Fatshark has done a fair bit of fooling around with Darktide’s format offerings lately, with the recent Havoc mode expanding the game’s difficulty options and variance. But while Havoc caters to endgame players looking for a challenge, Mortis Trials—laid out in the latest blog post from community manager StrawHat—are described as "chaotic, with easy access for immediate fun."
Available from trust level 13, these missions will see players fight off visions of heretics induced in the Theatres of Mortification over 12 waves of escalating intensity. Most of these will involve the normal hacking agents of chaos to bits, but every third wave will be an "objective" wave wherein players will have to carry out a small task in exchange for supplies and buffs. This wave-based 'kill guys, restock, kill more guys' sort of loop immediately reminds me of my favorite horde game, Killing Floor, but where Mortis Trials gets interesting is in its roguelike-inspired buffs which promise to add a layer to buildcrafting.
These buffs come alongside a system unique to Mortis Trials called indulgences, which are like specializations you select on top of your chosen class. The indulgences shared in the blog post are pyrokinetic, voltaic, fulminator, death dealer, and colossus, with those first three focusing on various types of elemental damage and the latter two specializing in close quarters and survivability, respectively. Players will get a choice of buffs in line with their chosen indulgence as they make it through the trial, and they stack, so whip out your damage calculators and get ready to theorycraft the most busted combinations.
The mode should also have some delectable lore nuggets for any Black Library obsessives. All these horrible visions players will be subject to come courtesy of Sefoni, a withering psyker players meet early on in the game but know relatively little about. As a note on the blog post from narrative lead Michael Knight puts it: "Sefoni’s delighted that she’s got new playthings to torment … generating the Trials of Mortification places Sefoni under enormous pressure, and fragments of her past have a tendency to manifest without her knowing."
If all that sounds grimdark enough for you, Mortis Trials will debut early next week on March 25. Darktide may have had a rocky launch, but Fatshark’s ongoing commitment to improving it has made it one of the best Warhammer 40,000 games around.
If you’re ready to witness your doom, Darktide is available on Steam.
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