Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war.
In case you missed it, check out the reveal trailer here.
This is part of an ongoing series of feature highlights focused on the upcoming DLC class: The Skitarii.
In our previous highlight we talked in depth about the design of the class itself and its talent tree. This feature highlight will focus on the arsenal available to Skitarii in Darktide, exploring the design philosophy behind the unique weapons and talking about what existing weapons they have access to. We’ve interviewed our Game Designers Erik and Matteo for this!
“I’m Matteo, I’m a Game Designer specializing in Weapons. My favourite class is Psyker, and I make a sick tiramisú.” ~ Matteo
“I’m Erik, a Game Designer also specializing in Weapons. My favourite classes are Zealot and Psyker. I can confirm that Matteo makes a sick tiramisú. I can't cook or bake but I'll make you a perfect 'Last word' cocktail.” ~ Erik
Weapons Design
As always, the first thing that went into the development of the Skitarii’s weapons was sitting down and choosing what options from the source material’s arsenal to include. The Adeptus Mechanicus has a very rich and varied set of weapons that are unique to them, many of which are specifically Skitarii weapons, too. So there were definitely a lot of possibilities to choose from, especially on the ranged side.
“So we needed to say, okay, if we have to choose a subset of this, what are the ones that we say are unique, diverse, and capture the gameplay fantasy of the Skitarii the most.” ~ Matteo
“We both look at not just what’s available in the lore - what they actually use in the tabletop and in the universe - but also what type of gameplay slots we’re trying to fill, what weapons we have on the existing classes, what type of role we want this class to have...” ~ Erik
After deciding on these options, the design team goes through several iterations of implementing ideas, trying them out, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and so on. This is especially true of the Arc weapons, which use and enable a brand new mechanic unique to this class, the Arc mechanic.
If you missed our explanation of how the Arc mechanic works for Arc weapons and talents, check out the previous Feature Highlight here!
At the same time, a couple of the non-Arc weapons coming with the Skitarii exist in a similar thematic space as some of the existing weapons in Darktide, and so we took great care into carving a unique gameplay space for them so that they stand out even from those.
For all weapons, the Weapon Designers worked closely with the Class Designers to make sure that the class’ abilities and its weapons synergized and supported each other well.
With all that said, let’s take a look at the brand new weapons, which will be exclusive to the Skitarii class.
New Weapons
Arc Maul
The Arc Maul is a powerful blunt weapon that can electrocute enemies and trigger the Arc mechanic. Since other classes already have access to similar weapons in the form of Shock Mauls, we wanted to make sure that this weapon felt and played very differently from those.
Normal attacks will electrocute the enemies. Hitting enemies also starts building up charges for the weapon’s special attack, up to a maximum of eight.
Activating the weapon special will switch to an amped up state where attacks will drain charges and trigger an Arc effect with each attack until you either run out of charges or manually deactivate the mode.
“So the loop is that you hit enemies to electrocute them and accumulate charges, then you activate the weapon and hit them again to trigger an Arc.” ~ Matteo
Beyond its special mechanics, the Arc Maul is a relatively safe weapon with strong stagger and crowd control properties, but it relies on the Arc mechanic for most of its damage.
As an added bonus, this weapon deals more damage with all attacks when hitting a target that is already electrocuted.
Paired Transonic Blades
Our second dual-wield melee weapon for Darktide, the Paired Transonic Blades are composed of a short Transonic Razor in the off hand and a longer Transonic Blade in the main hand.
Using the Weapon Special, this weapon can switch between two ‘attunements’, which give the weapon two different movesets, each specialized to deal with different types of enemies.
“This makes the weapon very versatile, and probably one of the most complex weapons we have in Darktide.” ~Matteo
The default moveset is attuned to most effectively deal with unarmoured enemies, featuring wide, sweeping attacks that can easily cleave and mow through hordes. The second attunement specializes in eliminating armoured enemies, and the moveset switches to a more single target, high damage set of stabs and vertical attacks that easily pierce through Flak and Carapace.
While you can switch between modes when idle, pressing the Weapon Special in the middle of an attack chain will allow you to perform a unique attack as part of a transition into the other mode, letting you switch seamlessly in the middle of combat.
“It’s a weapon that players can immediately play with; you don’t need to study hours to understand it. But the more you play with it, the more you find different ways to approach the situation in a more efficient manner. It’s also a really cool looking weapon, hehehe.” ~ Matteo
Mechanicus Power Sword
Power weapons are a very iconic melee choice for Adeptus Mechanicus as a whole, and so we definitely wanted to give the Skitarii their own version of this weapon. To differentiate them from the existing Darktide Power Swords in gameplay, we leaned into the fact that the Skitarii’s version is much better maintained and looked after than the requisitioned ones our other classes have access to.
