Recent reviews by Error3000

edit: lol they just nerfed 2 of the better crowd control skills in the latest patch, lol lmao
TLDR: the game seems fine in most aspects but the there is a combo of things that completely kills the enjoyment, namely the save system and the distance between things

these things are bad because saving is very restricted and the distances between locations are massive meaning that if you save in town or a camp and walk to your objective if you die you will have to walk again but there is nothing happening during the walk, its just boring and really tedious, it sounds like whatever until you experience it, especially at the start when chosing wrong ability as your first or second skill can mean the difference between steamrolling the enemies and constantly dying which results in a lot of walking which will quickly grind through your nerves, picking the right ability matters because the first quests in the game will put you in 3+ enemies vs you scenarios in locations with no single tile chokepoints


- you can only save via sleeping in specific locations

- the walking distances between said locations and quest locations feel very long

- you can explore and forage on the way to said quest locations

-this is a waste of time because if you die (and you will die, on that later) you get sent back to town, all progress lost, gotta walk a lot, again

- you will die because most enemy encounters are a few enemies vs you in an environment with no chokepoints (at least for now all doorways i've seen are 2 tiles wide so you will always fight at the very least 2 enemies), at least the melee characters seem really bad at shooting so taking out one of the enemies before they get to you is very unlikely (shooting via crossbow i spent 16 turns, 8 shots 8 reloads and hit 0 shots from a range of 2 tiles while bandits were beating a boar)

- when you start you have 1 skill point to work with, to buy an ability with a long cooldown, this aint much when you are fighting 2-3 opponents at once, you are not tanky and you do not deal much damage, your first or at least second ability should be some sort of crowd control, honestly not sure how else you are supposed to progress considering the design encounter of the early missions 3-6 enemies attacking you at a time)

- due to all this when you die in the quest location, after exploring and foraging on your way there, the game punishes you by wasting your time and sending you back to the city, the way to the quest doesnt change, the spawns of everything are literally the same so you just repeat the same stuff or pass it by without interacting with it because it would be a waste of time

- exploring the open world areas is basically walking while holding ALT so you can see the occasional plant you can pick up, the areas themselves are too big considering how empty they are and how long it takes to walk through them

- if you bait bandits in the forest to fight wildlife (like the previously mentioned boar) once they engage the boar will prioritise attacking you despite you being further than the bandits and you not hitting said boar, this can lead to you abusing this fact and hiding behind something making it so the boar is stuck in the "preparing for a charge" animation, i know about this because this is how i did it, if i walked out of cover it would charge towards me, if i didnt it would stay there until the bandits slowly hacked it to death, this is stupid, it should attack whoever attacks it and is closest to it

- there is no in-city map so finding a specific merchant is pure memorisation, not ideal especially considering the nature of who buys what


The prologue sequence is honestly really cool, its basically a tutorial on a bunch of things, has some neat lore and world building, doesnt have encounters with 3+ enemies like the literal first quest in the game does, has a 2 phase boss fight that isnt difficult but isnt easy either, has no pointless walking, rewards exploration (via additional heals for the boss fight for example) etc.

It feels like a completely different game and I honestly feel stupid that I thought that it was a good representation of the game, its a shame because it was very enjoyable but the actual game isnt like that

I highly recommend the game, will easily get 100h out of it, probably more with the upcoming patch

+game looks great
+fantastic music
+variety of weapons, armor, enemies etc
+gameplay is fun (mostly, more later)
+game is being updated regularly and the updates are of decent size, they actually change and add stuff
+some mission+location combos are a goldmine for random stories to emerge, like that time when i needed to kill a scientist in a bunker and all his bodyguards were extremely fast pleasure robots with vibroblades, you might think it funny, it kinda was but at the same time a vibroblade slashed with mechanical strenght can cut off your arm in 1 hit which is rather terrifying
+the quasimorphosis system allows you to ritualistically (or not) cannibalise a bunch of humans, get into a new floor, wait for everyone to turn into demons (because high quasimorphosis) then either take in a high dose of morphine or go back to a previously cleared floor, eat more meat, kill the demonic baron that wants your head (spawns at 1000 quasimorphosis and killing it restarts the meter) then go back to previously entered floor, all the powerful demons despawned because quasimorphosis is too low, its interesting to see the aftermath of remaining defenders and demons fighting, broken turrets ringed by mounds of casings, bodies stacked at doorways etc

