[Update #2]: Darktide's big Crafting and Progression update has now arrived with far more improvements than expected!

[Update]: Darktide's Update 1.0.25 has buffed Psykers, Ogryn and somehow even Veterans.

As announced during the recent developer update, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide studio Fatshark will be suspending all work on seasonal content, new microtransactions and the Xbox port in order to get the PC version to a nice and stable position. And in order to show their commitment to the whole process, they have now released Update 1.02 which brings with it a ton of small but meaningful balance tweaks, fixes and improvements.

The most important of these changes, at least as far as higher difficulties are concerned, are the tweaks to enemy suppression. Previously enemy gunners (both the elite and non-elite variants) would casually ignore absurd amounts of carnage happening around them in order to keep shooting at the players. Even if half of their group got literally atomized before their very eyes, they would still hold their ground and keep firing.

Thankfully, after this update the gunners behave much more naturally. If you're firing upon them, or if their friends have just gotten obliterated, they'll hunker down in cover until the danger has passed. This then gives you a chance to engage them in melee, reposition to get a better angle, or just buy enough time for you and your team to skedaddle out of there.

Besides the suppression tweaks, Update 1.02 has also buffed the Thunder Hammer, the Trauma Force Staff, as well as fixed a whole bunch of bugs that have been causing weird things to happen with perks and blessings. For example, the "+toughness regeneration" perk on curios now actually works and can be used to significantly increase your survivability in the middle of combat, provided you're in close enough proximity to your teammates anyway.

There are some nerfs in here as well, though these were to be expected given that they're quite obviously using buggy interactions. The two notable examples are the Psyker's Kinetic Deflection trait no longer allowing you to passively quell peril while blocking attacks at the cost of peril, and bleed blessings no longer allowing you to stack bleeds on Bulwarks by hitting their shields for 0 damage.

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg, so if you're curious about all of the details, as well as some of Fatshark's plans for the future, you should check out Update 1.02 over at the official website. Enjoy!