As such, the Mechanicus Power Swords are considered to always be in an active, low power mode and are a powerful weapon even without using their Weapon Special. The weapon will start with 6 charges, which can be spent by pressing the Weapon Special to perform a single, high-powered powered attack (a tap will perform a light attack, while holding the button will perform a heavy attack). Each Special Attack consumes one charge, which recharges over time.
However, holding onto these charges also provides a passive buff to the weapon’s normal attacks, which is the source of the weapon’s power.
“So the idea is that the player can say ‘Okay, I’m not using the charges so the weapon remains at maximum strength because it has all the stacks’ or ‘I’ll spend the charges to immediately get a strong attack but momentarily reduce the strength of the weapon’.” ~ Matteo
The Special Attacks are empowered versions of the normal Mechanicus Power Sword moveset, sharing animations and chained actions. Said moveset is also very different from the existing Power Swords, featuring a bigger focus on thrusts and stabs.
Galvanic Rifle
The Galvanic Rifle is a powerful, semi-automatic precision rifle that fills a niche that hadn’t been covered in Darktide’s arsenal yet. Each shot deals relatively high damage and can do a good job at piercing through armour, although it has a low ammo count.
“I wouldn’t call it a sniper, but definitely a precision weapon.” ~ Erik
While you can run and hipfire it with decent accuracy (although with strong recoil), the weapon excels when aiming down sights and landing weak spot hits, such as headshots. It is a simple, but elegant weapon that feels extremely satisfying to shoot with.
“It behaves like you would expect it to after looking at it, and I think we got it to an interesting gameplay spot as well. It’s a simple design, but extremely effective!.” ~ Erik
Arc Rifle
The Skitarii Alpha Primus’ Arc Rifle in Darktide is a high ammo, heavy, slow firing ranged weapon that shoots bolts of lightning. Unlike the Psyker’s Smite Blitz, these are not sustained streams of electricity but rather quick, instant bolts that hit their target and dissipate. While it has a high ammo capacity, reloading it takes longer than most weapons, so be careful not to waste your shots!
“With the other Skitarii weapons being relatively low ammunition, we wanted to make the Arc Rifle like a slow firing heavy machine gun, but with Arc properties.” ~ Erik
Each shot will apply an electricity effect like other shock or Arc weapons, and when hitting an already electrocuted enemy it will Arc to a nearby enemy (which will also electrocute it, or Arc again if it’s already electrocuted!). This means that it takes prolonged, sustained fire on a horde of enemies to really build up the damage as the electricity spreads, but becomes unstoppable once it’s properly enabled.
Phosphor Blast Pistol
“It’s a gigantic hand cannon is what it is.” ~ Erik
The Phosphor Blast Pistol is a powerful and unique ranged weapon. While it has a limited ammo capacity and isn’t all that accurate, it excels in both damage and support. Each shot of hot-white phosphor blasts deals high damage to the target and then splashes Phosphor to enemies nearby.
“It does a fair amount of damage, it’s not weak by any means, but the support utility is what makes it super interesting.” ~ Erik
Both the initial target and the enemies in the splash zone will suffer a powerful debuff from the lingering Phosphor compound, which makes them not just take more damage from all sources, but attacks will also cleave through them more easily.
“It’s got a super cool effect where you can see it actually burns pieces of the armour off and exposes the flesh on some enemies.” ~ Erik
Beyond looking gnarly, this effect also helps communicate to your teammates which enemies are debuffed by the Phosphor Pistol, encouraging them to take advantage of the situation.
Existing Weapons
Plasma Gun Mk III
On top of all of these brand new weapons that we’re adding for the Skitarii class, this update will also see the release of a new mark of the Plasma Gun! Available to both the Veteran and Skitarii classes, this Plasma Gun variant will have less focus on penetrating through enemies and terrain, and more on devastating explosions, which will trigger when hitting most enemy types.
Beyond that, the Skitarii class will also have access to the following weapons that can already be found in Darktide’s arsenal:
Ranged Weapons
- Infantry Autogun
- Braced Autogun
- Vigilant Autogun
- Heavy Laspistol
- Plasma Gun Mk II
- Quickdraw Stub Revolver
- Shredder Autopistol
Melee Weapons
- Assault Chainsword
- “Devil’s Claw” Sword
- Shock Maul
- Power Falchion
- Combat Blade
Bonus: Which of the new weapons is your favorite?
“The Dual Transonics! It’s a design idea that I’ve had for a while, it kinda builds upon the Hive Scum’s Crowbar and Bone Saw [...] It’s basically two movesets in one weapon, and I think it turned out extremely nice, so yeah.” ~ Matteo
“I’m gonna say the Galvanic Rifle and the Arc Maul. Ping and bonk.” ~ Erik
That’s all we have for today! We hope you enjoyed this early look at the Skitarii class’ weapons!
The Skitarii Alpha Primus class will be available on the 23rd of June, but you can already wishlist it now.
Praise the Omnissiah!
We’ll see you on the Mourningstar.
– The Darktide Team
