The first teaser for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, released more than two years ago, centered on a four-person recon squad investigating sub-level six of Atoma Prime's Tertium Hive. The video ended with the team looking to be in a spot of trouble—and now we finally know what happened to them.
A new World Intro Trailer released today for Darktide starts off in fine Warhammer fashion, with ominous music, foreboding narration, and the obligatory reminder that "there is only war." A massive, gothic starship enters a portal that crackles with purple energy, emerging on the other side over a city so great, its towers are visible from space. As religious imagery melds with cosmic horror, we are taken deep into the dank sublevels of the Hive city, where four members of the Astra Militarum are beating a hasty retreat from... something.
This is clearly the same recon squad that was seen in the first video: They have the same uniforms and headgear, and their pauldrons bear the same unit logo. Unfortunately, the words of their commanding officer in the first trailer—"I'll know more when they make it back—if they make it back"—were prophetic. The squad seemed solid and professional when first confronted by the corrupt hordes of Chaos, but the situation has clearly gone south in a big way, and sadly it looks like none of the gang are going to make it home from this one.
The trailer doesn't say anything new about Darktide, which looks very much like its predecessor Vermintide but set in the Warhammer 40K universe rather than Warhammer Fantasy, but that's OK by me. It does a good job of setting the table, through symbolism and scale, and sheer, grinding grimdark: You're going to get bloody, and stay bloody, until some sort of oversized horror carves your spine out with its teeth. This probably comes as no surprise, but even so I think it's fun to get a bleak, overdramatic reminder every now and then. And concluding (or at least continuing—maybe there will be more) the tale of the lost recon squad is a very nice touch, too.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is available for pre-purchase on Steam and set to launch on November 30. If you haven't already seen it, the first teaser featuring our poor lost recon squadron is down below.
