Warhammer: Vermintide 2

 PC
Metascore
82

Generally favorable reviews - based on 54 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 51 out of 54
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 54
  3. Negative: 0 out of 54
  1. GRYOnline.pl
    Mar 28, 2018
    70
    Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is good game - nothing more and nothing less. It provides tons of fun and enters the "co-op hall of fame" without looking back. Unfortunately I can't shake off the feeling that the release was a bit rushed; the game arguably feels more like an Early Access version.
  2. PC PowerPlay
    Mar 19, 2018
    70
    A great game held back by poor balance decisions and a layer of petty bugs.
  3. Metro GameCentral
    Mar 11, 2018
    70
    Even without microtransactions, loot boxes manage to spoil another potentially classic game, although the core combat and co-op atmosphere still shine through.
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In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Eurogamer
    Mar 12, 2018
    A highly accomplished sequel that innovates without losing sight of what made the first one great. [Recommended]
  2. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Mar 12, 2018
    Vermintide 2 might be shameless about its inspiration, but, critically, it recreates it really, really well, at a spectacular scale. I can’t speak to whether I’ll still be showering the land with rat legs a few months from now, but I fully expect to happily spend the next few weeks, at least, knee-deep in the rodent dead.

Awards & Rankings

45
#45 Best PC Game of 2018
36
#36 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
66
#66 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 342 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 211 out of 342
  2. Mixed: 78 out of 342
  3. Negative: 53 out of 342
  1. asddsaa
    Apr 2, 2018
    3
    The base mechanics are fine. They're passable. What else could they be when your ripping off an established formula whole hog. Here'sThe base mechanics are fine. They're passable. What else could they be when your ripping off an established formula whole hog. Here's everything about vermintide that sucks.

    -Artificial difficulty. You are a slow, fat, legless slug that must drag your misshapen heap of a body to and fro in blatant defiance of gods will. Your enemies trained their whole lives with cirque du soleil. Each of you can usually one shot the other at higher difficulties, especially if you pick up the books that cut your health by 66%. This game isn't difficult like spinning plates or hitting a three pointer, it's difficult like chewing gravel.

    -Unavoidable damage. Even playing properly you will almost certainly take a lot of damage. This is especially irksome during boss fights.

    -One way no return drops. Don't ever get caught on top of one alone because if you go down because a special spawned on top of you and grabbed you, your team has no way of rezzing you because for some reason you can't crawl in last stand.

    -The playable characters. I mainly play kerillian, and i wan't to rip her sarcastic, quipy little tongue out of her smug **** face. And then I want to do the same with the rest of the reprobates whose skulls I inhabit. There is no way to just mute the characters voices either, because fat shark has nothing but contempt for their players and you're gonna experience every line of dialog every game or you can go **** yourself.

    -Specials. 3/5? specials have the ability to grab the player through guard and pin them, slowly draining health. A special **** you to the assassin which can leap over a hundred metres and often from behind cover. Why not just roll a die every few minutes to decide if the player should continue or restart.

    -Item crafting. The only draw of this game is grinding for 300 gear score, and fat shark knows this, so they dribble and drip items at a slugs pace. After getting up to about 150 or so, don't expect to get any usable gear in any given play session, because you likely won't. Just a small mound of tinder to burn for materials.

    -Tomes. The game doesn't reward individual skill as much as it does meta knowledge about the 5 collectible books on every level, often hidden in obnoxiously difficult to find places. They never move and completing the level without at least 3-4 is almost pointless, so get ready to study a wikia to make sure you arnt pissing up a tree for half an hour.

    -Toxic community. Even though there is no benefit to getting the most kills, kill whoring is rampant, even if it means shooting your own teammates. Even if it means taking damage yourself. I also distinctly remember being called **** retarded for not knowing where all the books were on a level i had played once.

    -Samey levels. If I ever made a game where there are only 16 small maps, I would at least make sure they were highly distinct from one another. This is not the case. Not that there is any story worth getting invested in (or at all), but the writers couldn't come up with 16 different objectives for you to complete, and 4 are already just crappy boss fights. There's like 3 missions that revolve around ringing a bell.

    -Story. It's like a really god awful super friends or something. There's a portal, you **** around for 15 levels, then you break the portal. There's no development, no character arcs, no point. Why is this even a warhammer game? to cynically cash in on an established fan base and make the L4D skin suit you're wearing seem more appealing by stretching it grotesquely around the frame of another established franchise? Maybe all of warhammer is thinly veiled plagiarism covered in slimy dog **** i don't know, I've never seen any of it so maybe it is.

