Rising above the shackles of the flesh, the Skitarii have been rebuilt with the divine augments of the Adeptus Mechanicus to best serve the Omnissiah, as an impossibly efficient tool of war.

In case you missed it, check out the reveal trailer here.

This is part of an ongoing series of feature highlights focused on the upcoming DLC class: The Skitarii.

In our previous highlight we went over the overall vision of the Skitarii’s visual design! This feature highlight focuses on unique options available to the class as far as character creation and customization goes, from unique physical options to voice modification! We’ve interviewed our Associate Art Director, 3D Technical Artist, and Sound Designer to get you all the details!

“My name is Lucas. I am the Associate Art Director on Darktide and I’ve been involved in overseeing the art delivered in the production of the Skitarii class, working closely together with the different disciplines in our production development team. \[...] As a huge Warhammer fan myself, getting the opportunity to explore something from the Adeptus Mechanicus faction was very exciting. ~Lucas

“My name is Erik Lindqvist, I’m a Senior Technical Artist at Fatshark. I’ve been at the company for about 10 years, mainly working on Vermintide and Vermintide 2, and now I’ve also been leading work on Skitarii on the Technical Art side.” ~ Erik

“I'm Ola, I'm the VO Designer at Darktide. I'm in charge of wrangling all the VO we record, processing it and getting it to play in the game.  Sometimes I show up to bother Matt and the actors with strange requests in a recording session. Other than that I like to get my fingers in some UI code on occasion (Personality Scourge and this upcoming Voxcaster Tuning for example).” ~Ola

“When we started talking and discussing about how we’d go about presenting this class, a lot of our ideas went naturally to the character creation of it.” ~ Lucas

While Arbites and Hive Scum fit quite comfortably using the base ‘human’ body as the core classes, the same isn’t true for the Skitarii. Due to their cybernetic nature, there were a lot of visual aspects we wanted to represent that warranted a brand new body type to go with it. 

But this also gave us a unique opportunity to show something rarely seen in other Warhammer: 40,000 media, which is how they look under the robes and the hood, something that the entire Art team was eager to work on.

“There wasn’t really an established visual reference for what a Skitarii looks like underneath the robes and armor, so that was a mystery which we needed to solve. The idea of them being flesh fused with machine raised a lot of questions. And because this was such an interesting hook for us to think about, it naturally evolved into a focus for the class!” ~ Lucas

Because this is rarely depicted, we found most of the relevant information (and inspiration!) in written narrative mediums – books, lore excerpts in codices, and so on. While we always collaborate closely with Games Workshop when bringing all aspects of Warhammer: 40,000 to life in Darktide, this was especially true when working on the Skitarii character creation. 

“I don’t think we left any ideas out. It was more the other way around, that we added ideas as we went!” ~ Lucas 

We worked extensively on concepts and design, shaping together the look of these seldom explored facets of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Things like how their bodies look after such extensive modification, the type of scarring left on their flesh after all the assignments and environmental hazards they’re often subjected to. How exactly it looks where machine meets flesh.

As you might expect, many of the customization options available to the Skitarii are very different from our other classes, in part because of the fusion of man and machine, but also because they’ll be almost completely covered up once you’re done. We had to figure out how to let you add your personal touch in ways that would still be visible under those bulky robes, after all!

“The character creation flow became very different. We cannot use skin colors, we cannot use faces in the same way, to express the character. So we need to find something else.” ~ Erik

Like our other classes, you’ll get to pick from several background options to shape your character’s history, and you’ll get to tweak their height (although they are on average taller than the regular human classes!). Additionally, you’ll also be able to pick your Skitarius’ Forge World of origin, which plays a similar role as the Hive Scum’s choice of Gang, such as altering your starting cosmetics!

One of these Forge World options, Branx Minor, is linked to Atoma itself!

Their natural eyes have long been replaced with bionic upgrades, giving you several color options to choose from! There will be a primary and a secondary lens color option, and of course you can pick the same option for both to have the lenses look the same. Not only that, but these colors will show up no matter what headgear cosmetic you end up using for your Skitarius!

“And that is a bit different depending on the headgear. Some only have two eyes, so you’re basically picking the right and the left eye. Some have smaller diodes and things, as well. Some only have one, so then there’s only the Primary that’s showing.” ~ Erik

The Skitarii’s arms, legs, hands and feet have been upgraded with cybernetic replacements, and during character creation these will also be customizable! You will be able to choose different models for the arms and legs, and you will also get to pick from different metallic textures as the Primary and Secondary metals, including a separate setting to handle the oxidation level.

