Warhammer 40K: Darktide has launched the second part of its large winter update today, and there’s a lot to discuss. Here’s everything that changed and added with Warhammer 40K: Darktide’s Traitor’s Curse Part 2 update.
Darktide Traitor’s Curse Part 2 Changes and Additions
New Mission: Warren 6-19 Habzone HL-70-04
The rot goes deeper than we feared, and so must we. Head into the back alleys of the Carnival in a new mission. Wyrmwood agents report increased traitor activity and a worrying rise in Stimm use. Find out what you can and destroy the Moebian Stimm production facilities.
Karnak Twins Ambushing Strike Teams
The Karnak Twins have slipped their leash and have been sighted across Tertium. During missions, players can encounter one of the Twins, either Rinda or Rodin. Be on your guard and steel yourself for the fight to come. This combat encounter will be time-limited.
New Weapon Marks
Foldable Shovels
Included in this patch there are new foldable shovels for both the Ogryn and the Veteran. These come with a new Weapon Special that folds the blade, turning the shovel into a makeshift pickaxe for one powerful strikedown attack that then resets the weapon back to its unfolded state after a successful hit.
The new Veteran Sapper shovels use the pointy end that is exposed when folded to make a precise strike that gets stuck in the enemy when hit, and also gives extra damage when the weapon is yanked out. The Ogryns Latrine Shovels goes for a more simple, powerful hammer blow that crushes most opponents.
There are two variations each of both the Sapper and the Latrine shovel giving players different movesets catering to different preferences and playstyles, but focusing mostly on crowd control and horizontal sweeps to compliment the weapon special strikedown attacks that favour single targets.
Chain Weapons
For this patch we have decided to make some changes and addition to make chain weapons play nicer. We hope that this will make all chain weapons more appealing and appreciated on all difficulties.
One big problem with the chain weapons was the risk reward of the sawing attacks. The reward rarely outweighed the risk and frustration of getting stuck and unable to defend yourself. We added so that you can dodge cancel out of these attacks, at the cost of stamina and missing out on the big damage pay off at the end. This will make the iconic sawing less risky and make the weapon more flexible and adaptable in combat.
The Orestes Mk IV Assault Chainaxe has been a problematic weapon leaving much to be desired both when it comes to damage output and usability. With this patch we made some changes to it. Along with making the sawing attacks cancelable we made the light chain and the activated heavy attack more vertical to make target acquisition easier and avoid hitting enemies at edges of the screen. It also got a bit more bite in all of its attacks.
We also introduce variations of all chainweapons with the new Orestes Mk VII Assault Chainaxe, Cadia Mk XIIIg Assault Chainsword, Tigrus Mk XV Heavy Eviscerator that mix things up with horde handling lights, strong elite shredding strikedown heavies and fast stab attacks to stagger enemies.
More New Marks
Agripinaa Mk XIV Quickdraw Stub RevolverA lighter Stub revolver with a quick loader that reloads all bullets at the same time. Compared to the Zarona Mk IIa it has shorter range, is a bit less accurate and has lower damage, but it excels in close range with a higher fire rate and a new braced stance that allows for fanning the gun for even higher fire rate.
Kantrael Mk X Heavy LaspistolA heavier, heavy laspistol. Compared to the Accatran MG Mk II it has higher damage per shot and slightly longer range for the cost of a slower rate of fire.
Catachan Mk VI Combat BladeA knife that brings more horde controlling capabilities with sweeping vanguard heavies and a different light chain than the Catachan Mk III; the jab weapon special has also regained some of its lost power and should be able to stagger enemies again on both this Mk VI and the old Mk III knife.
Player Stimms
Stimms are designed to give a temporary boost that empowers the player for a short while.
Stimms are spawned in a mission at random, similar to how ammo and medical crates are spawned. Players can pick them up and they occupy a new dedicated consumable slot for small items. To select this new slot press [4] on keyboard or [D-pad up] on the controller by default. On some controller layouts you swap between the small item slot (stimms) and the large slot (medical crates, ammo crates, scriptures and grimoires) by pressing the same button multiple times. As a consequence of this new binding, wielding the Auspex has been moved to [5] on keyboards. Check your preferred controller or keyboard layout in-game to see exact binding.
