Darktide's Sisters Novitiate Class Lands December 7 With a Free Meltagun for Everyone

By CriticalPixel · 2026-11-12

Fatshark stopped teasing. The Sisters Novitiate are coming to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide on December 7, and the reveal arrived with a trailer, a live store page and a wishlist button instead of another roadmap slide. For a co-op shooter that spent its first year arguing with its own player base about crafting and progression, that is a confident way to close out 2026. The class is official, the date is locked, and the price is already public. No asterisk this time.

Sisters Novitiate fighting cultists in a dark hive city corridor in Warhammer 40,000 Darktide

What the Novitiate brings to the Mourningstar

The Novitiate is not a Zealot in a different habit. Fatshark built her around Faith instead of the usual blitz and combat ability pairing. You pick from six Acts of Faith, slot two at a time, and generate the resource through Devotions and Pledges inside the talent tree. The Neural Whip covers offense, the Icon of Purity and a set of prayers cover support, and the whole kit assumes you will manage a resource pool while a horde chews through your health bar. That is the widest design swing on a class since the Ogryn, and the first one that asks something genuinely new of a Darktide player in the middle of a fight.

The arsenal is where the fan service gets loud. The Condemnor Stakethrower pins cultists to walls with bolts, which is the most 40k sentence I have typed all month. Alongside it come the Ministorum Hand Flamer, the Mace of the Righteous, the Penitent Eviscerator, and a Novitiate Sword and Shield. PC Gamer flagged the Eviscerator as a chainsword Zealot mains will recognize on sight, and that overlap is the point. This class is aimed squarely at the people who have been asking for the Adepta Sororitas since before launch, and Fatshark is not pretending otherwise.

Her job on the team is closer to a bruiser with a support streak than a pure damage pick. The official description pitches battlefield control, enemy debuffs and keeping allies in the fight, with the strength sitting wherever the line is about to break. That reads like a class built for Auric and Havoc runs, where a squad that loses one player to a crusher patrol usually loses the run. Any two Acts of Faith plus a shield weapon suggests a character who can plant herself in a doorway and make the rest of the warband's job easier rather than louder.

The Meltagun is the actual headline

The class ships next to a free update that adds the Meltagun, the first in the game, usable by both the Novitiate and the Veteran. That detail carries more weight than any cosmetic. Darktide's weapon roster has been the quiet complaint for two years, and handing the most requested gun to a class everybody already owns softens the sting of a paid class. Fatshark says more detail on the free update is coming soon, which in practice means patch notes a week or so before launch. Until those land, treat the Meltagun as confirmed and its balance as entirely unknown.

A Sisters Novitiate warband member carrying a flamer and shield through Tertium

Twelve bucks, fourth class, same argument

The price is $11.99 or €11.99, and Fatshark describes the Novitiate as Darktide's fourth class DLC, which puts it in the same lane as the Skitarii. That consistency is either fair pricing or a subscription with extra steps, depending on how many hours you have logged this year. For a live service game that has never charged for a map, asking for the price of a decent lunch per class is defensible. Asking for it twice a year is the part that will start arguments in the Discord.

The Deluxe Edition adds a Cherub, a floating mechanical companion that exists purely to look unsettling behind your shoulder. Selling a class is one argument. Selling a cosmetic pet on top of it is a different one, and the warband will notice. The Steam page is live for wishlisting and still shows no price at all in the store itself, so the euro figure comes from Fatshark's own post rather than from a checkout screen. Nothing here is hidden, but nothing here is cheap either.

How the warband is taking it

Reaction is loud and mostly thrilled, with one honest qualifier attached. The official announcement post cleared two million likes inside its first two hours, and the replies split between people who have wanted the Sororitas in this game for years and people asking whether another class is the right way to spend the next patch cycle. Aia Amare posted a full rant about armored Joan of Arc energy, pauldron silhouettes and the fleur de lis, which is the most sincere endorsement the class could have asked for. Venris mostly sounded surprised that Fatshark is shipping a new class this soon after the last one. Call the mood positive with a price argument stapled to it, and note the sample is small because this news is only hours old.

The CriticalPixel take

The class looks like the right call. Darktide's best updates in 2026 have been the free ones, and the Depths of the Damned drop in September added a mission, a story thread, weapons and a boss fight without asking for a cent. Charging for a class while giving the signature gun away is the split that keeps both halves of the community from walking, and it is a smarter trade than gating the Meltagun behind the purchase. What I would push back on is the Cherub. A cosmetic companion used as a Deluxe upsell on an $11.99 class is the kind of nickel and dime move that makes a good announcement feel smaller than it should.

There is also a real balance question hiding in the Faith system. Six Acts of Faith with two equipped at once means the Novitiate can be tuned in a dozen directions, and Fatshark's history with big class launches suggests the first two weeks will be messy. The Ogryn and the Skitarii both needed several passes before they settled into something the community agreed on. Expect hotfixes, expect a loud week of build guides, and expect the Meltagun to get clipped if it turns the Veteran into a one man artillery piece.

Official Darktide art for the Sisters Novitiate class reveal

December 7 is roughly three weeks out, so the real test comes with patch notes and the first weekend of matchmaking. If the Novitiate lands balanced and the Meltagun does not break the Veteran's kit, Fatshark closes the year with the strongest roster the game has ever had. If the class arrives hot and the Cherub is the only thing that works, the warband will say so loudly and with receipts. Either way, Tertium gets louder in three weeks, and for a game that needed a win this year, that is usually good news.