Darktide Character Creation & Backstory Explained

Explore Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's character creation, including choosing your look, voice, prisoner outfit, and selecting a backstory that reflects your character's origins and personality.

When you load into Darktide, after selecting your class, you can create your character’s appearance with default options for faces, hairstyles, and facial accessories. Following this, you can choose your voice, prisoner outfit, and backstory. The prisoner outfits are simply the clothes worn on your ship before missions. Backstories and voices influence your character’s voicelines and how they are delivered by the voice actors. These choices are largely for roleplaying purposes but do contribute to your character’s backstory and their personality within the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

After finalizing your character’s look, you can personalize their backstory. Some options reflect possible homeworlds, adding depth to your character’s story. The available backstories are:

• Crucis - Shrine World, second world of the Moebian Domain space sector.
• Messelina Gloriana - Small forest moon, also a shrine world.
• Rocyria - Small agricultural world, often insulted by inhabitants of the space sub-sector.
• Branx Magna - Soaring industrial planet, most densely populated in the Moebian Domain.
• Incron - Massive Ocean World, primarily used as a fleet base for humanity.
• Cadia - Recently destroyed fortress world, inhabited by Necron Tombs and the Militarum after the Chaos invasion.
• Mornax - Hazardous mining planet with a strong, dour population.
• Pavane - Small, populated planet rich with natural resources, with its destiny ahead of itself.

All these planets are part of the 40k lore. Cadia is the most notable, a famous fortress planet destroyed in 40k lore. Choosing Cadia means your character was part of the war against Chaos, embodying the saying, ‘Cadia broke before the Militarum’. This option grants exclusive voice lines for the Veteran Guardsman, reflecting their service on Cadia. In-game, your Darktide backstory will reflect your veteran status on the planet. For example, a Veteran Guardsman from Cadia might speak with the authority of a rifleman who survived the planet's fall. Cadia not being part of the sub-sector adds narrative depth to how your character transitioned from Cadian service to becoming a prisoner fighting Chaos loyalists.

The other planets are located within the same space sub-sector, a region generally depicted as relatively safe within the human-controlled universe. Their lore primarily stems from the 30k millennia and the Horus Heresy, with each world having played a role and eventually being liberated. Each planet contributes to the humankind space empire in some capacity, though these details are mostly lore-based and have minimal impact on gameplay or voice line roleplay.

Furthermore, your character’s personality traits are determined by their voice selection. These traits influence what your character says during gameplay, allowing for hostile, peaceful, or professional dialogue. These affect dialogue options when characters discuss random events, such as approaching hordes of Chaos. This is the most important choice you make and cannot be changed later on. Therefore, select a voice and personality that you prefer and commit to it.