What sets Warhammer 40,000: Darktide apart from other co-op, horde-based shooter games like the Left 4 Dead series and Deep Rock Galactic is that it is set in the grim techno-future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. As a Veteran Sharpshooter, Zealot Preacher, Psyker Psykinetic, or Ogryn Skullbreaker, players must rise above their lowly positions and become soldiers worthy of serving the Emperor of Mankind. To do this, they must complete multiple missions with various objectives that allow them to acquire currency, experience, materials, and gear to build their characters.
Just like Fatshark's own Vermintide series of games, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adopts a separate leveling system for each character. While players can create characters for each of the different classes, increasing these characters' levels to the current maximum of 30 requires them to dedicate time and effort to each one. It's a system with its own set of advantages and disadvantages but ultimately hurts the experience for those playing with people who want to level their characters quickly.
More Risks Equals More Rewards
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has 5 difficulty options for its missions. Starting from the easiest, there's Sedition, Uprising, Malice, Heresy, and Damnation. Increasing the difficulty adds more mob enemies, more Elite enemy variants and numbers, fewer available resources such as ammunition and health, and higher chances of Monstrosities spawning. There are just a handful of ways the game increases its difficulty but the trade-off for the added challenge is that players can earn more Ordo Dockets (the game's currency), experience points, crafting materials, and a higher chance to acquire better gear at the end of a mission.
Darktide's Current Difficulty-Gating Problem
It's the increased experience gains that entice players to match up for the higher difficulty missions without meeting the proper requirements. Since there is a big chance that higher-level players will match up for the harder difficulties, low-level players think it is okay for them to get carried by their party members and easily reap the rewards. While this may seem like a good idea, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's higher difficulties require more coordination and interaction between players. Having a low-level player that can't contribute much to the fight can be detrimental to a Malice, Heresy, or Damnation-difficulty mission. Not only can carrying a low-level character put an uncoordinated strike team of random players at risk, but should the situation arise where the weak character is the last one left standing, there is little hope that they will be able to save the mission and their strike team.
This problem boils down to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's difficulty gating. Players are only required to meet a certain Trust Level (also known as their character's current level) to unlock the higher difficulties. The big issue here is that the Trust Level requirements are too low; with Malice difficulty being unlocked at Trust Level 3, Heresy opening up at Trust Level 6, and Damnation being available at Trust Level 12. These are not the ideal levels players should be at before taking on these tougher difficulties as the challenges they will face will more than likely kill them.
Vermintide 2 Already Made Great Strides With Difficulty Gating
In addition to increasing the Trust Level requirements for the higher difficulties in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, the developers at Fatshark should also consider implementing an additional gear score gating system similar to Warhammer: Vermintide 2. This would not only prevent low-level players from joining higher-difficulty missions but would also ensure that everyone can hold their own alongside their teammates. With this in mind, Fatshark should also consider bringing back the ability to share gear between characters. Unlike Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide currently doesn't support gear sharing between characters that have similar weapons and curios. This makes it difficult for players who have already maxed out a character to level up their succeeding characters, as they cannot make them more powerful with the gear they have previously accumulated on a stronger avatar.
The whole point of having to level up each character class is so that players can get accustomed to their unique playstyles. An Ogryn Skullbreaker plays differently from a Psyker Psykinetic, so having players grind 29 levels is Fatshark's way of letting players discover what each class can do. Granted, the developers could have implemented something like an XP boost system that allows players to level their succeeding characters faster. This would keep more low-level players out of high-difficulty mission lobbies and further alleviate the frustration players get when they are matched with weaker allies. As it stands, however, those looking to boost their characters as quickly as possible should be wary of how big a burden they can be when entering high-difficulty missions with random players in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is out on PC and Xbox Series X/S.