Darktide’s first major patch fixes everything wrong with its loot

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a co-op shooter with explosive, visceral combat. Despite the great environments, thrilling melee, and an absolute banger of a soundtrack, the game fell short for many fans. Killing heretics and saving Atoma Prime is great, but the in-between bits of hanging out on the Mourningstar and getting new loot was rough. Enter Patch 4, Blessings of the Omnissiah. This patch has tons of small fixes and changes, and it also tackles the loot issue and provides some crafting systems.

There are now Wargear Sets, which allow players to save five loadouts of cosmetics, weapons, curios, and talents. The Armoury Exchange also now has a new tab, Brunt’s Armoury, which allows players to purchase any weapon available to them. This means you don’t have to wait for random chance, pleading that a chain-axe or bolter shows up in the Armoury Exchange listings. You can purchase a low-level weapon and simply update it to your liking.

Sir Melk’s Requistorium, the weekly quest contract hub, is now much more forgiving. All contracts require less work and give more currency. The worst contracts, which required completing side objectives on specific mission loadouts, have been removed.

As you may have guessed from the patch name, the Shrine of the Omnissiah with Hadron has seen the greatest amount of changes. Players can extract Blessings from weapons as a permanent, applicable buff, allowing them to take a fantastic bonus from a weapon not to their liking and apply it to something new. Blessings are shared between all characters on your account.

As the cherry on top, the Emperor’s Gift — a random item reward — is now granted after every successful mission. Higher difficulty levels or additional map conditions are more likely to grant higher quality items.

Developer Fatshark halted new cosmetic items and a port to the Xbox in order to solve launch issues and stability. Patch 4 is a big step in the right direction, addressing player complaints and removing many of the frustrating random elements.