Although i need to get back into Vermintide 2, it's been a while i bought this as soon as it was announced on pre order because of how amazing the first game was. V2 is definitely no different, the great characters, new enemies and much more exploring to do!

Each character once again has their own set of improved weapons, skills and armour! With their own quotes and unique sayings, they improved from the 1st game in every correct way!

I love the new enemies in this, the rat ogre isnt the only enemy now that makes you wanna run for the hills and hide under a rock with Patrick Star. There are many others that pose just as much of a threat and you can never be too carefui.

Graphics i would say have improved slightly and the game looks better than it already did and the worlds/levels seem much bigger and are fun to explore for more collectibles.

from what i have played.

Vermintide is the kind of game I would not pay attention to if it was Singleplayer only.. but playing this thing with 4 people online is fun!

After every mission you can roll the dice to see what your reward is (aside from exp). The "higher" the dice - the better the loot. You can add more dice if you find books (up to 3) that are hidden in every mission.

You can craft new weapons which is good but it will take some time.
So in 80-90% you have already finished the game once before the crafting really becomes important.

We started on easy, changed to normal and it took us ~ 10-12 hours to see and beat every mission.
But since there is harder difficulty and with that better loot, we will come back at some point.

Overall this is a nice L4D alternative. We got it for 3€ on Steam sale and it was totally worth it.

After playing the sequel - Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - first, it is difficult to not compare the two games. End Times - Vermintide is, in comparison, quite rough, has less depth in its combat, and just doesn't feel quite as responsive.

However, it is still a fantastic game, and one worth picking up if you have a group to play with. And you should have a group, as the servers are relatively empty.

Having experience with the game, progressing was relatively easy, and we cleared all missions on Cataclysm with relative ease.

RATS
WE'RE RATS
WE'RE THE RATS
WE PREY AT NIGHT
WE STALK AT NIGHT
WE'RE THE RATS

I'M DA GIANT RAT DAT MAKES ALL OF THE RULES

LET'S SEE WHAT KIND OF TROUBLE WE CAN GET OURSELVES INTO.

Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide is a coop game where you have to kill ceaseless waves of ratmen, the Skaven, to survive, in a fashion very similar to Left 4 Dead. I spent my last two weeks playing this game with a group of friends and indeed, many, many rats I killed. It was very fun, I liked it a great deal. It packs lots of hours of good coop fun.

Vermintide is set on the Warhammer Fantasy setting, and you have to pick between a selection of five characters (but your party is limited to four) to defend against the Skaven, a race of rats (evil, malicious ratmen!) and complete different objective-based maps. If you're succesful you get a dice roll and a chance to get better gear, which you keep permanently. You also get EXP for your efforts, no matter if you win or your whole team perishes.

It is very similar to Left 4 Dead, there's waves of enemies, special enemies, a likeable cast of characters, items to increase survivality scattered across maps and it features a first person perspective. Vermintide mixes things up by making each character has its own set of weapons and changing the objective from "going from saferoom to saferoom" to making the player complete a series of objectives, which have some variation from map to map, with no checkpoints in between. All great fun! The characters and weapons feel truly different from each other, role and gameplay-wise respectively. Some weapons are faster, some are ranged, some have bigger swings, stuff like that. The selection is not that big, but it's varied enough for me. There's also "trinkets" that you can equip which provide different percentual buffs, that allow to tailor a little bit more your equipment to the needs of your team. In lower difficulties this doesn't matter much, but on the higher, and specially the last difficulty, you'll need comunication and precise coordination. It's really a great experience when the whole team is entirely focused on the action and in rat slaying. But it sucks when someone is ill-equipped, because is very noticeable.

This brings me to what I dislike about the game, and what I really don't like is the decision of making getting weapons and trinkets so luck dependant. You only get one piece of gear (any kind of weapon or trinket) each time you complete a level. There's also daily quests, but again you have to be lucky to have a quest with a piece of equipment you'd want. As you only get one piece of equipment, and weapons are character-based, many victories can pass without you getting a better for your character. The alternative would be to gather good items for all characters, and that will take a LOT of time (unless you search the internet for the best way to farm, which I think is the reason I didn't reached 100+ hours of playtime, but gets dull). Other stuff I didn't liked so much was that the movement felt a little clunky, or maybe in some maps there's too much mini-clutter? I'm not sure, but I feel like I got stuck way too many times in the direst of hours. Could be a skill issue, though. Maybe I just suck. But what I think truly sucks is to play this solo. I don't believe this game would be as nearly enjoyable as it is when playing with a full group of pals playing with the other characters as it is when playing alone. The IA is not very good, although you can address that with mods, it is not a complete solution.

Not much else to say, I really enjoyed my time with this game and had a lot of fun fighting the hordes of rats with my fellow exterminators, and I'm really looking forward to playing the sequel. I would recommend this game to any group of friends looking for a Left 4 Dead-like experience, with some elements of progression over time peppered in. But be prepared to submit yourselves to the will of the dice and to face the endless Vermintide.

