Darktide Spillway Guide: Branching Paths and Best Loadout

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's free Depths of the Damned update went live on September 29, bringing Patch 1.13.0, a new three-mission Story Mini-Campaign, and the game's first mission built around branching paths. If you're queuing into the new content tonight, here's what's actually in the update, how the new Spillway mission's routing works, and how to gear up before you reach whatever is waiting at the end of it.

01What Depths of the Damned Adds to Darktide

Depths of the Damned is a free content drop for every Darktide owner, detailed in Fatshark's official Patch 1.13.0 patch notes. The headline addition is Terrors in the Depths, a three-mission story campaign that starts on the existing Consignment Yard and Enclavum Baross maps before finishing on a brand-new level, Spillway. Alongside the campaign, Fatshark shipped a wave of class balance changes across every archetype (Ogryn, Zealot, Psyker, Veteran, Arbites, Hive Scum and Skitarius), a Golden Toughness quality-of-life change, general weapon balance adjustments, and six new weapons split across three new families and three new marks of existing weapon types.

None of this costs anything extra — it's a straight patch on top of the base game, so anyone who owns Darktide can queue for Spillway as soon as they've cleared the two earlier missions in the mini-campaign.

02Where Terrors in the Depths Fits in Your Run Order

Terrors in the Depths isn't a separate menu tab — it's a themed run of three missions you queue for in order: Consignment Yard, then Enclavum Baross, then Spillway. Both of the first two maps already existed in Darktide's rotation, so returning players don't need to relearn them; what's new is that finishing them in sequence sets up the payoff on Spillway. If your group only has time for one mission tonight and wants to see the new content, you still need to clear (or already have cleared) the first two legs before Spillway's branch points and boss reveal are in play, so plan your queue accordingly rather than jumping straight to the new map from the mission board.

03Spillway: Darktide's First Branching Mission

Spillway sends your strike team into the sewers beneath the Torrent, Hive Tertium's water recycling facility and the domain of the Water Cartel and the Ragged King. Fatshark's official framing, from the patch notes: "The Ragged King is losing Water Cartel members to something lurking in the warren of sewers beneath the ancient dam. Get down there, clear out the Traitorous Sixth and deal with whatever has made its lair down there."

What makes Spillway different from every other Darktide map is routing. According to Fatshark's own level-design dev blog, this is the first mission in the game built around genuine branching paths rather than a single, fixed critical path. The level also escalates visually as you descend — the deeper you go, the more the environment is consumed by Nurgle corruption, moving from ordinary sewer tunnels to fleshy, pus-slicked architecture the developers describe as increasingly "organic."

04How to Navigate the Branch Points

Spillway has two branch points. The first is a two-way split; the second, further in, is a three-way choice. At each one, your squad needs to find a symbol left at a Moebian 6th outpost — Fatshark says this marking points toward the intended, safer route through that section.

Taking the marked path is the lower-risk option. Going off-path is intentionally harder: expect extra traps, locked doors and additional objectives standing between you and the way forward. Fatshark's Senior Level Designer was explicit that this isn't meant to punish exploration outright — the wrong paths are simply built to cost you more time and resources, not to end the run. Every branch, whichever you pick, eventually funnels back into the same convergence point later in the level, so there's no way to permanently lock yourself out of finishing the mission.

Practically, that means a team low on ammo, med supplies or Toughness should stick to the marked route. A team that wants a tougher fight (and whatever bonus loot the harder path holds) can afford to go looking for the symbol's opposite direction, as long as everyone agrees before the branch, since backtracking mid-fight is far costlier than picking together at the fork.

05Best Loadouts for the New Weapons

Fatshark's weapons dev blog confirms six new options spread across the roster. Three are entirely new weapon families:

• Krourk Mk IIa Cruncher — a two-handed Hammer for Ogryn, built for crowd control against Nurgle's denser packs of infected.
• Huntsman's Shotgun Accatran Mk III — a pump-action shotgun available to every human class except Arbites, good for close-range burst against the Traitorous Sixth's melee-heavy squads.
• Thugshot Lorenz Mk VII — an Ogryn-only slug shotgun that trades spread for single-target punch.

The other three are new marks of existing weapon types: the Krourk Mk VII Crusher (a Hammer for Zealot and Arbites), the Krourk Mk IV Double-Barrelled Shotgun, and the Gromm Mk I Battle Maul paired with the Mk V Slab Shield for Ogryn players who want a melee-and-block combo built specifically around Spillway's corridor fighting.

If you're heading into Spillway for the first time, lean toward whichever new weapon lets your class hold a choke point — the sewer layout funnels enemies through tight tunnels before every branch, and the Ogryn's new Hammer and shotgun options are built exactly for that kind of fight. Ogryn players get the most direct upgrade path: the Krourk Mk IIa Cruncher and Thugshot Lorenz Mk VII both favor planting yourself at a tunnel mouth and letting the corridor do the crowd control for you, while the Gromm Mk I Battle Maul and Slab Shield combo is the safer pick if your squad is going off the marked route and expects to eat more incoming fire from an unrevealed side objective.