-(read this point till the end) the balance is sometimes bizarre, sometimes its instakill galore, you get instakilled, enemies get instakilled, its a instakill or be instakilled world, fire and flamethrowers are the bane of existance, yea if you play in a paranoid way the entire time you are likely to evade them via preemptive bullet to the head BUT when you are on a difficulty 1 level and you received 0 dmg in the past 12 fights against 40 enemies, round a corner, get sprayed with flames and die it feels really bad, at the same time this is so rare that I only remember it because it feels so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bad lol,
TLDR balance kinda sucks but its usually so rare that you remember it not because it happens often but because it hurts your very soul

the game is an anime mix of different ideas from TF2, CSGO, Valorant and Overwatch, all in an anime aesthetic

+ gunplay feels nice
+ papermode is a unique take on movement and adds some depth to fights, also you can get to some crazy spots with it
+ characters look good
+ the shop isnt the basic "csgo shop", its an upgrade menu with certain passives/abilities being unlocked if you unlock a combination of other passives so thats unique compared to other games like it
+ servers are fantastic so far, no issues with ping or servers having random meltdowns
+ you can get all the characters for free, gacha is for skins only (you can grind at least some of the skins, havent checked all so ima say "some")
+ big personal plus, the game isnt filled with stuns and flashes like Valorant, no slowing effects that slow your gun's firing mechanism for some reason etc.

+/- depending on taste, TTK is much higher than in CSGO or Valorant so you cant just instakill someone BUT you cant be instakilled either so the game isnt a battle of crack fiends with crazy reflexes, obviously headshots still matter
+/- instead of instantly dying you are downed and can be revived from that state, helps if you get sniped since you can crawl to safety

- menu UI screams mobile game design (I mean, some parts literally look like Azur Lane and other games like that) and some tabs are placed weirdly (why in gods name is inventory in the career tab is beyond my understanding, also level unlocks which you have to manually claim are hidden away in the profile section and not the career section)
- the tutorial doesnt explain previously mentioned unloackable passives in the 'shop', sure once you know about them its blatantly obvious but before that it might be confusing

so far i enjoy the game, and since i know that mixed reviews scare folk away ima leave a positive review for now, if the game starts sucking badly afterwards i will just change or delete it

overall a great game imo, definitely worth a buy

the special something (whatever its called) version comes with, iirc, ~7h audiobook which is quite something, yet to listen to it so cant comment on its quality but assuming its not horrible I would consider it a massive +

+++great variety of vehicles, weapons and abilities
++directional damage, game rewards thinking
+lore snippets are neat, give actual character to the factions and even individual areas
+music is good
++level design allows for at least a few ways of tackling a level
++side objectives give genuine advantages
++enemy viarety is just great

--enemy placement on some levels was fine tuned by the devil himself (mostly in bonus campaign levels), special shoutout to F2 with its surprise vehicles
--(ONLY IMPORTANT IF YOU LIKE ACHIEVEMENT HUNTING)
in the campaign loadouts are premade by the map creator (so mostly the devs with bonus levels being made by the fans i think) and some of those loadouts are quite frustrating to use, couple it with enemy placement on certain levels and the game can get ridiculously frustrating at times IF you want to clear the campaign with every loadout which is not required to finish it, for me it was a massive pain in the ass but thats just me

the balance team will be the death of this game, their decisions are consistently disconnected from reality, they dont test ♥♥♥♥ which can be seen when clearly bugged things are nerfed or buffed despite the bugs being big enough to seriously impact the performance of the weapon, also literal anti-TANK mines do not deal damage to literal TANKS, how the ♥♥♥♥ does that happen? well the only logical explanation is that they dont test things, at all, not even once, incredible honestly but the balance team is infamous for being ♥♥♥♥ so its not surprising

having fun with weapon X? sorry boss, one dev watched someone kill a big bug with it because the weapon was bugged which should be obvious if said dev ever tested the weapon so now the weapon is useless

having fun with weapon Y? well sure its nice but have you considered that the gun is "too reliable"? (mostly because other guns are not reliable because they are tailor made to not hit enemy breakpoints) get nerfed scrub

maybe if the balance philosophy changes in the future and they stop nerfing stuff because its fun or "too reliable" the review will change, and yes yes they said they will fix the game in 60 days, previously they also said that they will listen to community feedback and look how that turned out

forgot to mention but aside from weapons the game as a whole is just not tested at all, armor didnt work at all for like a quarter of the game's current existance, titan bodies had invisible hitboxes that would instakill you for months, robots have been buffed time and again for no reason while they are still bugged (being able to shoot through solid terrain in some cases), 1 mission type had bugged spawns making it impossible to complete for normal players without you having to dramatically tone down the difficulty just for that 1 mission, they added headshot dmg multiplier in an unannounced change, and im not talking about headshot dmg muiltiplier where you hit the enemy and it deals more damage, im talking about enemy hitting you and you taking more damage, also they buffed said dmg at one point, also some enemies have attacks that always hit the head, and those are common enemies AND armor rating does not impact that because armor only applies to neck down, all helmets have the same armor rating (except 1 which has a few % more which is meaningless), the addition of headshot dmg on players made heavy armors literally pointless because you are slower but still die to the same amount of basic attacks from the most common enemy on both fronts

there are so many things i could rant about in relation to this game, the wasted potential is heartbreaking because at launch the game was amazing, sure most things sucked which is why a very clear meta formed but nothing changed in that department, most things still suck, its just that not the current meta is the devs favourite child so it never gets nerfed (autocannon btw)