Finally got around to reviewing this game, which I had a bunch of fun playing with a few friends of mine, killing monsters and doing missions. Though the game looks impressive and killing Scaven never gets old, there are some issues that make it difficult for me to recommend this game.

My stream for gameplay and how online works

The opening is very well made and the story gets you hooked instantly. The Scaven are now on the surface and taking the city by tearing apart everyone and everything that they come across! You choose one of a handful of heroes (Five. Mage, Dwarf, Warrior, Witch Hunter, Elf) to stand up against this horde and disrupt their advance, starting with the first mission where you have to set off a horn to inform the entire city of the attack.

Beyond this, the game operates much like Left4Dead where you are special Scaven types (Elites, Rat Catcher, Gas Rat, Ratling Gunner, Assassin and Rat Ogre) which often appear at random, usually to abduct one of your number or create confusion. They are all dangerous in their own ways and I'll list them, for fun, for your forewarned knowledge.

Elites: Improved version of the normal Scaven. These ones are bigger, have more armour and take a little more patience to take down than the typical normal Scaven.

Rat Catcher: They catch and drag you away from everyone else (like the Licker)

Gas Rat: They wear the clothing of a plague bearer and throw gas bombs at you. The gas itself slowly drains your health and clouds your vision.

Ratling Gunner: As you can guess from the name, this Scaven carries a Gattling Gun on it's back and unleashes hell on you the moment it opens fun! These are usually a pain in the ass to take out as they have better health like Elites.

Rat Ogre: Much like the Heavy from L4D, this can spawn randomly. You will hear it roar, the music changes and it comes out of the shadows, charging at full speed and shrugging off any attacks you throw at it.

Assassin Rat: This one acts very much like the Hunter from L4D. He sneaks around and makes certain to pounce someone, stabbing them repeatedly. He's got low health, but if not killed he'll disappear to come back with a fresh attempt.

As fun as the gameplay is, it's VERY stingy with loot-drops. For example, you only get the chance to get 1 item each, at the END of every mission (which can last anywhere from 10mins to 30mins, depending on how good you are and how large the mission is) so trying to get loot was a REAL pain in this game. Sadly you can't trade items either and although everyone gets 1 item, it's still VERY slow progression, especially considering you can get a duplicate of the weapon you have equipped. If you find dice in the game it can increase the chances of getting something better, but good luck with that!

Thankfully there is a mechanic to destroy these spare weapons for ores that can be used to alter, modify or create new weapons! Sadly, it doesn't give much so it isn't too great of a trade off and you have to EARN it. You need to be of a certain level before you can access the smithery for breaking stuff down and such. Same for other features I feel should've been available at level 1, like the ability to enhance your gear and to collect bounties off the bounty board (which often gives you the ore you'll want) so it is one hell of a grind, which is why it's difficult to recommend this. Oh, forgot to mention. If you fail the mission, you only get the XP for Scaven killed and such. No resources, loot or hidden items that you may have found in the mission, that move location upon subsequent visits.

What makes this all worse is, at the time, my PC had a sub-par cooling situation. Even after cleaning it out and everything, it continued to over-heat and this machine has handled Cyberpunk 2077 (at release), The Witcher 3, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Alien Isolation and more, yet this game still forced my PC to turn-off due to heating. Even as I upgraded my case and such it STILL over-heated.

Currently I bought a water-cooling system and as far as I can tell, this has been the only way to stop it getting too hot, however, I've not actually tested this so another warning is make sure you have a VERY cool set-up with plenty of airflow. Like any multiplayer, it's more fun with friends and if you have a group of friends, then go ahead as that can often defeat these flaws, however, if not then I struggle to really recommend this at all as the grind solo won't be very fun. Especially with how the difficulty appears to spike up with the more players in your team.

Breakdown:

Pros:

Easy to join a game

Very nice graphics

Missions are often varied

The character's dialog between each other is quite funny as they dislike one another, throwing snide comments.

Using a bomb to clear Scaven never gets old

Cons:

EXTREMELY slow loot progression

A Stupid Difficulty Spike, based on players, not loot or levels

Features that improve the game are level-locked

Long missions, which wouldn't be so bad if not for everything above

Confirmed that this game runs hot on most rigs. Be certain to have your case extremely cold!*

I kind of went with the wrong expectation here. I expected a Left 4 Dead vibe, but this is way more problematic, less interesting, slower, and repetitive.

I’d say that you NEED to play co-op, solo is just boring and buggy. The characters are distinct and fun, and their gear variety is really cool. For instance, I got a bow that did not require me to aim, which made the hordes way easier. The map design and the mission objectives suck, but the theme variety is okay. The “boss” maps are also not great, and the plot is so forgettable I couldn’t really point out anything from it. The melee combat is weightless and dull, even with cooler weapons, but thankfully the ranged gameplay is mostly fun. The whole loot system is stupid, and unrewarding.

Overall: fun with friends, but lacks a lot of what made Left 4 Dead a great game.