Warhammer: Vermintide II
US$29.99 | PC | www.vermintide.com
VERMINTIDE II’S ‘AI director’ is sadistic. With a lumbering Chaos Warrior already attacking us, the AI summons an armoured Stormvermin ambush from behind. They quickly knock out Bardin the dwarf, Kruber the mercenary and Sienna the fire mage, leaving only me, the nimble elf Kerillian, to save us. If I can just get to one of them, I can revive them and turn the tide back in our favour.
Vermintide II can be maddeningly difficult. One or two of my teammates will be incapacitated, surrounded by vermin, and it’ll feel like it’s game over. Then my hammer smashes in the skull of the last Rotblood — it’s over. We survived.
As good as Vermintide II is at creating epic scenes of tension, it’s diminished by a frustrating multiplayer setup that can steal away what valuable agency you have over that experience. Fatshark’s sequel to Vermintide is challenging and thrilling, but it can also be frustrating as hell when the multiplayer fails.
Like the first game, Vermintide II is a Left4 Dead- style, four-player co-op first-person action game in which your party wades through treacherous levels fighting off hordes of Skaven ratmen, who have now allied with the Rotbloods, a clan of vicious Chaos raiders. Set during Warhammer’s End Times,
Vermintide II’s apocalyptic fantasy setting is disturbing and marvellous. Its 13 levels tour ruined cities and treacherous bogs that are each as gorgeous and moody as the last.
With each mission lasting about 30 minutes, you’ll end up repeating them. Each level is expansive enough that revisiting them never feels repetitive thanks, in part, to the AI director mixing up spawns. It’s a system that mostly works: Vermintide II succeeds on the merits of its stellar combat and level design. After 40 hours, that Rotblood warhorn signalling a Zerg-like rush of raiders, or the sound of a Gutter Runner assassin chattering in the darkness, still turns my blood to ice.