These customizations will also remain and be visible no matter what cosmetics you’re using, giving you more freedom to craft a unique look. And of course, the arms and hands will also show up in first person!

The Skitarii class will have access to four distinct personalities, something only the Ogryn class can match! But, taking advantage of the Skitarii’s cybernetic nature, we added the ability to customize how the voice itself can sound!

The voice modulation system found in certain headgear cosmetics gave us a solid starting point for the feature, but we pushed the concept further, giving the player different ways to tune it to their heart’s content and find the perfect sound.

There are three different settings that you can gradually tweak to modify the base voice of the chosen personality. As you play around with these dynamic parameters, you’ll get to listen to the changes in real time through the example voice lines playing from your chosen personality, or even switch personalities to hear how specific setups sound on all the voices!

As you might expect, one of these parameters controls the pitch… among other things! While there is some correlation with increasing this slider to make the pitch higher, or decreasing it to make the pitch lower, it is not so straightforward. There are various effects being influenced by this parameter, purposely making the pitch shift unpredictably in certain ranges, and sometimes making the normal, unmodified voice shine through.

The second parameter is a delay effect, which can sound like multiple voices at once, or like the voice has an almost immediate echo. Like with the pitch parameter, modifying this parameter is not as straightforward as it might seem, affecting not just the intensity of the effect, but also other sound effects linked to it to create some unpredictable variations.

“You will hear stuff change as you move this around, but our goal is also to… You know, we want you to stumble into something that sounds cool, rather than necessarily be like ‘Oh this goes up and this goes there’, you know. \[...] We modulate it along the way so that different aspects of each effect comes in and out to get as much variance as possible.” ~ Ola

The final parameter modifies the distortion on the voice, with various different crunching effects modifying and distorting the sound. Once again, we wanted to make players experiment, so as you move the slider along you’ll notice that certain aspects of the distortion lower in intensity while others pick up, varying independently to create unique sounds as you explore the possibilities!

“There is always a built-in effect on the voices, so they will never sound fully human. \[...] Even if you skip through the character creation and don’t mess with any of the dynamic settings, the character will still sound like a Skitarius.” ~ Ola

“I do think that going deeper into what the character creation of the Skitarii looked like, and exploring the character under the suit, was especially interesting to me.” ~ Lucas

“I think it’s interesting to work on something this mechanical. It’s a different process! In some ways it’s more complex, because you have to make things mechanically work.” ~ Erik

“I think the class itself is really cool, there’s a lot of fun stuff you can do in regards to voice for the class. But this \[the voice modulation] is definitely, for me, the stand out fun feature. It’s been super fun tweaking these effects and having these moments where you go ‘ohh, this sounds really cool, this sounds really cool, let’s try that, oh that also sounds really cool!’.” ~ Ola

That’s all we have for today! We hope you enjoyed this early look at the character creation of the Skitarii class!

Stay tuned for the next feature highlight, which will focus on the Skitarii’s game design and talents, coming soon!!

Praise the Omnissiah!

The Skitarii Alpha Primus class will be available on the 23rd of June, but you can already wishlist it now. 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4355570/Warhammer_40000_Darktide__Skitarii_Class/https://store.steampowered.com/app/4355580/Warhammer_40000_Darktide__Skitarii_Class_Deluxe_Edition/

We’ll see you on the Mourningstar.

– The Darktide Team

Last week we revealed the new Skitarii Alpha Primus class to the world. We are so excited for these specialist warriors of the Machine-God to join the fight on Atoma, bringing their wargear and combat expertise to the fight against the heretics!

Today we are joined by Matte and Lucas, our Art Director and Associate Art Director, to chat a bit about how we visualised this new class in Darktide.

Take it away guys! 

“As a huge Warhammer fan myself, getting the opportunity to explore something from the Adeptus Mechanicus faction was very exciting”

• Lucas

We already touched upon the fact that the entire Darktide team has been waiting for a chance to add an Adeptus Mechanicus themed class to the game for a long time, and for many of us this really is a dream come true.
The ritualistic elements of this faction, combined with their technology is something we find really interesting, and getting to pour all of our combined knowledge and ideas into this has been such a fun journey. It’s been great to collaborate together with Games Workshop to make sure we get the look and feel of these warriors just right. 

