Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Review – – The Apocalpyse just got better

The green moon hangs in the sky, the vermin claw through any survivors and now they are backed by the brutes from the north bringing pestilence and chaos with them. The end times are near but at least you can go down swinging.

Warhammer games can go either way at this point in time. Some games that have been released don’t really carry the weight of the franchise and most of the time the games don’t last long in people’s minds however every so often a game will come along and entice players into spending huge amounts of time and really enjoying their time. Vermintide 1 was one of those games, it came out at a time where co-op games were lacking and also revived the Left for Dead style gameplay which captivated the PC market but made it more satisfying to play due to the change in setting and visceral melee combat. Now we’ve had an abundance of co-op games that all blurred into one and none really jumping out at me until Vermintide 2 released on PC and after some time with it, I’ve rediscovered my love for co-op games. Especially because I can play a dwarf. That’s not the main reason but it does help.

Vermintide took the Left for dead model and adapted into the Warhammer universe. Left for Dead allowed for 4 players to work together killing zombies in order to get from point a to point b and then having to fight special enemies along the way. Vermintide’s take on this was giving players a more diverse range of characters to play as, each with their own gear set and play style and focusing on melee combat with characters wielding swords, axes, shields and magic, satisfyingly smashing and cutting their way through the rat hordes in missions with varying objectives. Vermintide 2 takes that and some how improves it when at the time I thought it couldn’t get better. Vermintide 2 offers the refinement of ideas built in the previous game and does so in a way that holds onto the satisfaction factor.

So with Vermintide 2, instead of just having characters with minor differences fighting, Fatshark have decided to take a more RPG approach to the idea of the characters by giving them talent trees, levels and sub classes to add variety that we never knew we needed. Each character has 3 sub classes each with their own active and passive skills as well as a talent tree like in other RPGs bulking out the character to take on harder challenges, the classes are taken straight from the lore of the Warhammer fantasy universe which I appreciate as a player of the original table top war game and that is just light flavour, each class changes up the playstyle of the character by quite a lot. For example, the Dwarf named “Bardin” has the ranger which is his starting class, the Ironbreaker which is a tank class that focuses on defence but gets to use flamethrowers and the slayer which makes it so you can’t take ranged weapons, but you take more melee weapons and kill everything in your path up close and personal. The other characters have this range of differences between classes and it really feels refreshing as that spice that is added to a proven formula makes it feel new and is engaging. Especially now with the higher difficulty curve, players will have to figure out what the best class is for them in a group and working together so that helps a lot

The combat itself gives off a huge amount of satisfaction as Fatshark have tweaked the feel of weapons to make them feel weighty with blocks feeling even more so as it’s the character reacting to it and the sheer force coming at you, chipping away at your stamina gives the impression of struggle to create a visceral experience. The Skaven will horde you and pick you off one by one with the warriors of chaos will take a more direct approach but focusing down the entire group at once. It is mainly due to the new special types introduced into the game. The Skaven have a couple of staples in their lore being brought in including the plague monks; fanatics who try to rush you down, Warpfire throwers which will cut you off from your allies with green flames and a standard frontline monster from the tabletop: The Stormfiend but I won’t spoil that one. Chaos being the “new” kids on the block bring their Chosen warriors in two varieties, One with heavy plate armour and one without alongside Swamp Trolls, Wizards of nurgle using the winds of magic against you and one more big monster in the Chaos Spawn. This entourage of destruction will be fighting you every step of the way as you fight back and resist in the most satisfying way possible.

That’s what Vermintide is great at. Creating this satisfaction for nearly every part of the game and amplifying it when you’ve got more players. This game is great with just one person but it’s fantastic with four. The visceral combat engine combined with a setting that fits perfectly into everything. Character classes which are interesting and varied enough which allow for multiple playthroughs and playstyles. It’s as if Left 4 dead was a MMO dungeon, each player is fulfilling a vague role to push through and complete the run.  The enemies are interesting enough as pawns for the AI director who will do everything it can to overrun you or pick you apart as if you were nothing. If you pick this game then I would encourage you to bring three friends with you, spend an entire night and just play the first act of the games three act story. I doubt you’ll walk away without being captivated by Vermintide 2.

Purchase today: http://store.steampowered.com/app/552…

Learn more at: http://www.vermintide.com/