Zealot and Arbites players should look at the Krourk Mk VII Crusher first — it's the only new Hammer variant available to either class, and Hammers already carry good stagger against the armored Traitorous Sixth troopers guarding the Water Cartel's lost members. Veteran, Psyker and Hive Scum don't get a brand-new family this patch, but the Huntsman's Shotgun Accatran Mk III and Krourk Mk IV Double-Barrelled Shotgun are both open to most human classes, and either one covers the short-to-mid range gap that Spillway's flooded tunnels tend to force on ranged builds.

How to Reach the Prophet of Decay in Spillway

1. 1Queue for Consignment Yard first; Spillway only unlocks as the third stop in Fatshark's new three-mission Story Mini-Campaign, after Consignment Yard and Enclavum Baross.0:00
2. 2Once Spillway begins, follow the Water Cartel's tunnels down; the level gets visibly more Nurgle-corrupted the deeper your squad goes, per Fatshark's official level-design breakdown.2:00
3. 3Look for a symbol left at a Moebian 6th outpost — Fatshark says it points toward the safer route through the first branch.6:00
4. 4Take the marked path for the safer route, or go off-path if your squad wants harder resistance; Fatshark has confirmed wrong turns add traps, locked doors and extra tasks but are never a dead end.8:00
5. 5Fight through Traitorous Sixth forces guarding the Ragged King's lost Water Cartel members, then look for the second, three-way branch marker deeper in the sewers.12:00
6. 6All three routes eventually converge on the same arena, so pick based on your team's ammo and Toughness reserves rather than a 'best' path — none is officially confirmed as easier overall.15:00
7. 7Loot every cache you can reach; Fatshark has intentionally withheld what the boss fight demands, so bank ammunition, grenades and Medicae supplies before pushing further.20:00
8. 8The Psyker of Nurgle waits at the end of the line. Fatshark has not revealed its attacks publicly, so open with ranged pressure, keep Toughness topped up, and be ready to adapt — this is one boss you'll learn by fighting, not by walkthrough.22:00

06Preparing for the Prophet of Decay

Every path through Spillway leads to the same reveal: a new boss fight, exclusive to this level, against an enemy Fatshark calls the Prophet of Decay. The developers' own teaser text is deliberately thin on detail: "A terrifyingly powerful Psyker of Nurgle… Are you ready to face the Prophet of Decay?"

That vagueness is intentional, not an oversight on Fatshark's part. The level-design team said outright that they don't want to spoil the encounter: "we won't cover the boss battle today, since we don't want to spoil too much," and later, "we won't go into the fight itself as we want players to get to experience this themselves." Fatshark has not published the Prophet of Decay's attack patterns, phases, or any classification of what type of enemy it is, so treat any specific mechanic you read elsewhere as unconfirmed until the community verifies it in the mission itself.

What you can control going in is your kit. Bank grenades, Medicae supplies and ranged ammunition rather than burning them exploring branch paths, keep Toughness topped up heading into the convergence point, and pick a loadout — including one of the six new weapons above — that gives your class room to disengage and reposition if the fight demands it. Since Fatshark has confirmed this is a Psyker-type threat tied to Nurgle's corruption, a squad with strong ranged pressure and someone able to peel adds is a safer starting assumption than going in expecting a straightforward melee brawl.

It's worth resisting the urge to look up a full breakdown before you play it. Fatshark built Spillway's ending specifically to be discovered blind, and because the studio hasn't confirmed attack names, phases, or a weak point, anything more detailed than "come prepared for a ranged Psyker fight" that you find elsewhere is either a guess or a spoiler pulled from someone else's first clear. The safest approach is the same one veteran Darktide players already use for any new content drop: clear the level once as a scouting run with a balanced team composition, bank what you learn, then go back in with a loadout tuned to whatever you actually saw.

“The wrong paths should be hard, but not impossible.”Karl, Senior Level Designer at Fatshark

07Depths of the Damned Patch Notes and Balance Changes

Outside of the new campaign, Patch 1.13.0 reworks Golden Toughness and adjusts every playable class, so expect your usual Spillway-ready build to feel slightly different even before you touch the new weapons. Fatshark's full patch notes break the changes down class by class, alongside general weapon balance tweaks and a list of cosmetic and stability fixes. If you're planning a serious push through Terrors in the Depths, read through the class-specific notes for your main before you queue — several of the changes affect Toughness generation, which matters a lot more once you're deep in Spillway's corridors with limited healing.

Fatshark also put out an official release trailer for the update, embedded below, if you want a look at the new environment before dropping in.

Fatshark's official Depths of the Damned release trailer, uploaded September 29, 2026.