During the Warhammer 40,000 Skulls 2025 event, Fatshark announced that on June 23, 2025, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide would be getting its first paid DLC class – the Arbites.
The Arbites are police officers of the Imperium of Man who strive to enforce its laws and punish criminals/heretics who dare to defy them by shooting them in the face or condemning them to life in prison.
The Arbites class's unique feature is that they command a weaponised cyborg hound called the Cyber-Mastiff in battle, and Fatshark (the game's developer and publisher) has recently released a blog post on Reddit detailing how the gameplay of this killer-dog will pan out.
According to the blog, the Cyber-Mastiff will act as an AI companion for players who take the Arbites class, that's always out on the field. When enemies approach, the Cyber-Mastiff will attack them on its own or can be commanded by the player to attack specific targets by pinging them twice.
Cyber-Mastiffs can also pin regular human enemies to the ground, stagger larger Ogryn enemies, and help rescue their master if that player gets pinned by an enemy Pox-Hound or a Mutant.
“And then, of course, you can command the dog to attack something else, like if it’s attacking a Berserker on the ground and you want it to chase down a sniper, you can do that.”
Gunnar, Game Designer at Fatshark
The cool part about Cyber-Mastiffs is that they don't take any damage from enemies or players, so you don't have to worry about them dying in battle. Additionally, their abilities can be upgraded by spending points in the Arbites' class talent tree dedicated to Cyber-Mastiffs.
However, suppose a player doesn't want to have Cyber-Mastiff around. In that case, they can dismiss it and spend points in special talent trees that augment the Arbites' abilities to compensate for not having their Cyber-Mastiff around.
Sic them boy in the name of the God Emperor!
Imperial cops and cyborg dogs aren't the only new features coming to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, because on June 23, 2025, the game will also be receiving a massive free update.
This update will add more story context to missions, an improved introduction to Tertium for new players, a reworked difficulty progression system based on player skill, and mission board changes that allow all missions to be displayed at every difficulty level.
In short, this update and the upcoming Arbites class will be the perfect jumping-on point for new players for me. Despite being a long-time fan of Warhammer 40,000 videogames since the classic Dawn of War RTS series, I have personally held off on playing this game for a long time since I read my colleague, Samuel Tolbert's, review of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide in 2022.
While the game had satisfying visceral combat and incredible visuals that wonderfully brought the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000 to life, the performance and balance issues it had at launch left a lot to be desired.
Three years later, Darktide has received significant fixes to those aforementioned bugbears, improved the general gameplay flow and class balance, and is now about to get its biggest update yet.
With this changes coming, I can't wait to finally give this Xbox Game Pass hidden gem a go and unleash my Cyber-Mastiff on heretical criminals and Nurgle Daemons alike when the Arbites class and free update launches for the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC (via Windows and Steam) versions of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide on June 23, 2025.
