Warhammer 40K: Darktide's new rogue-lite game mode goes live today

Darktide takes place in one of Warhammer 40K’s massive Hive Cities, urban structures that blot out the sun and descend deep into the earth. Much of the game takes place in claustrophobic hallways or sewage systems, residential streets, or crowded hab blocks. The opportunity to go outside the Hive City has its perks (sunlight, less stinky) but it’s also decidedly more dangerous.

In a new free update called Beyond the Hive, developer Fatshark has added a new game mode called Expeditions. Expeditions take place in Scavenge Zones, which are wide-open stretches of heretic territory, full of randomly-spawned elements. Unlike normal missions, where the squad has to complete a series of sequential objectives, Expeditions allow players to extract at any point. Each run begins with fifteen minutes on the clock; that’s as long as you can survive out there in the elements.

Luckily, there are refuges called Deadsider Sanctuaries, which allow players to trade salvage from their run for items, including artillery strikes. A Deadsider Sanctuary can also give a player a few more precious minutes to explore. And there’s a new boss fight that can spawn: the Ogryn Pack Master, a mean monstrosity accompanied by armored pox hounds.

Patch 1.11.0 also brings a ton of talent changes, including some clean-up to the Hive Scum’s talent tree, changes to the other classes, lots of weapons tweaks, and bug fixes. I’m curious to see how Expeditions change the game; it looks much more viable to play a sniper, for instance, with those wide open spaces. An in-game event called Deadlock Patrol will run through 6, giving in-game cosmetics and currencies to players who participate in Expeditions.