• Changing keybindings now notifies the player if the new binding key is already in use, and asks for confirmation before setting the binding.
• Commodore's Vestures now uses a category and sub-category selection to better handle navigation and different store pages.
• Updated all items acquired externally to show their source, similar to items from Penances, Class DLCs, Commissary, and Commodore's Vestures.
• Updated the character selection screen to correctly show the actual selected height for each character.

Fixes

General Fixes

• Expeditions:
  • Dead players will no longer respawn until the Deadsider Sanctuary is reached if the exit event has been started or if the timer has run out
  • Blocked off out of bounds areas in some Scavenge Zones
  • Players and enemies now drop loot on their last ground position if possible, to avoid it getting lost in pits, being stuck in air, etc.
  • Data Reliquaries dropped on the ground in the Valkyrie during extraction now correctly count for the penance gain
  • Fixed an issue that caused Medicae stations in Expeditions to display as empty even though they had full charges
  • Fixed an issue that caused Medicae stations to consume Scrap from the wrong player
  • Fixed an issue where more than four players could be displayed inside the Valkyrie in mission intro loadings
  • Fixed an issue in which lightning strikes could damage players during the extraction cinematic.
• Dark Communion - Fixed an issue where sound would not propagate correctly through the archway leading to the end event cathedral area.
• Clandestium Gloriana - Fixed an issue where enemies could appear covered in snow/frost effects also in the initial Void areas.
• Tenderiser Blessing - Fixed an issue where the HUD icon for the Blessing would not appear in server-hosted environments, and added a counter to the icon displaying the remaining empowered attacks.
• Tweaked handling of Loadout presets under specific cases to avoid having a preset deselected due to mismatch when opening the inventory.
• Fixed an issue that could display an incorrect last wave in Mortis Trials if a player joined mid-match.
• Fixed an issue where the Personality Scourge would return an error by wrongly detecting no changes when modifying an Arbitrator character.
• Fixed an issue in the Expedition Map Selection screen where the Play Button sometimes would show as being disabled when selecting an unlocked node while Private Game is enabled.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Enemies Within, Enemies Without’ Zealot talent would fail to display the correct number of stacks.
• Fixed an issue where the 'Power Up' Psyker Penance would not count kills from 'Kinetic Flayer'.
• Fixed an issue where the 'Perfectionist' talent could refund Cooldown multiple times on the same attack.
• Fixed an issue where players could get instantly downed or killed by a Captain's Shield exploding.
• Fixed issue where the 'Penetrating Flame' Blessing would show incorrect values in its description.
• Fixed an issue where the bash animation of Dual Autopistols could play twice if transitioning to braced during a bash.
• The ‘Long Bomb' Veteran penance can now be completed only using the intended Frag Grenade.
• Fixed an issue where bots sometimes would remain stuck in crouching state.
• Fixed an issue where the Data Interrogation minigame in Power Matrix HL-17-36 would not stop the alarm sound when finishing the minigame.
• Fixed an issue where the Talent Tree tooltip for the selected Blitz, Ability and Aura could clip through the bottom of the screen.
• Fixed an issue in the start area of Dark Communion where bots would not help players when in a hangledge.
• Updated the description for the ‘Inspiring Barrage’ and ‘Cavalcade’ weapon Blessings with more accurate values
• Fixed an issue where enemies would attack the player when leaving the Meat Grinder.
• Fixed an issue where the 'No respite' weapon Blessing would not apply its damage bonus.
• Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck in a hangledge or fall onto a part of the ceiling below without dying in the Theatre of Castigation in Mortis Trials.
• Fixed an issue in the character creator where the camera would snap to a new position when changing height.
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur if a character would not have a height defined.
• Fixed an issue that caused multiple people to be able to interact with the same Data Interrogation minigame.
• Multiple minor bugfixes in Adventure Mode:
  • The following missions have had player collision added or adjusted:
    • Excise Vault Spireside-13
    • Comms-Plex 154/2f
    • Chasm Station HL-16-11
    • Smelter Complex HL17-36
    • Hab Dreyko, Chasm Logistratum
    • Silo Cluster 18-66/a
    • Vigil Station Oblivium
    • Magistrati Oubliette TM8-707
    • Relay Station TRS-150
    • Enclavum Baross
    • Dark Communion
  • Fixed unreachable items and chests in the following missions:
    • Excise Vault Spireside-13
    • Warren 6-19
    • Comms-Plex 154/2f
    • Consignment Yard HL17-36.

Cosmetic Fixes

• Munitorum Issue Mk III & Command Cap - Fixed hair masking for when these cosmetics are equipped.
• Reduced clipping on Smiter Power Maul.
• Zealot Hooded Krieg Mask (Rictus) - Added missing voice effect.
• Ogryn Vostroyan Hat - Fixed visual bug where the neck clipped through the headgear.
• Heavy Battlegear (Moebian 110th, Greysteel XXXXL) - Fixed an issue where armour clipped through the character’s shoulders.
• Krieg Greatcoat (With Psykana collar) - Fixed baked shadowing behind the leather pouch.
• Fixed headgear masking for Human Hair Style 7.
• Blessed Memento Mori - Fixed offset to players back & other visual bugs.
• Detio's War Plate - Fixed backpack offset.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.