Gasslight, Andrew
Gatekeep, Andrew's gf
Girlboss, doormat (Andrew)

artstyle is great, music is decent, designs are neat, the story is deranged, a great showcase of not exactly healthy reliationships, truly, this is what Unabomber wanted to save us from
the only game where cannibalism seems like the least of your worries lol

Overall truly a mortifying game, or gratifying should I say
if you know you know

Start out, try mining copper, kinda boring, profitable but boring, try baiting dust bandits to attack the rebel inn, works every time, they get slaughtered I get the loot, use bandages on said dust bandits to level first aid, when they regain consciousness beat them until they slip into a coma, repeat, baiting other groups of bandits while the previous survivors are slowly regaining conscious thought just to be beaten again, earn a lot, buy membership with the ninjas, hire 2 guys at a bar, train them at the art of first aid and beating cripples

Now I have a home (bought and fixed from my own pocket), a crapton of meat because a horde of animals attacked a city with turrets and 3 pro's experienced in beating up starving cripples

also the soundtrack and gameplay are fantastic

Great game, a lot of weapons, enemies, events, variations in quests and possible mercenaries. Combat is quite satisfying and decently complex. A lot of possible wounds/injuries etc. that affect your boiz and which can be made worse by some events (like a stomach wound getting infected, not great).

Overall, personally, I highly recommend the game, its been a blast so far and the combat is really good once you get the hang of it. If you are not sure about buying remember you can always buy, play 2 hours and refund if the game isnt to your liking, imo its worth its full price not to even mention possible discounts.

game is definitely worth playing now, rest of the review stays because its still true
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It feels as if Fatshark forgot they made Vermintide 2 and ignored everything they did well there.

pros +
+ gameplay is amazing
+ atmosphere is great
+ soundtrack slaps
+ the loading screen text is consistently very 40k and very amusing

cons -
- crafting that was supposed to be released over december is halfway done with half of it "Coming Soon" (edit:they couldnt manage to release it over december but i guess they never specified which year so see ya in december when they will finally release the remaining half of the crafting
edit2: they released a "letter" where they postponed crafting to be released "in the next few months" lmao, maybe in a year the game will have what it was supposed to have at launch who knows)
edit3: year later crafting is here lol, didnt even have to wait for december 2023

- you cannot pick a mission you want on a difficulty you want, its all RNG like Deep Rock Galactic but worse (imagine Deep Rock Galactic mission board BUT you cannot actually pick difficulty, you have to pick from the missions the game gives you, this makes weekly quests very fun because some of them are impossible to accomplish if the RNG fricks you over

- """story""" is non-existant, yes there is dialogue talking about something that may happen in the future but as far as the actual game right now is concerned there is no story, there is traitor plotline in which you do nothing, its resolved without you doing anything, you are literally told "there is a traitor" and a few cutscenes later the traitor is killed, without you doing anything, killing "important" enemy captains has no point, we never hear about them outside the missions, for all we know those captains could be random Joe Cultist cosplaying a captain, hell im pretty sure their names are randomly generated,
they had it right in Vermintide 2, how is this so hard for them is beyond me

- some design decisions are baffling to say the least,
in the testing area you cannot test things on minibosses, those are some of the most game-defining enemies, they can wreck your team and lose you a game and without mods you cannot test damage against them,
weekly quests will not activate unless you see them, as in, when you click on them they will show with no option to turn them on so you might think they are always active, thing is, they are only active if you see them, individually on every single character you have, weekly quest bonus (you get for completing all of em), has to be claimed by viewing it again,
why a revolver does about the same damage as a bolter round or a plasma bolt, genuinly why, its also much faster to pull out and prepare to fire, its more accurate, in most situations its literally better than a bolter, why

- there is no scoreboard, meaning you cannot actually see if whatever you are currently using has any effect on your stats and how much you impact the game, apparently being able to tell if you are doing better or not is toxic because supposedly people were toxic in Vermintide 2, granted I've never met a single person in V2 who was toxic about the scoreboard (then again I only played a couple hundred hours of V2 so what do I know), so yea scoreboard is yet another thing you need to mod in because developers wont add it

Overall if someone is thinking about buying beware, either buy this game in a year or two OR buy something good like Left4Dead2 or Deep Rock Galactic, this game is not worth its current price, not when there are much better games out there for a fraction of the price
Merry Christmas and take care
The developers have a vicious habit of having no respect for their customers, "few weeks" turns into months, they make yet another PR blunder insulting their playerbase and afterwards they stay silent praying we forget, as of now, in comparison to the "full version" aka early access we got at launch, the game is better, we actually have skills and traits to pick, most of them are really fun, crafting which is bloody integral to build making is actually here, things that arent premium shop actually work, granted some design decisions are bafflingly stupid, like you will genuinly wonder if the person who designed it is human or some kind of an alien.

