Warhammer 40,000: Darktide patch 1.12.0 adds new enemies and expeditions overhaul alongside paid Skitarii class

Fatshark dropped patch 1.12.0 for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide on June 23, bringing a free content update alongside the paid Skitarii class DLC. The patch adds new enemies, a reworked expeditions mode, and a handful of quality-of-life changes.

The new enemies are Scab and Dreg Vanguards — melee bruisers with breakable shields designed to make horde-clearing harder. Fatshark notes the Scab variant carries a tougher, more durable shield but spawns in smaller numbers, while Dreg Vanguards are more numerous but carry flimsy handmade shields that break faster. Either way, even a shieldless Vanguard hits harder than a standard grunt. On the expeditions side, the mode now opens at dawn with a new scavenge zone, sites of interest featuring electric hazards, and a new Deadsider Sanctuary location. The personal tech-remnant pool is gone — replaced by a shared team pool that shrinks whenever a player dies, though you can recover some of the loss by rescuing a downed teammate. Hog-tied players now show up on the Auspex, too.

The Skitarii class itself is paid DLC, and Fatshark put real work into making it feel authentic to the Warhammer 40k lore. Lead designer Victor Magnuson told PC Gamer that figuring out how the Galvanic Rifle — the Skitarii's most iconic weapon — actually reloads was a genuine puzzle. Games Workshop had never examined the weapon at that level of detail, so Fatshark worked with them directly to work it out. The solution they landed on draws from a gaming classic: the M1 Garand. The Galvanic Rifle uses a physical bullet clip fed into the weapon while a separate coil on the undercarriage handles the galvanic charge. Magnuson says the team has wanted to build a weapon with that kind of reload feel in Darktide for a long time. The class also comes with Transonic Blades — normally associated with Sicarian Ruststalkers in the tabletop lore — reimagined here as a sword-and-dagger combo.

The Skitarii DLC and patch 1.12.0 are both live on Steam now. The full patch notes cover considerably more ground than the highlights above, so anyone invested in the expeditions mode especially is worth digging into the official notes directly.