Darktide's new Hive Scum class can transform into a nigh-on immortal John Wick with infinite bullets—it's no wonder Fatshark's nerfed it before release

"Why do those guns just look like normal earth glocks?" Our Senior Editor, Robin says, as I show him a video of me blasting enemies with my Hive Scum's 'Dual Stub Pistols'. They might not look like the most 40k weapons ever, but they do play to a particular fantasy, i.e. I am John Wick, an unstoppable bullet storm gun-fu-ing my way through Tertium Hive. I'm a stimm-hopped gunslinger sprinting and sliding at 30mph as I splatter the walls with heretic brains.

Let me explain: Darktide's new Hive Scum class is rather good. Or at least, it was rather good. It's still pretty good, but in the preview build I played (before Fatshark understandably nerfed its ranged capabilities) it was hands-down the best ranged class in the game, power-creeping Veterans so hard that Creed was likely spinning in his grave, or whatever mint-condition packaging Trazyn put him in.

Though the Hive Scum gains enhanced dodges, melee immunity while sliding, and complete immunity on ranged critical hits, the real crux of the matter lies with a single ability—Enhanced Desperado. This lets your scum enter a state where they are immune to all ranged attacks, gain faster sprint speed, and don't use ammo when reloading. Your HUD will highlight close ranged targets in blue, and if you blast them, you'll prolong the state, letting you kill your way through corridors and tunnels at turbo speed.

The cooldown for this used to be 30 seconds and you could keep it going for an absurdly long amount of time provided you killed those blue marked enemies. Frankly, even with its cooldown now booped to 45 seconds and your ability to prolong it having been massively nerfed, it's still a very strong ability. I'll certainly mourn for how fun and game-breaking it felt, but I think it's ultimately a good thing Fatshark is at least considering the potential power creep of these new classes, especially after the Arbites felt, well… better than just about everything else.

You can see a full run of pre-nerf gunslinger Hive Scum below, though the only things that have changed here are the duration for Enhanced Desperado, so it gives you a good sense of how the ranged archetype plays anyway:

All of this is not to say that the Hive Scum doesn't power creep a bit in other areas, though. Their Rampage! ability and Adrenaline Frenzy keystone makes them an extremely powerful melee combatant, especially in combination with their enhanced dodges. They also have support potential with their Stimm Supply and ability to infect enemies with Chem Toxin.

Each Hive Scum's dedicated 'Stimm Lab' tree gives them an unlimited stimm on cooldown which can grant some extremely powerful effects at max level when it's active. Some of your stimm options include:

• Kalma: +50% cooldown regeneration
• Spur: +20% attack speed, +50% weapon swap speed, -50% stamina cost, grants stun and slowdown immunity
• Barrage: -16% damage taken, +100% toughness regeneration, replenish 25% toughness

At max upgrade level, these typically have a cooldown of 44 seconds, but beyond that, you can use this stimm as much as you want. With the Stimm Supply ability, you can drop a Medicrate that replicates your equipped Stimm Lab effects for the whole team, making for a strong and customisable support ability, albeit somewhat lacking in damage reduction versus the Arbites Nuncio Aquila or Psyker Force Dome.

As mentioned, the Hive Scum also has access to a fun DoT effect called Chem Toxin. If you take the Coated Weaponry passive on the bottom righthand tree, your melee attacks will stack this effect. If you also take Targeted Toxin, you can reduce infected enemy damage by 15% and monsters by 30% (this used to be 50% but was also nerfed).

For a faster way to stack this DoT, you can also take the Bone Saw weapon—a chirurgeon's instrument coated in Chem Toxin—or the Needle Pistol, which also applies a special toxin that explodes enemies on death. Like most AdMech fans I was initially disappointed by the murder hobo reveal, but seeing the talent tree and abilities in action has brought me around to the Hive Scum—I still would've preferred something a little glitzier, but it's got a lot more build potential than I expected.

Hive Scum also comes with a selection of new hairstyles, full body tattoos, face paint, and you can also choose which Tertium gang you want to be a part of, either The Water Cartel, Tread Lightlies, Iron Riders, or The Show, each of which is linked to a different region of the hive and has its own colour scheme. This is represented in all of the Hive Scum cosmetics, letting you represent your chosen gang, or just wear whatever. Though I must admit, the Hive Scum cosmetics are, for lack of a better word, a bit basic.

They all kind of just make you look like a generic Fallout raider, which is disappointing considering each gang has its own style and backstory. The Show, for example, comes from the Carnival, so you'd expect something a bit showier. The Iron Riders are a gang about hopping mag-lev trains, so perhaps something more industrial would've worked there. It just seems like a wasted opportunity when Fatshark clearly wants us to roleplay our chosen gang in-game, to not give them each unique cosmetics or even touches of cosmetic flair that emphasize their identity.

I really hope the intention isn't to sell those more interesting gang-linked cosmetics in the store later, but I guess we'll see on that front, considering the Arbites still hasn't received additional skins. On the whole, though, I'm pleasantly surprised by the Hive Scum class. Do I think it's as strong aesthetically or thematically as the Arbites? No way in hell.

However, if you want more fun build potential in the game, including a highly mobile gunslinger archetype, Hive Scum isn't quite the doom and gloom dreg class many were expecting.