While I would love to recommend this, as I'm a big fan of Vermintide 2, I just can't promote Darktide in its current state. Right now, this feels like an early access game disguised as a full release, and Fatshark has not given any clear indication on what updates to expect or their target ETA.

Darktide's performance on medium settings is all over the place (2070 super for reference). I encountered the occasional crash or bug in the closed beta, but largely ran at >50 FPS. Things improved in the pre-order beta, but successive patches have gradually reduced my framerate to <40 FPS during hordes, and I crash anywhere from 3-5 times in a three hour span. For all I know, the next patch could cause it to run at 100 FPS, or just render everything unplayable.

Even when the game's working well, it's so rough around the edges that I felt like I was playing a dev test build. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Darktide's UI is one of the worst I've encountered in 20+ years of gaming. There are no tooltips. Weapon movesets are depicted in images, like a set of hieroglyphics. There also isn't a glossary for all the in-game terms not covered by the tutorial. Good luck trying to figure out the difference between Impact, Cleave, and Stagger if you're a new player and don't have a Fatshark translator on hand.

EDIT: As of the official launch, clarity on weapon stats has been vastly improved, which is appreciated, but it's not enough for me to recommend the game just yet.

The lack of clarity leaves the whole game feeling like it was deliberately designed to be opaque. Want to look up an entire list of weapons for your class, maybe check when you'll unlock them? Pfft, that's asking too much. Instead, players are left to scour an RNG-based shop as it refreshes every hour, praying they'll see something new, without knowing if something new is even possible. You're better off resorting to Reddit and Steam guides that have done a developer's work for them.

And it sucks, because the core gameplay is fantastic. It's visceral, frantic, and demands real coordination and teamwork from the players. The classes are well-designed (in concept) and varied, even if there are fewer of them than I would like. The environments are gorgeous and surprisingly varied, with more vertical movement and long sightlines than were present in Vermintide. Sure, the balance for classes and weapons is a bit wonky right now, but at least the feel and playstyle of every sword, gun, and axe is great.

Yet, a good gameplay loop just isn't enough. Beyond leveling your classes and weapons, which is already an incredibly grind-y process for a single game mode, there isn't much to look forward to. There's no central story or campaign to complete, nor a scoreboard to track performance, nor anything else that might provide a semblance of progression.

If you can put up with the jank and really just want to chainsword some Poxwalkers, feel free to pick it up. Otherwise, I would advise holding off until a sale or some major updates.