Darktide's Skitarii class is a support-first wildcard that also fills in 40k lore gaps

Fatshark has added the Skitarii as Darktide's latest class, and it's unlike anything the game has offered before — a support-oriented jack-of-all-trades that leans on teamwork rather than raw killing power. It's also quietly doing something interesting for Warhammer 40k lore.

The Skitarii is a cyborg warrior of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and building the class forced Fatshark to answer questions Games Workshop had never officially settled. Associate Art Director Lucas Örström confirms that nobody had ever depicted a Skitarii without their robes and augmetics before, so the studio had to figure out what one actually looks like underneath — the result is a pallid, heavily augmented near-corpse visible in character creation. Even the reload animation for the Skitarii's iconic rifle was unresolved lore, debated across Mechanicus-focused subreddits for years, because GW simply hadn't decided. Fatshark had to make the call. In terms of gameplay, the class brings a retractable claw arm, electric attacks, Servo-Skull companions for fire support and puzzle-solving, and the ability to revive allies from a distance. It's a toolkit built around keeping the team alive and functional rather than topping the kill counter.

Darktide launched in 2022 and has steadily expanded its roster beyond the original four classes, adding the Arbites and Hive Scum before the Skitarii. Each new class has pushed the game's identity in a different direction, but the Skitarii represents the sharpest departure yet — previous classes all lived or died on their ability to deal damage and stay alive solo. The Adeptus Mechanicus, the tech-priest faction the Skitarii serve, has always been one of 40k's more esoteric corners, full of deliberately obscure rituals, machine-worship, and half-human soldiers. Pulling that faction into a playable class gives Fatshark room to explore lore that even veteran 40k readers haven't fully mapped.

Not every player is clicking with the Skitarii's support-heavy playstyle — the class demands coherency and coordination in a game where many players default to aggressive solo runs — and the reviewer acknowledges it could use some tuning. That said, the verdict is that it's one of the best classes for playing through Darktide's campaign, especially for anyone who wants to feel genuinely useful to a team rather than just being the person who kills the most things. Whether Fatshark adjusts the numbers or not, the Skitarii signals that the studio is willing to experiment with class design in ways that go well beyond the standard damage-and-survive formula.