Recent reviews by Nihilist Zealot

How Sabre managed to get the game looking so good while performing so well I'll never know. Must be Heresy. The game thus far has felt incredible, though the absence of Mark Strong as Titus does sting.

Overall I've been having a great time, with one small exception: difficulty.

Bear in mind that this review is NOT with the full picture of the game thus far, it is with my experience up to Avarax.

In single-player, the difference in difficulty between Veteran and Angel of Death is absurd. Veteran feels like a cakewalk and Angel of Death feels brutally unfair. It's not that the game is "hard" (it is), but it's deliberately unfair for several reasons. The first is particularly egregious for the lone player since the friendly AI is just about non-existent apart from when they're reviving you (and they will be reviving you frequently). Enemy AI swarms the PLAYER character as aggressively as possible. Termagants focus-fire the PC at massive range in groups while warriors and hormagaunts directly intercept, particularly on objective-based segments that pop up around gargoyles or rippers where the objectives and strategies around completing the mission successfully are all but ignored by friendly AI.

I'm about 40 to 50 hours in.... and I'm still in the first area, TYPICAL Larian!

Look, the folks at Larian have outdone themselves, and given the insanity of Divinity: Original Sin (and 2!), it's saying a lot to say that they've really stepped up the game. Larian continues to create characters with depth and charm, sometimes you love them, sometimes you hate them, or you love to hate them or hate to love them.

It's not all posies and rainbows, though, like a certain meadow, it's hiding a lot under the skin, namely the Original Sin bones. The scaffolding is strong, but it's definitely an imperfect system. Movement is wonky and I still find the path-finding an absolute nightmare. You think you're selecting a zone on one tier of the map, but after clicking your character just plows right into every possible REVEALED or obvious trap/environmental hazard, all because the game's displayed geometry doesn't line up with whatever has been mapped to movement. The same issue goes for spells and attacks, you're within range, but also you're not, but you are if you hit that pixel-perfect point from one specific angle.

I'm also encountering some issues with the usual Larian flair, like dialogs dropping because some random world action took over at a weird time, or you over-shoot a zone where an encounter is set to happen, dialog occurs, and you're immediately thrown into combat without overt hostility on the player's part despite the NPC allowing for a non-aggressive approach (reloading encounters sometimes fixes weird issues, so I've been quick-saving like mad).

Volo has also absconded into the Weave, on my end after being directed to camp and downing his potion the poor Bard just hasn't popped up after over a week of in-game long rests (and further tested by triggering the "celebration", still no wayward loremaster).

Some issues with the Forge and the quest log indicating more uses than seem apparent, having randomly locked up both in combat using the hammer only twice in total. I'm putting these very specific issues in this review, simply because I still have yet to receive a verification email from the forum registration and that was about 8 hours ago.

Regardless of the incredibly MINOR issues, the game is spectacular.

Play a Bard. Gather everyone up with festive music, nuke your bard and all the onlookers!

After 230 hours, while I enjoy specific aspects of Darktide, I would not recommend that people purchase this game at this time.

Having played during the pre-order beta and after the "live" launch of the game on November 30th, I can say with complete certainty that this game in the current state is not worth your money.

The game released in a buggy and unstable state which continues to this day a full month and 2 weeks post-launch. The game has received one token content patch which included 2 weapons (not for each class, just 2 total weapons, one for each of two classes), an insufferable battle condition and some minor improvements to stability, and a minor hotfix shortly thereafter (again attempting to improve stability).

Thus far while there have been a few stability and performance patches, I have not seen any overall improvement to the performance/optimization of the game nor the netcode. Crashes happen slightly less often but are still fairly commonplace.

Overall, the game is incomplete and fully reliant on heavy doses of RNG to determine both equipment and even mission types, modifications, etc. The game's full reliance on RNG makes it difficult to want to engage with any of the in-game shops (apart from the fully-functional and implemented excessively over-priced premium currency cosmetic shop.

Fatshark having pivoted to a "live service" model during active development (from what I understand), has created a situation where it seems that they have no idea how to effectively support a "game as a service" model and are incapable of discerning why players are fundamentally unhappy with their experience with the game as well as forming a meaningful plan and communicating with their customers as to how they are approaching the vast amounts of feedback provided.

The community managers are being hung out to dry with no word being provided nor management of said community being done while players foment further distaste and dissatisfaction at the situation undoubtedly brought on by management and above as well as the key investors (Tencent).

Do not purchase this game solely for the setting and promise of what a 40k 'Tide game could be like I did.

Wait for a substantial update to this game or a significant sale (if it's under $20 it's still VERY worth a purchase if only for the short duration of enjoyment it will provide).

********************************************************************************************Update 1 year after Beta and flawed launch:

The crafting system remains the least engaging and most frustrating part of Darktide. Completely random drops for equipment forces players to waste resources in order to acquire the specific equipment they want, then pray to RNGsus for a halfway decent stat roll. Once you've GOT a decent piece of gear, it's now time to customize it. You had dozens of others of the same type for a slight chance at a specific blessing to imbue your new weapon, right? Oh, you didn't have a massive stockpile of the same weapon family? Time to grind some more to get the right blessing. Don't forget all the chaff blessings intentionally sprinkled throughout the pool to get in the way of your chance at receiving a halfway decent one! Oh, one more thing: there are 4 tiers for each and every blessing. You're going to be spending a lot of quality time with Hadron.