It struck me today that I have not done a game review for Warhammer: Vermintide 2 by Fat Shark Studios. This is, really, a bit of a tragedy. Especially since for the last year it’s basically all Derek and I have played.

So you shouldn’t be surprised when I say that I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Just a little bit of context: Derek and I made our way through Vermintide 1 but we were hardly experts. We played enough to get a sense of the game but arrived to it fairly late in its life. Adam convinced us to take the plunge, getting the game for very cheap in a Humble Bundle. If you haven’t heard of Humble Games, you should definitely check it out. It’s a fantastic way to get some slightly out-of-date games at amazing prices while supporting developers and charities alike. I don’t really use or follow it closely but every time I do use it, I get a steal of a deal.

As an aside, this game review is brought to you by Humbles Game Store. Totally unrelated, I swear.

Long story short, Adam played one map while Derek and I have become expert Vermintide players. I blame Derek.

And it really is his fault.

See, Derek is a completionist. He doesn’t like to consider a game finished until he has done everything there is to do in it. I thought he was crazy. I still do, actually. But now that we can compare our stats, and because I’m stupidly competitive, I’ve been trying to finish more games than him. So when we have a game we both play, we’re locked in until someone gives up. Sadly, we’re both stubborn.

Thankfully, Vermintide is actually fun.

See, Vermintide despite carrying the unfortunate Warhammer window dressings, is a rather engaging co-operative action game. I’m not sure how to classify it other than it is Left 4 Dead with swords and giant rats instead of shotguns and endless zombies. In Left 4 Dead, you and three other players work your way through a map fighting off periodic hordes of the undead while trying to survive and make it to the next “safe room.” It was a very successful game made by Valve. Which is to say once they released its sequel a year later, they haven’t touched the franchise at all leaving fans longing for more and wondering if one day they’ll ever be heard.

I’ve learned my habit of disappointing your audience straight from the masters themselves, you see.

Thankfully, where Valve left off, Fat Shark stepped in. They didn’t make an exact copy, what with Vermintide taking place in a medieval fantasy setting instead of a post-apocalyptic modern American setting, but the spirit remained the same. Four players must traverse levels while constantly besieged by rodents of unusual size, temperament and abilities. Vermintide 1 was fun and hectic, taking place in a city being overwhelmed by these tunnelling man-sized monstrosities during something called the End Times. I’d go into the story of Vermintide but it is neither particularly interesting nor particularly important. You show up. You kill rats. You get rewards. Mostly, the rewards don’t matter and you just repeat the same process over again because, strangely, killing the little furballs is rather fun.

And thankfully, Fat Shark kept to the same successful script as the first. What you get in Vermintide 2 is just more of that sweet murder goodness. Not to say the two games are an exact copy. The first major difference is that the five returning characters (Kruber, Kerillian, Sienna, Bardin and Salzpyre) come with three different classes each. These are more than just colourful personalities (like in Left 4 Dead), each of them has a particular set of weapons and skills available to them. Salzpyre runs around with a precise rapier and a truckload of single shot pistols. Sienna, on the other hand, burns rats with her magical sticks or bops them with a rusty mace.

In Vermintide 2, you’ve got even more customisation than just changing their weapons. These classes add a unique ability to the heroes as well as giving them separate class trees which provide small buffs to different gameplay aspects. With Hunter Kruber, you focus more on his ranged capabilities, giving him ammo on successful headshots or less weapon spread. Foot Knight Kruber, on the other hand, wants to rush in with his charge and slash monsters with his halberd. As such, he gets better stamina regeneration for blocking attacks and wider block angles. The talents have less impact than the class selection itself but you can kind of nudge the character in different directions to fit more your favourite style of slaying.

And it is good that players got more tools for killing because Fat Shark added a whole new faction of villains out to sever your head from your shoulders. Not only are you contending with the Skaven who lend their name to the title but it appears these manlike mammals have made an alliance with northern raiders who have devoted themselves to pestilence and decay. The Chaos Warriors have their own special characters that appear alongside their hordes to make your day difficult.

See, there are more than just an unending tide of mooks for you to kill. Left 4 Dead demonstrated that you need some rare, special enemies that can disrupt player lines and keep them from simply hunkering down in a corner to wait out the simple AI of rushing like lemmings into your awaiting bloody arms. In the original game you had poisonwind globadiers who would throw glass jars filled with poisonous gas. Packmasters ran forward with mancatchers to grab unsuspecting players and pull them haplessly into the heart of the swarm. Now, we have leech mages that appear behind you to vampirically siphon your soul or the blightstormers who conjure a tornado that will whip you around the map while they teleport behind cliffs so you can’t kill them and end your suffering.

Vermintide 2 also added three additional monsters to fight. These act as bosses for the level that represent a challenging fight against a hulking terror that is capable of killing the entire group on its own. In the first game, this role was filled by the rat ogre who, after twenty or so different maps, had become so predictable as to offer little challenge or concern. Fat Shark introduced the Stormfiend, Chaos Spawn and Bile Troll. Each act entirely different and force players to adopt different tactics depending on which and where they face down.

Perhaps most heartening is that Fat Shark have really improved their design from the first game. There are some companies and products that… demonstrate a complete lack of ability to self-reflect either on their genre or even their own past work. These studios somehow manage to make sequels that are weaker than their original inspirations, drowned in poor design choices that choke out what good they’re able to create.

When it comes to maps, however, Fat Shark have really stepped it up. Granted, gone are the shorter maps that I really enjoyed in the first game. But, I’m not certain if I enjoyed those maps because of the design or because I could fly through them in half the time of a regular map. While Black Powder and Waterfront provided a nice change in pace, given that those maps often required alternative means to end the mission, there were few really standout entries. Wizards Tower was perhaps the most interesting. Vermintide 2, however, has done a lot in terms of mixing up objectives in maps while providing interesting layouts and locations with distinct personalities. Temple of Shallya has a very interesting visual progression from a hospital into some body horror hellscape before culminating in a big bowl of algae soup. Interestingly enough, it also happens to be the only map which you have to complete about ten laps around a track to finish.

But the most exciting part of Vermintide 2 is the support that it has received since its release. Not only were there two DLCs (that I skipped because I’m poor) but there’s also an announced expansion coming out this summer which will introduce a third faction of critters to kill: the Beastmen!

So, here’s hoping to hundreds of more hours of murder with my favourite non-contributing author in the months to come.