Overall (x2), the game is worth a buy now, personally I would advise against buying anything but the core game (so no buying skins) because they dont deserve the money quite frankly, especially with all the clipping issues cosmetics have. If Fatshark will be releasing another game in the future do not trust anything they say, they lie and they dont care, Darktide is a prime example of this, their words are worth nothing, their promises are only real if you keep reminding them of them and even then its 50/50 whether they actually care enough to fulfill them.

For context, i played (from what i checked on the wiki) to around 60-70% of the campaign and got to lvl 49 out of possible 100 (most of levels after ~50 seems to unlock nothing aside from giving you 1 skill point).
If you dont know Warhammer 40k then read points below, if you dont care about game's quality as long as its 40k go to the bottom and read the part i will put there.

---before everything else, if you are a keyboard and mouse player you may be surprised to see that the game tells you, literally at the start, that your controller is not connected, you have to just leave the notification window by pressing esc and ignore it forever more

---main story quests have assets that are just misplaced (particle effects being above an item in which they are supposed to be placed, i.e. sparks flying from the air instead of a broken generator under them), if main quests have such simple issues you can imagine its not great

---some maps are needlessly big, by needlessly i mean: there are no enemies, chests, objectives or even items there, its just ice, those maps are so big in fact that you can walk up tot he edge of the map which is just a drop-off into the void as if Inquisitor Martyr was taking place in universe where planets are flat, said maps are 85% empty space and 15% patches of ground where enemies patrol, chests are placed etc. Im genuinly confused why this is in the game

---since its a looter shooter you may expect some end screen showing you your loot and the exp you gained for killing hundreds of enemies, no, there is an option in the menu to skip such lootscreens but whether or not this option is turned on is irrelevant because it impacts nothing, you will never see a lootscreen, in the first few missions the game tries to show you something but it immediately skips it and throws you back into mission picking menu for some reason, after those few missions it stopped doing that so i cant tell if the flashing start of an animation is a bug or if the rest of the game is so bugged that it doesnt even bother showing you the start of the animation, either way have fun

---gameplay, to me, is just not fun, you either kill everything very quickly or you kill things extremely slowly depending on the difficulty level, the former might as well turn the game into an idle game while the latter is brutally boring since difficulty in this game is just numbers so have fun cheesing enemies from long range (since AI doesnt engage you even if you shoot at it as long as you shoot at it from long range, they just stand there until they die or you walk closer)

---music choice is kinda bizarre, it just doesnt fit, half the time i was confused if i left something else running in the background but no, its just the intended music for the game apparently

---missions and background are not very diverse, if you like corridors on space ships then i guess you will like it but aside from the occasional levels on planets you will spend most of the game in the similar-feeling corridors filled with the same enemies that deal similar % of your hp when comparing you at lvl 1 and you at lvl 40 or higher (at normal difficulty), basically nothing really changes, after a few hours you will meet all the enemies the game has so whether you are playing as lvl 1 or lvl 49 the enemies are the very same, walking the same corridors, doing the same objectives, grabing loot that is genuinly worthless

FOR 40k FANS
Yea I know, we will play almost anything that has the logo on it, main reason why i bought this game unfortunately, the thing is, the so called 'power levels' of things are just wack here, we all know how it is in the books but those usually make sense within the confines of the story, in this game the first enemy your inquisitor (who walked out of a crashed valkyrie) and who recently had no weapons, defeats is a chaos possesed ogryn, a nurgle one at that, you can solo multiple chaos space marines at once, you can solo eldar tanks, it just feels like generic RPG with 40k skin except they couldnt be bothered to make teleportation (so the animation you will see in every level) look 40k-like, just watch it on youtube and listen to or read a book describing how it looks in 40k when something teleports somewhere, i played 40k mobile games that were much better in that regard (and in gameplay too)

OVERALL the game is just not really good or fun, it has a lot of things in it but the gameplay loop is just not very enjoyable, combat might as well not exist for all the difficulty its providing on normal, hard and insane difficulty and the loot in this looter shooter is, once you play for a couple of hours, worthless, i have 14h in the game and in the last 4 I found 1 new item that was an upgrade in terms of stats