Darktide’s New Skitarii Class Cracks Open a 40k Lore Mystery
Fatshark’s newest class for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has done more than expand the co-op shooter’s roster — it has forced Games Workshop to finally settle a decades-old fan debate about how one of the Adeptus Mechanicus’ most iconic weapons actually works. The Skitarii Class launched on June 23 as a paid DLC across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and in building it, Fatshark’s designers had to invent an answer to a question the tabletop lore had simply never addressed: how does the Skitarii’s signature Galvanic Rifle reload?
What’s in the Skitarii Class DLC
Darktide, the co-op Warhammer 40,000 shooter from Vermintide developer Fatshark, has launched its newest class, the Skitarii, bringing the game’s total roster of playable characters to seven, unlockable through the latest DLC priced at $11.99 / €11.99 across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. A pricier Deluxe Edition adds cosmetic extras, and the announcement lists the Deluxe Edition at $18.99 / €18.99.
Players take on the role of the Skitarii Alpha Primus, and the Skitarii Alpha Primus are special operatives, favoured soldiers of the Machine God, blessed with mental and physical augmentations beyond those of their fellow Skitarii, with a non-linear talent tree enabling unprecedented levels of build customisation. That tree isn’t the usual top-down layout either — it is instead a wheel, or cog, that starts in the middle and lets players customise their play experience by going in different directions, making the Skitarii Alpha Primus easier to really make their own.
The class brings an entirely new arsenal exclusive to it. Skitarii have access to an all-encompassing host of legendary weapons fiercely guarded by the armourers of the Adeptus Mechanicus, including legendary Arc weapons, dazzling Phosphor Blasters, slicing Transonic Blades and high-powered Galvanic Rifles. Combat support comes courtesy of hovering companions: the class includes a non-linear talent tree and supports different playstyles including ranged, melee, and electricity-based builds, and can be supported by up to three servo skull companions that can hack, revive allies, and use flame-based attacks.
Solving the Galvanic Rifle’s reload puzzle
The Galvanic Rifle carries a peculiar design pedigree in Warhammer 40k tabletop art: visually, it resembles a flintlock with a glowing blue cylinder mounted on its undercarriage, a cool combination of old and new, but it’s never been entirely clear how it reloads — does it take a clip, or is it a revolver rifle? That ambiguity had simmered in the fan community for years, as nobody knew how the Skitarii’s most iconic rifle reloaded, a topic that’s been debated by many Mechanicus-loving subreddits, because Games Workshop never set that detail in stone.
Fatshark’s lead designer Victor Magnuson confirmed the studio had to work the answer out from scratch with Games Workshop’s blessing. “It took us a while to figure out how they actually work and Games Workshop didn’t know either,” says lead designer Victor Magnuson, adding that Games Workshop had never looked at the weapon in this type of detail before either, so it was something they worked out together to figure out how it would actually function at this level of fidelity.
The solution the two studios landed on blends period firearm mechanics with sci-fi flourish. “We came up with this idea where there’s a clip of actual bullets that you put in,” explains Magnuson, “and then the coil thing on the bottom is where the galvanic charge comes from. This is the type of weapon we’ve really wanted to do in Darktide for a long time. I’m so happy with how it’s ended up, it’s super satisfying to use.” The visual result draws directly on real-world firearms history, with the reload animation modelled on the classic clip-fed rifle look and sound many shooter fans will instantly recognise from the M1 Garand.
A first look under the robes
The rifle wasn’t the only piece of Skitarii iconography Fatshark had to invent from a blank slate. The character creator strips away the robes entirely for the first time, and Darktide’s Associate Art Director Lucas Örström described the challenge in similar terms to the weapon puzzle: nobody had ever seen a Skitarii naked before either, so “that was a mystery which we needed to solve,” Lucas Örström, Darktide’s Associate Art Director, notes. The pallid, augment-laden figure now visible during character creation marks one of the more striking lore reveals to come out of a class DLC in the game’s history.
Beyond the reload and the character model, Fatshark used the opportunity to flesh out Skitarii identity more broadly through customisation. Players can customize their Skitarii through material types, augment patterns, Forge World origin, four voice sets, and adjustable voice modulation.
Dark Rites event and new Vanguard enemies land alongside the class
The Skitarii launch wasn’t a standalone drop. The launch is accompanied by additional Darktide content: the Heretical Artifacts live event tasks players with recovering stolen relics and choosing between two factions that provide different bonuses, with the Adherents of Saint Messelina increasing coherency radius, attack speed, and movement speed, while the Scourge of the Faithless focuses on increased damage, burn damage, and burn duration. The update also adds Expeditions content, including a new scavenge zone and a version of Atoma’s badlands set at dawn.
Two fresh enemy archetypes round out the patch. Two new enemy types, the Scab Vanguard and Dreg Vanguard, have also been added, described as shield-bearing human enemies that are faster and more agile than Ogryn shield units. Fatshark’s leadership framed the update as a direct response to the community. Fatshark CEO and co-founder Martin Wahlund said community feedback had been “instrumental” to Darktide’s development, adding that the studio was looking forward to seeing players use servo skulls and experiment with new builds.
Third class DLC arrives as Darktide keeps expanding
The Skitarii marks Fatshark’s third paid class expansion for the four-year-old title. The Skitarii marks the third major Darktide DLC since the game launched, following the Arbites class and the more recent Hive Scum class, and going into 2026, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a much stronger, more layered and cohesive package than it was at launch, thanks to a steady stream of quality of life improvements alongside new content such as the roguelike Mortis Trials mode, more weapons, and an expanded endgame.
Reception has been mixed but largely positive on the class’s design philosophy, even if not everyone loves the support-heavy playstyle. Reviewers have noted the Skitarii breaks from Darktide’s usual kill-or-die formula by leaning into utility and squad support rather than raw damage output, a deliberate gamble that trades power fantasy for something closer to genuine teamwork — a shift that seems to be paying dividends in how the class is being received among the game’s veteran playerbase, even as some players push back that it could stand to hit harder.
For Australian and New Zealand Darktide squads, the class is available through the same storefronts already used for the base game and prior class DLC — Steam, PlayStation Store and the Microsoft Store — with no reported regional delay, meaning local Rejects can jump into Hive Tertium’s tunnels as a toaster-worshipping cyborg the same day as everyone else.
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