    Bottom line. This game is fun like smoking crack is fun. First you have to blow a guy for 20 dollars, then you have to not get stabbed knocking on your dealers door because he lives in a bad neighborhood, then you have to make a stem out of a nip bottle, then smoking it tastes like battery acid and burns like poison, but after its all done you get high for a few minutes before you have to start over again. That is this game. An indeterminate amount of suffering then a cathartic high when you get to open that golden loot box. For some people that's a game. To me that's a destructive personality trait.    … Full Review »
  2. tyr8338
    Mar 9, 2018
    10
    I find this game very amusing, it`s hard and forces you to stay with your team to survive. Graphics are much improved compared to previousI find this game very amusing, it`s hard and forces you to stay with your team to survive. Graphics are much improved compared to previous part and it runs very good on i7 @ 4.2GHz + GeForce 1070 OC with almost maxed out settings.… Full Review »
  3. Dave3d
    Mar 8, 2018
    3
    Well, I have over 500 hours into Vermintide 1, and pre-ordered the Vermintide 2 because 1 was so good.
    Well, it turns out that the 2nd game    Well, I have over 500 hours into Vermintide 1, and pre-ordered the Vermintide 2 because 1 was so good.
    Well, it turns out that the 2nd game in the series was very rushed, they put in a very bad anticheat system just days before release, which has not only broken the game for a lot of people (they cant launch the game, it crashes, it plays a map until the end of the map then crashes leaving the player with nothing, no XP, no stones, no dust, nothing at all), but it also introduced severe lag in the game.
    I have a heck of a gaming system (I7 5930k, Titan X 12gb, GTX580 as dedicated Physx card, 16gb ddr4 memory, 2560x1440 144hz monitor), and the game went from 70 to 100fps, all the way down to 30 to 60's fps. It is poorly optimized right now, and never should have been released. Even the developers themselves said they wish they had another 3 months to a year to finish it.
    It is very hard for newcomers, casual players, or even midlevel players to play, as they removed the 'Easy' , 'Normal' and 'Hard' options of the 1st game, and start players out on what is essentially 'Nightmare' from the 1st game, and it gets much harder (3 more levels after the 'Recruit' which ir really 'Nightmare' difficulty).
    If you like dying over and over and over and over and over, and never finishing a map, until you get enough experience to get a loot box that may or may not contain a good weapon, then this is your kind of game!
    Throw in an Anti-Cheat system that is as bad as or worse than Securom, Starforce, and Sony's music DRM, (at the very last minute mind you, mere days before actual release) and you have a recipe for disaster.
    The gameplay is VERY geared towards consoles (but why is it so hard then?), as there iis blur on EVERYTHING, and you cannot turn some of it off (although they do have a great selection of options for everything else, including other viddeo options) compared to the 1st game. The art direction they went with is part Vermintide 1, and part cartoonish look (they reused assets from V1, and the new enemies dont look like the rats, they look more cartoonish).
    The gameplay is a tossup. I personally love Vermintide 1's gameplay, as it is very crisp, the momentum is just about right for the fast pace of the game, and everything just 'fits' with everything else. Vermintide 2, on the other hand, feels laggy, clumsy, and way overhanded with the forward momentum of even just a single handed blade or axe..
    The game is not jump in and play, its jump in and grind and grind and grind until you get enough XP to get a loot box that may have a good weapon or charm in it, until you can win 1 map to get another few loot boxes, until you can then beat the 2nd map, and grind until you get another few loot boxes and grind and grind and grind a single map over and over and over until you can beat the next map, unless you get lucky and the new enemy spawn engine does not spawn much of anything and you just walk to the maps exit, which is not rewarding at all, but welcome if you lose 15 games in a row.
    I think the leveling system in V2 ruined the game that was V1. Instead of building upon what was so successful, they totally changed the gameplay to be very heavy RPG (to a FPS only pplayer). No longer can you play whatever weapon you want. No, now you have to unlock characters as you go along, and guess what? You get to play them from level 1 AGAIN! And grind and grind and grind, just like the 1st time.
    they messed with a great game too much, and made it something I personally dont want to play anymore.
    I will stick with Vermintide 1, and see what they do with Vermintide 3, IF there is ever a Vermintide 3 after this debacle.
    I am sad to write this review, as I love the 1st game.
    But, Vermintide 2 just is not ready to release, and has strayed too far from the formula that made it great to begin with.    … Full Review »
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