Warhammer 40,000: Darktide will have 'thousands' of party banter lines despite custom characters

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Your miserable penal soldiers will have all kinds of things to say to each other, despite having many different voices.

Fatshark's Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is probably the most anticipated game of the year for not just fans of Warhammer, but fans of cooperative shooters in general. The studio's Warhammer: Vermintide series is outstandingly popular, and PC Gamer lists it as one of the best cooperative shooters on PC. One of the things people love most about Vermintide is how its five fixed characters interact with each other. They joke, banter, and bicker. 

With the recent revelation that your characters in Darktide will be customizable, however, Fatshark has been quick to show how they're keeping the bantering spirit alive in a dev blog that includes raw footage of voice actors at work. You can choose from any number of voice profiles for each class, allowing for "thousands upon thousands of banter lines in Darktide," according to narrative director Mårten Stormdal.

"It's something we've had in mind from the start, through writing, casting and direction. In fact, given the sheer range of voice profiles in the game - we probably can't tell you the precise number that will be live at launch, but it’s plenty – and the quantity of voice lines (it’s a lot – we hate hearing the same lines again and again when we’re gaming) players will find plenty to fall in love with," he said. 

It's interesting to see how the sausage is made here, but even more interesting are the YouTube clips embedded throughout. They give a hint at not just the sheer range of characters and interactions in Darktide, but the number of voice profiles you can pick. I counted 18 different voice actors among all the short clips, some of whom are clearly doing more than one voice set... as evinced by this clip of actor Greg Jones riffing off of himself as both some kind of clever doctor and a brute who sounds more like an ogryn.

They're really quite entertaining, and you can find more in the official Darktide dev blog. If you're not caught up on the latest with Darktide, be sure to check out everything we know about Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.

Jonathan Bolding
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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.