Action · 2018 · Fatshark · online
Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Four people, narrow alleys and more rat-men than fit on the screen.
What it is about
Five very different people fight their way through an end-times world where rat-men and the hosts of Chaos have made common cause. Little is narrated, and the little there is comes while running.
The core is melee: block, dodge, land the blow when the guard is open. Bows, pistols and fire magic sit alongside, but ammunition is scarce. On the higher difficulties one mistake is enough to be cut off from the group.
Each character has several careers with their own abilities, and gear drops after every mission. It is played by four over the net; go alone and you get computer companions.
Our verdict for couples
This is melee, and properly so: block, dodge, land the blow at the right moment. Anyone who does not learn the timing goes down in the first horde, and that is exactly the appeal for a practised couple. On the higher difficulties nothing works side by side any more — run ahead alone and you get surrounded and need the others to get out. Eight years on, the game still sits at ninety percent on Steam, and the amount of content is by now absurd. There is no local co-op: everyone needs a machine or console, a copy and headphones.
Pros
- Five characters, each with several careers
- On the higher difficulties nothing works without talking
- Maintained and extended for eight years
Cons
- No local co-op
- A mission wants to be played in one sitting
- No dedicated servers: if the host drops, the mission is gone
Suitable from
Hobby–Gamer
- Conflict potential
- Spirited
- Cosiness
- Draining
- When you can stop
- After 30–45 minutes
- How long it lasts
- No ending
What other co-op fans say
Ninety percent approve, eight years after release. The melee gets consistent praise: fast, weighty, and still not worn out after a hundred hours. The serious objection concerns the technology behind it, and it hits your evening plans exactly: there are no dedicated servers. If the host's connection drops, the whole group is out — and on a forty-minute mission that is the whole mission.
- “The graphics are shiny-pretty, the combat is fast-choppy, and smashing rat skulls never gets old-boring.”
- “It's super fun and quite hectic”
- “If the host player disconnects, crashes, or rages quits at the very last second of a 40-minute map, the entire lobby gets disconnected.”
Summarised by machine from 60 Steam reviews, not written by our editors. The quotes appear verbatim in those reviews.
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