All Consumable Items – Gift ConsumableWe added the ability for players to be able to give equipped consumable to other players. For a player to receive an item they need to have the corresponding item slot empty. All consumables, excluding the grimoires, have gained this action.
Stimm Types
Bug Fixes & Tweaks
Veteran Tree
Weapons & Blessings
General Weapon Tweaks
The Accatran MG Mk II Heavy Laspistol was already strong without the added rate of fire increase, but it also put it in a place where you would have to click unreasonably fast or almost required a macro to utilise the attack speed, moving it more towards an automatic weapon that should be held to shoot. And that isn’t the heavy laspistol. So to keep it more in a reasonable line with the new Kantrael Mk X Heavy Laspistol, it’s now back to its previous rate of fire.
We felt that the Zarona Mk IIa Quickdraw Stub Revolver was a bit over performing. It had high armour penetration, especially combined with the “Hand Cannon” weapon blessing and was outshining for example the bolter in this regard. This change brings the revolver’s default armour penetration against Carapace armour to be the same as the above-mentioned bolter and brings it closer to the new Agripinaa Mk XIV.
The Charge Rate stat should not have an effect on the damage output. It should only affect the duration and speed of the action. We’ve decided to change the cap of the charge level from 0.5 to 0.525 to avoid decreasing the damage output, since it could previously range between 0.5 to 0.525 depending on the amount of overcharge. Primary attacks should now always charge up to, but not overshoot, 0.525 charge level.
Defences stat should not affect dodge distance. Only the Mobility stat should.
Weapon Tweaks – Numbers
Orestes Mk IV Assault Chainaxe
Cadia Mk IV Assault Chainsword
Tigrus Mk II Heavy Eviscerator
Standard-issueMunitorum Sapper Shovel
Brute-Brainer Mk III Latrine Shovel
Catachan Mk III Combat Blade
*Dev note:
The base power level has been increased 150 to 500. Hence the power distribution of the attack and impact have been lowered to reflect the higher base power. Over all this will increase both damage and impact of the attack from before.
Ironhelm Mk IV Thunder Hammer
Graia Mk IV Braced Autogun
Hand-Cannon Blessing
Due to the recent change about rending we noticed that some blessings over-performed. Hand-Cannon is one of them and we decided to tune it down a little. Moreover, the new Agripinaa Mk XIV Quickdraw Stub Revolver when combined with Hand-Cannon was getting rid of the carapace armoured enemies too efficiently while using its braced “fanning” technique.
Ruthless Backstab Blessing
Rending bonuses is capped at 100% so tier 2, 3, and 4 were all of the same strength. We’ve lowered tier 1-3 for this to make sense again. This won’t have any impact on the damage output for Tier 4.Combat
Daemonhosts can still spawn on any difficulty when playing with Lights Out circumstance since we spawn extra daemonhosts.
This was done to reduce the frustrations of losing all toughness when briefly touching fire regardless of your toughness amount or damage reductions. Curios that affect bombers/flamers will be more viable as well.
This is related to a similar patch note from Part 1, where we increased the rate at which the Conflict Director ramps up difficulties.
Warhammer 40K: Darktide is available on PC and Xbox Series X|S. If you’re looking for more information on the game, check out our guide oncodes for Warhammer 40K: Darktide.
Shawn Robinson
Shawn is a freelance gaming journalist who’s been with Prima Games for a year and a half, writing mainly about FPS games and RPGs. He even brings several years of experience at other sites like The Nerd Stash to the table. While he doesn’t bring a fancy degree to the table, he brings immense attention to detail with his guides, reviews, and news, leveraging his decade and a half of gaming knowledge. If he isn’t writing about games, he’s likely getting zero kills in his favorite FPS or yelling at the game when it was 100% his fault that he died.
