[Update #2]: Darktide's Update 1.1.10 is aiming to add Cross-play and an elite-focused modifier for missions.

[Update]: Darktide's Rejects Unite patch has now arrived, and unfortunately it has done so alongside some serious technical issues.

In order to help tide us over until the seemingly massive update lands at some point later this month, the Darktide team has now released Patch #9. The highlights include a new batch of free cosmetics, a rebalance of enemy spawns in Heresy and Damnation difficulties, tweaks for the Plague Ogryn and Beast of Nurgle bosses, as well as a bunch of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.

First and foremost, in order to unlock the new cosmetics you'll need to complete a brand new set of Penances (achievements). These are thankfully much easier to unlock than the previous batch and can be earned by simply playing the game in a team-orientated fashion. Best of all, if you don't really care about all of this cosmetic nonsense, you can also remove your shirt and go into battle with only faith as your armor!

[Update]: Whelp! It looks like the bare-chested look was a bug, and one that the newest hotfix has unfortunately rectified.

As for the previous batch of Penances, the more obnoxious ones have been made exclusive to private matches, which is a questionable fix to say the least. On one hand this means that players won't essentially troll their teammates while trying to complete some of the more ridiculous ones, but on the other hand Darktide doesn't give you any way to find like-minded players, so all newcomers will now have to rummage through random Discords looking for people to help them out. Needless to say, this isn't ideal, so I can only hope Fatshark will revisit the old Penances with the next big update.

In an effort to spice up the higher difficulties, as well as to shift the balance more towards melee enemies, Patch #9 has now rebalanced enemy spawns in Heresy and Damnation. Maulers are now not only more frequent but also more resistant to stagger, there are more variations of Elite patrols found throughout the levels, and if my experience with the update is any judge, there's also a fair bit more Elite enemies in general. Fun stuff!

What's not fun, however, is the massive performance problems you'll encounter during your first few matches due to some sort of issue with the caching system. The good news is that these problems will fade away after a few matches, so all you have to do is power through the initial stuttering and you'll be good to go.

The final thing worth mentioning is the "WarhammerFest" code. You have until May 18th, 2023 to use it on the official website in order to get a couple of reskinned cosmetic helmets. They're not all that fancy, but it's hard to complain about free stuff!

Have fun hunting the new achievements, and if you're interested in all of the details before diving in, you can find the full list of changes over at the Fatshark forums.