[Update #2]: Darktide will be buffing Psykers and Ogyrn in early March, while a much bigger update will be coming in late March.

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

When it comes to the moment-to-moment gameplay, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is one of the most satisfying games I've ever played, and I don't say that lightly. Unfortunately, the actual systems surrounding all of the gameplay are currently a bit of a mess, and nowhere is this more apparent than with crafting and item acquisition.

Getting new weapons is done almost exclusively through an in-game shop that rotates hourly through an assortment of random weapons with random effects and random power levels. Then, if you manage to win the lottery and find a weapon whose stats aren't completely useless, you have to go through an expensive and annoying crafting system that adds even more randomness onto the pile and makes it nearly impossible to get what you actually want. Needless to say, it's a system that needs improving, and I'm happy to say that Darktide's next update will finally do just that!

First and foremost, the in-game shop will soon allow you to purchase a gray version of exactly the type of weapon you want. These will still be randomly rolled weapons with random stats, but given their low price you'll be able to easily keep rolling the dice until you find something you really like. This does make me question why the stats need to be random to begin with, but either way this new system is definitely a big step forward.

Maybe one day we'll be able to actually choose the stats we want

Furthermore the Emperor’s Gift, the random items you can occasionally receive by completing a mission, are getting overhauled. They will now be granted at the end of each and every mission, and their quality will be influenced by the difficulty you're playing on, the side missions you've completed and any special conditions. So if you're really pushing yourself and doing the hardest content around, you should be getting some spicy loot.

Sire Melk’s Requisitorium is also getting a bit of an overhaul in order to make it both less time consuming and more rewarding. The requirements for each contract will be getting reduced, while the rewards will be getting increased. A relatively simple change, yet quite an important one, as you'll see in just a moment.

The final big additions are both related to the crafting/upgrading process. Under the new system you'll be able to scrap weapons in order to extract their blessings, after which you'll have permanent access to that blessing for that entire weapon family. Once you have a blessing you're happy with you'll be able to add it to any weapon you like, though the downside is that doing this will permanently lock the weapon's other blessing.

To be perfectly honest, it's a needlessly convoluted system, but given what we have to work with right now it's still going to be a massive improvement. Doubly so given that we'll have more currency to spend on Sire Melk's Requisitorium since those weapons tend to come with terrible stats and high tier blessings - perfect fodder for scrapping!

Once the update goes live, hopefully at some point next week, I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, start saving any cool blessings you find!