We realised early that if we are doing an Adeptus Mechanicus class, it would be represented by the Skitarii, as they make the most sense, both for the power level of the Inquisitorial Warband, but also from a good gameplay experience perspective. 

“I think this is the closest we have been to the core of Warhammer 40.000 for a class in the game” 

• Matte

Since the Skitarii are so iconic for Warhammer 40.000, we knew that this would be an immense task to represent in the game. Not only did we want to honor the lore, but we also wanted to make sure that the class ticked all the boxes, being represented correctly and fun to play!

Skitarii headgear concept

Skitarii backpack concept

One of the most interesting (and important) parts of the Skitarii is the blend between human and machine. The Skitarii are at their core humans, but they have been augmented by bionics to better suit the battlefield conditions they are faced with. Their limbs have been upgraded to mechanical ones, and their faces are covered in different optical enhancements and other gruesome details, all to make them better warriors. We thought a lot on how to represent this, and we hope that when you get to see the coming reveals, you can see how much care and consideration went into this.

Bionic arm concept 

The bionics themselves have been very fun to work on. Since we have always hoped to bring this class to the game, we have consciously not added too much of these to the cosmetics of the other classes. We felt that if we ever get the chance to visualise the Adeptus Mechanicus as a player class, that was going to be the time to go all out on this.
And that time is finally here!

“This has been a project long vision for the team, and I was excited for us to finalise this class”

• Matte

Another really cool thing to work on was their iconic weaponry and adding some of them to the game. It is always a challenge to take something from the tabletop game and bring it to life. The weapons are front and center in Darktide, so it’s something we take great pride in trying to figure out how to represent in the best way possible.

Phosphor Blast Pistol firing & reload concept 

Together with Games Workshop, we always try to make the weapons believable, especially the ranged ones. A lot of work goes into trying to figure out how parts move, how the reload mechanism works and how the weapon acts as you pull the trigger. Not to mention the sound and VFX of the shots.

The weapons of the Adeptus Mechanicus are works of art, and we spent a lot of time making sure that this is also shown. The blend between high-tech, ornate wood work and fine metals make them really stand out. We thought along the lines of making them feel both archaic and advanced at the same time. 

Galvanic Rifle Concept 

One good example of this is the Galvanic Rifle. We took the existing concept art, the look of the miniatures themselves and then mixed this with references of how historical weapons work and sprinkled the advanced technology of the Adeptus Mechanicus on top.  This all blends together to make the weapon you will see in the game. It’s a long process to get everything right, but a very rewarding one when it’s done.

“There is also the gameplay aspect of it, we want to make sure the weapons look and act in a way that makes sense for the player while using them”

• Matte

Another huge task was to visualise the room where you will create your player character. It’s the inner sanctum of the old Adeptus Mechanicus facility that Hadron Omega-7-7 has gotten access to, and it is here standard Skitarii are upgraded into the Alpha Primus variant. 

Skitarii Alpha Primus character creator ideas 

There is so much detail that has gone into this. First and foremost we wanted the mood of it to be just right. In the center there is this giant machine, the main component of the upgrade process, but the room is also filled with censer smoke and candles. We really tried to nail the feel of this being both a machine and ritual chamber. 

Skitarii human parts concept

It is here you will see the full display of the gruesome nature of the Skitarii. Suspended in the middle will be a disfigured torso and head that is the core of your character, and you get to pick the mechanical limbs and other details for it. We wanted it to feel like you are creating your very own Skitarii. 

“The hood, the face and the bionic limbs are so iconic” 

• Lucas

Much of this will then be concealed by the hood and robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus when you are done. And since you also get to pick what Forge World your Skitarii initially came from, these come in some different colors to tie it all together.

Forge World color variations (Mars, Ryza & Branx Minor)

That’s as much as we will go into today, all in all this has been a very challenging, but rewarding, process for us, and we have so much to share with you in the upcoming weeks! 

If you want to know more about the character customization, make sure to tune in next week as we will really deep dive into this. But for now, this is us signing off.

The Skitarii Alpha Primus class will be available on the 23rd of June, but you can already wishlist it now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4355570/Warhammer_40000_Darktide__Skitarii_Class/https://store.steampowered.com/app/4355580/Warhammer_40000_Darktide__Skitarii_Class_Deluxe_Edition/Thanks to Matte and Lucas for sharing their thoughts and experience on the visual design of the new class, and thanks to all of you for reading! 

Praise the Omnissiah!

See you at the Mourningstar!

- The Darktide team