Warhammer 40K: Darktide is an online co-op shooter filled with nasty little ghouls begging to be decapitated. An average mission has you and his three squad members smashing and blowing up about 1,000 bad guys in his 30 minutes (no exaggeration). By default, Darktide’s mission board throws you into Quickplay his matchmaking, where you can be thrown into an ongoing mission or start a new mission by playing against his three other players.
But if you don’t want to play that way, that is, if you want to play solo or with one friend, unfortunately your options are limited.
I don’t do dark tide Current Supports offline single player or private online matches. You cannot start a mission solo with a trio of bots as wingmen. This is the biggest complaint we’ve seen from a Darktide player right now, and here’s what he has to say about Darktide’s current state and what Fatshark has to say about his plans for the future (good news).
No you can’t play Darktide with just bots (yet)
There is currently no built-in option to start a Darktide solo match with a bot. Bots are only available to players who exit the game or get disconnected in the middle of a mission.
However, Fatshark is working on such functionality.According to Fat Shark first community updateposted on November 18th, private matches will take place on the launch date (November 30th) or in December.
“We have been working on the option to play only in solo mode, locally hosting your own instance with a bot. However, we will continue to monitor and improve performance where we can.Solo play is in the final stages of testing as we fix the last remaining issues.We aim to release this at launch. If not, patch immediately after that in December.
Fatshark also shared some details about the private match option. See below for details.
Can I create a private darktide lobby?
Unfortunately not now. There is no way to create private matches in Darktide. However, you must invite 3 friends to the game and he will create a team of 4 players. Darktide will not matchmake with other players if he has a full four player team.
Whereas Vermintide 2 worked with peer-to-peer networking (meaning individual players host their own games), Darktide 2 runs entirely on dedicated servers. While that might be one reason why private play is so rare, a more likely explanation is that Darktide is simply balanced against his squad always full, either one, two or three. By reducing enemy hordes and difficulty for 1 player, many of complexity. Also, Darktide’s bots may not be up to the challenge of being more than a temporary complement.
Good news though. Fat Shark says Private matches will be held in December:
“Recently we started implementing private games as an option. We’re in the middle stages of development for this. When we launch, you can start private games with 2-4 friends. We expect to release this. We appreciate your feedback on these topics and needed time to explore available solutions.We hope you enjoy these features when they are released and welcome further feedback.”
Some players craving a private co-op experience during the beta have actually come up with a workaround for playing bots in small groups, but it’s not elegant.
But… there’s a way to play Darktide with just one friend and a bot, but it’s rude
as described by the player on the Steam forums, you and one friend can play Darktide together with two other bots. If you party up and go into a match together, her two other players won’t be able to kick you when you go AFK. He needs 3 votes for this. Assuming the other players get fed up and quit, they will be replaced by bots.
It’s obviously not a great solution. You’re wasting other players’ time just because you don’t want to play with them. This is selfish. Darktide also supports ongoing joins, so new players may be matchmade into the game instead of bots.
I do not recommend this technique to anyone. To disrespect other players who are playing with good intentions. But when he started the mission he found out why if the two players immediately AFK her.
Can Vermintide 2 be played with only bots?
yes. Fatshark’s last game, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, lets you create a private him game that only your friends can join. There’s also a lobby browser and a “strict matchmaking” toggle that only allows you to join lobbies that haven’t started a mission yet. These features present in Vermintide 2 could be a big reason why many players are upset that his Darktide 2 doesn’t have a private lobby option.
