Recent reviews by Zerak

Probably the best way to re-experience an old classic, excited for the new Xen.

A lot of replayability and the artwork and design really does the Warhammer setting justice. The different factions feel very unique to play and then you have a quite strong modding community to add even more options for how you want to customize the game to your tastes.

A few annoying persistent issues that are taking too long to fix (bugs and unintended behavior) and compared with the first game the rate of updates and additional content is fairly sparse, which is a shame. Yes that's down to the issues with Norsca DLC implementation, but that's been a known issue for half a year now, in that time I feel like they could have done more.

What they've achieved with the combined campaign vortex map is downright impressive and as you can see my main complaint is that we haven't gotten more of the game yet.

Early days yet, but an amazing game that improved on the first one in a lot of ways. And Fatshark has demonstrated with the first game that they're comitted to supporting and improving the game over months and even years to come. And all at a very reasonable price.

The two snowy outdoors map Chain of Fire and the Cursed Rune are gorgeous, with the latter perhaps being my favorite map in the game to date. Khazid Kro the dwarven hold is cavernous and impressive but feels a little lifeless in comparison and lacks features to truly set it apart and make it a memorable map to play.

A steep steep learning curve, but so so much replayability and engaging gameplay to be had. Incredible depth and the game is continously supported and updated by Paradox.

The only real knock on the game, is that there's no real victory condition to aim for, just an end date and the game is very free form, in that you essentially have to choose what you want to try and achieve in each playthrough. But there are a lot of steam achievements that can provide inspiration for interesting game ideas.

Do note that by now there's a lot of DLC out, and buying it all at full price in one batch is a daunting prospect I'd imagine. But there are quite frequent sales (every couple of months) of 66%/75% discounts on most of the DLC. By now they really should permanently discount some of the older DLC and the base game.

600+ hours in and still enjoying it.


Okay, figured I'd write an actual review.

This game is fantastic - it does so many things right. Warhammer is a great fantasy setting and Vermintide utilizes and adheres to the lore extremely well. Taking on hordes of Skaven as opposed to hordes of zombies as is the norm for the genre is refreshing. Skaven have a lot more flavor as adversaries than moaning zombies. The inter-character banter is well written, voice acted and funny and even after countless playthroughs I still have yet to get tired of it.

I like pretty much all of the full length levels in the game, the shorter side missions aren't terribly exciting but they can be a nice change of pace or something to play quickly if you only have 20 minutes. Good range of difficulties (5) from very-newbie friendly to very punishing, with additional options for dynamically making your games harder by picking up items (tomes/grimoires) hidden in the levels that either reduce your party's health or take up heal-item slots.

All five of the hero characters are viable and offer differing playstyles depending on item loadout and with the upcoming weapon re-balancing for the Karak Azgaraz DLC nearly all weapons look like they'll viably fulfill a role in the game (where previously two "aimbot" weapons were way too strong / easy to use and dominating).

I rarely play the Last Stand game mode (endless hordes mode) because I don't really enjoy the pacing compared to going through a long level. Too much standing and defending the same corner for 20 minutes, but your mileage may vary.

A gripe I've heard from a lot of people new to the game was that they liked the game but felt like the loot acquisition was unrewarding and too RNG-based. The latter is still true to a degree but the Quests and Contracts update (think daily missions) have done quite a bit to give players more stuff faster.

The playerbase is fairly small, but you only need 4 players to fill a game and people can join games already in progress so I never really have a problem in this regard. This might be different if you're from a remote part of the world.