Back in 2015, hot on the heels of the destruction of the Warhammer World in the apocalyptic End Times, Fatshark released the phenomenal Warhammer End Times: Vermintide – a cooperative horde battler similar to Valve’s Left 4 Dead. This was one of the best interpretations of the Warhammer World to date, and really captured the feel of the IP. All of us at Sprues and Brews are massive fans of the game, so it was with great excitement when we found out Fatshark were making a sequel, and now it is finally in our hands!

We are happy to share that Warhammer Vermindtide 2 takes everything that was brilliant about the original game and improves it in every way!

Firstly, it is a very pretty game – from the horizon of an Empire city, to Troll infested caverns to the weird lightning spitting technology of the Skaven, Vermintide 2 impresses with its sights. This also applies to the new hordes that you will face during your journey – much expanded from the original game! In addition to the Skaven forces we previously saw, we now face the forces of Chaos – from frenzied marauders, to Chaos Warriors and even Chaos Spawns! The variety of enemies makes for a more interesting experience and gives a change of pace during your trek through the Warhammer World, this also means that you have to watch out and learn ways to handle different rare spawns and bosses – which makes this have more tactical moments as well as slashing your way through the hordes.

And Hordes there will be! The game engine manages to throw wave upon wave of enemies at you, impressively so, and really gets the adrenaline flowing when you hear that telltale horn blast of an incoming horde! The game doesnt struggle under the sheer number of bodies on screen at all, remaining smooth throughout the experience on our machine as we waded through a tide of rats and chaos!

One of the main additions to the game is a brand new progression system – as you work your way up the levels you earn not only talents for your characters to allow for different play styles, but also 3 distinct classes per character! This means that there is a total of 15 different classes for you to learn, meaning that everyone will have a style of play that they enjoy.

The gear system has also changed – you will now get a chest with items in every level gained, and also a chest on completion of a quest – the level of this is improved based on how well you have performed during the adventure – if you want to get the best quality stuff you will need to hunt down each of the three tomes hidden in each stage, some of which need a little bit of platforming skill to obtain giving you a change of pace from slaying many, many enemies!

Match making is made very easy with a “Quick Play” option, this will not only get you into a game quickly but will also reward you with a better quality loot chest at the end! This is a great way of making sure that you can always get into a game as soon as possible! Of course, the best way of playing Vermintide 2 is with 3 friends. While playing the game at Sprues and Brews we have had some amazing games working through the quests together, talking over voice chat and shouting out warning and support for your brothers in arms! If you are lucky enough to be able to play the game like this it really is a brilliant and memorable experience, but if not the matchmaking works well enough to find a party and get slaying foes in record time!

If you haven’t guessed, I am a huge fan of Warhammer Vermintide 2! If you are a gamer who is even remotely interested in the Warhammer World you really need to play this game – it perfectly captures the feel of the universe while still being an excellent experience in it’s own right. While the best place to play is with friends, dont feel that you are missing out too much if you rely solely on matchmaking! We have been playing on PC, but the game will soon be coming to Xbox One and PS4 very soon – so no excuse to not start slaying some Skaven!

Warhammer Vermintide 2 has sold an impressive 500,000 units in less than a week, so i cant imagine it will be hard to find people to play with!

Vermintide 2 is currently £22.99 on Steam – buy it here!

Fatshark very kindly provided copies of the game for this review

Published by Matt Crowther

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