You might have heard about the reasonably successful Warhammer:
Vermintide. If not, the premise stays the same: a proper fantasy Left 4 Dead,
with ratmen and, now, chaos warriors of the North as your foes. It`s a solid
piece that improves on the genre formula.
Vermintide, as seen
in the title, takes place in Games Workshop`s Warhammer universe. No, not the
space one, but the medieval one which has been out of popular light and
remained a niche thing up until recently when Total War and Vermintide really
took it off amongst gamers. Now watch as Warhammer nerds will shriek in horror
as an army of newcomer casuals such as myself will flood their little nests
bringing ruin and disdain to their little communities. Kind of like what
happens in the story of the game when Reikland is flooded by ratmen (reeeee, they`re called Skaven!) at first
and then by northerners. This sort of mass migration is not taken lightly by a
group of heroes led by a tavern keeper from the first game, as well as his
trusty old witch-wizard (whatever the hell she is) sidekick.
The good ol` 4 player
co-op
The game utilises the well-known and enjoyable Left 4 Dead
formula of four players against the ever so hostile environment. Naturally,
specialised enemies are also mixed in within the common rabble, as well as mini
bosses appear randomly throughout progression of the map. The game would also
occasionally send hordes of weak enemies your way pushing through every
entrance possible. This game, especially on higher difficulties where friendly
fire from projectiles is enabled really tests cooperation between players.
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| The starting and the finishing point of the mission: the Bridge of Shadows. A place to rest while the other teammates are messing about and not readying up. |
Compared to the first game the maps tend to vary even more in
terms of environment, and while the objectives are different to every map, they
utilise pretty much the same formula: reach point, trigger or kill something
(or both) there, piss off into the sunset. Definitely one type of scenario that
hasn`t been implemented is the ‘protect multiple points’ type like they had
with wells in the first game, but it doesn`t seem that much of a loss in the
long run.
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| Another day, another mass murder. The inside of the lobby. |
Where the game stands out is in variability of play styles
as the player is left to choose between 5 characters (as is in the first game),
each complete with its own branching of careers, as well as a talent tree (something
new). The range of available weaponry has been greatly expanded, yet it still
needs some tweaking. As a player that played a lot as Sienna (fire wizard) I
can say with certainty that any staff that isn`t a beam staff is objectively
inferior. On the other hand, balance problems are anticipated where there is a
complex online system in play.
Vermintide is also known for adding collectibles within the
map that players need to carry to the end for extra rewards. Tomes and
Grimoires are also seen in the second game, and while additions of extra keys
and buttons certainly spiced things up, there is a lot more bunnyhopping involved as game designers
seemingly ran out of places to hide the collectibles.
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| Here they come! |
By Sigmar and the
Hammer!
Another good choice is the setting and the universe. As
mentioned earlier the game takes place in the Games Workshop`s Warhammer
universe, a tabletop that has been going since the 80s with massive tournaments
and a devout community. While tapping into the grim setting of the universe it
also provides some ‘lore talk’ as characters exchange views and opinions. This
creates an atmosphere of a large complete world that is fun to explore. Now,
Vermintide 1 had a lorebook added to it where various pages about the world
were up for grabs during normal playthroughs. Hopefully something of such will
be added to this game as well.
By the way, apparently Vermintide takes place during
so-called End Times (as seen from the name of the first game), which is a
special time for any seasoned Warhammer fans. The End Times led to an
apocalypse (as per the name, duh) followed by a complete restart of the world
which a lot of people didn`t like. So this game is also seen as a final goodbye
for those who adored the old rendition of the tabletop.
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| Tfw you meet a rat ogre. |
They call these
arrows?!
In-game gear is represented with the item power number,
which is an interesting simplification considering there is only a vague
description of this number. Items are divided into your common quality colours,
white, green, blue, orange, and, suddenly, red. As usual, the better the
colour, the more extra bonuses the item has.
Every completed mission rewards with a crate containing 3
items. The quality of these items depends on how many collectibles have been
hauled to the end point by the players as well as a random factor called
“Ranald`s gift”. Now this little thing can be way too random from zero help to
two tier increase in crate quality. Hence, getting the Emperor`s upgrade on
your crate (the highest one) depends on a random factor. Safe to say that
Ranald is the most hated character in the game despite being absent from every
other aspect of it.
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| Well screw you too, Ranald! |
The game is no stranger to grind. In fact, that is something
the player has to embrace pretty early on. Not needed items can be scrapped for
bits used to craft, upgrade, and reroll properties of items and weapons. Thing
is, either I`m bad with my resource allocation or there is just constantly not
enough of these scraps, so I end up running on the same gear for a number of
levels.
Where the bugs thread
Occasional bugs and issues are also present in the game.
There are complaints about certain class abilities not working as intended (UPD: apparently Zealot class abilities
are to be addressed in the upcoming patch).
Another issue is the disconnecting of the host player where the map
would be restarted and all progress on it lost. Vermintide 2 also delivered a
bug of the year where the game would occasionally disconnect players and
uninstall itself. For the record, the bug is fixed now.
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| 'Against the Grain' has a fun "feature" in the beginning: crops the size of a dwarf. |
It deserves a mention that being a relatively small studio,
Fatshark took time to actually look into the bugs and issues the community was reporting.
Even their April Fools prank, a ‘mute Kerillian DLC’ was a result of a
community constantly bitching about the said character`s sassy remarks in-game
and the strikingly similar play style that the players of this character
undertake: run off from the group, get killed, and generally inconvenience the
rest of the group.
Verdict
Overall, Vermintide 2 is a solid investment if you are into
horde slaying co-op. A lore-rich world will make the stay enjoyable, hopefully
occasional bugs and balance issues won`t be too much of a problem. A 9/10
experience with a GOTY possibility in my books.
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