Publisher and developer Fatshark has announced that it is delaying seasonal content and new cosmetic item releases for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide following the co-op action game’s troubled launch.
In an open letter to players, Fatshark CEO and Co-Founder Martin Wahlund admitted the studio’s latest title “fell short” of meeting fan expectations. The developer will focus on addressing feedback received from Warhammer 40,000: Darktide fans in the near future.
“Over the next few months, our sole focus is to address the feedback that many of you have. In particular, we will focus on delivering a complete crafting system, a more rewarding progression loop, and continue to work on game stability and performance optimization,” the open letter reads.
“This also means that we will delay our seasonal content rollout and the Xbox Series X/S launch. We will also suspend the upcoming releases of premium cosmetics. We just couldn’t continue down this path, knowing that we have not addressed many feedback areas in the game today.”
Fatshark has yet to provide details in terms of what improvements players can expect first and when they might drop. The game’s latest patch went live in December 2022, as part of a series of smaller updates that worked towards adding post-launch polish to the game.
Despite a wave of enthusiasm during its pre-order beta and following launch, Darktide currently sits at a mixed rating on Steam, with only 55% positive reviews. Several of them point out the very issues Wahlund brings up in the open letter, while admitting that a good game does wait somewhere underneath.
I felt the same after spending a good chunk of time with Warhammer 40,000: Darktide for our review. While the game’s visceral combat pushes Fatshark’s formula further and the game boasts what’s likely the medium’s best depiction of 40K to date, everything else makes for a shaky foundation.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2, the studio’s previous effort, also launched with its own rough edges – although it, admittedly, wasn’t a loot-centric game with an outright unfinished crafting system –, which its developer did manage to polish over time, making it one of the best co-op titles out there.
Here’s hoping we’ll say the same about Darktide at some point in the not-too-distant future.
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— Warhammer 40K: Darktide (@Darktide40K) January 24, 2023
