Darktide: Depths of the Damned Update Arrives With New Boss

01What's in the Depths of the Damned Update

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's Depths of the Damned update is live today, September 29, rolling out on PC at 14:00 CEST alongside Patch 1.13.0. The free update adds a new story mini-campaign, a boss-fight mission called Spillway, six new weapons, and a balance pass touching talent trees and weapon tuning across every class. Developer and publisher Fatshark confirmed the same content is following on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, with no separate purchase required.

02The New Spillway Mission and Terrors of the Deep Campaign

The headline addition is Terrors of the Deep, a three-mission story campaign that plays out across Consignment Yard and Enclavum Baross before ending in Spillway, a brand-new map. Spillway sends the Strike Team into the depths of the Torrent, Tertium's water recycling facility, to help the Ragged King — leader of the Water Cartel — root out a spreading corruption. Fatshark says the level introduces branching paths that haven't appeared in Darktide before: warbands hit two decision points where they must read an in-level symbol to pick the safer route, and picking wrong triggers extra ambushes, locked doors or trapped rooms. Both the symbol and the tunnel layout randomize between playthroughs, so memorizing one run won't help the next, and teams that split up can see the harder path their squadmates are struggling through without being able to help until they regroup.

03Meet the Prophet of Decay

Spillway ends in a fight against the Prophet of Decay, a corrupted Psyker who has made the flooded tunnels beneath the Torrent his domain. Fatshark has kept most specifics under wraps ahead of launch, confirming only that the boss is unique to this mission and is steeped in Nurgle's influence — consistent with the fleshy, pus-covered set dressing the studio built for the level's back half, including organism-like props the art team modeled after Nurgle's tabletop miniatures.

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

04Six New Weapons Join the Arsenal

The update adds six new weapons split between new families and new marks. Ogryn Cruncher, Huntsman's Shotgun and Ogryn Thugshot are entirely new weapon families, while Crusher Krourk Mk VII, Double-Barrelled Shotgun Krourk Mk IV, Gromm Mk I Battle Maul and Mk V Slab Shield are new marks for existing patterns. The Krourk Mk IIa Cruncher, an Ogryn-only two-handed sledgehammer, stacks up to four charges of bonus Melee Strength the longer you hold a heavy or special attack before releasing it, rewarding players who time their swings instead of mashing. The Crusher Krourk Mk VII trades that charge mechanic for a faster, cooldown-gated Special that triggers a shockwave on the next hit, giving Zealot and Arbites players a more aggressive alternative to the existing Indignatus mark.

05Balance Changes: Talent Trees and Golden Toughness

Patch 1.13.0 reworks the talent trees for the four original classes — Veteran, Zealot, Psyker and Ogryn — cutting down the number of pure stat nodes and adding more build-defining choices, with extra attention paid to what sets Veteran and Zealot apart from the rest. The newer Skitarius class also gets targeted talent adjustments. Several melee weapons change too, led by the Thunder Hammer, and Fatshark is revisiting Golden Toughness, a mechanic it flagged back in May as needing a rework for both player builds and the game's future design space. Existing loadouts may need minor rearranging after the patch since tree layouts shifted, though Fatshark describes the changes as partial resets rather than full wipes of accumulated talent points.

06Live Event and New Cosmetic Rotation

To mark the launch, Fatshark is running the Allies and Adversaries live event through October 13: playing any mission in the Terror in the Depths campaign earns Plasteel, Ordo Dockets, Diamantine and a new Insignia. A new Regimental Rotation, Death Korps of Krieg 158th, also joins the Commodore's Vestures premium cosmetic store today.

Fatshark's September 15 reveal trailer for Depths of the Damned, posted two weeks ahead of today's launch.

The free update Depths of the Damned is bringing new weapons to Darktide! Click the link in the comments to find out more about the weapons, how they play and more!

— Warhammer 40K: Darktide (@Darktide40K), Sept 16, 2026 on X

07Where This Fits in Darktide's Live-Service Roadmap

Depths of the Damned follows a steady cadence of named content drops since Darktide launched on PC in November 2022, including the recent Shambling Horrors live event and a run of 1.12.x hotfixes. Fatshark has treated the game as an ongoing service rather than a finished product, and this update's mix of a new story mission, a class-wide balance pass and free weapons mirrors the shape of its last several major patches rather than introducing a paid expansion.

08How to Get the Depths of the Damned Update

Depths of the Damned is free for every Warhammer 40,000: Darktide owner, so there's no separate purchase required. It's rolling out now on Steam, with Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions following through their own platform updates. Owners of the base game on any platform get the new mission, weapons and balance changes automatically once their version updates, and the full numeric breakdown of every talent and weapon change is posted in Fatshark's official patch notes.