RATS ENTERTAINMENT

Revisiting a lost planet in WARHAMMER: THE END TIMES—VERMINTIDE

There was a time, far back in the World-That-Was of 2013-ish, when the thought of a buddy comedy set during the destruction of the Warhammer world would have felt impossible. Warhammer Online was dying. Mediocre 40k games erupted onto Steam like boils. And then Vermintide appeared, clutching a brace of ideas borrowed from Left 4 Dead, and Warhammer fans once again began to believe in the power of prayer.

It’s still great fun. Skaven enemies fall apart in satisfying, cold sausage chunks. The randomized swarming elements make every level worth replaying. And the stern difficulty feels like a genuine test of your planning and teamwork, especially when the game starts peppering you with specialist enemies. But for me, the thing that still stands out is the detail and adoration for the world—something glimpsed from afar in the likes of Total War: Warhammer, but explored here in close detail. You’re often too busy hammering rats to appreciate it, but it’s there if you stop and explore.

I played loads of Vermintide, but never finished it. And, at the time of writing, there’s something especially appealing about teaming up with a group of friends, heading to a cosy bar, and battering the everliving piss out of plague-carrying rats. It’s also a reminder of how much fun online gaming can be with the right group of people. You’ll know a true friend when the only thing they care about is how much damage their shield soaked up.

Speaking of which, one of the best bits of Vermintide remains the interaction between its oddball heroes. There are some lines that still sing, even when you’re hearing them for the 100th time. Victor Saltzpyre’s officious, upset music teacher, “Let’s not get carried away!” is a particular favorite. And, best of all for a lifelong Warhammer dork, there’s no dilution here. Bardin the Dwarf calls out his warnings in broken Khazalid, and, it’s on you if you don’t know what the dwarf word for ‘rat ogre’ is. (It’s pretty obvious.)

Vermintide somehow still works despite the annoyances. The most difficult levels take place across narrow beams and rickety bridges, and being knocked off them often leads to a party wipe. It can be staggeringly imprecise at times, most notably when you’re struggling to yank a downed teammate back into the game. And the loot system is miserly to the point of belligerence— even the toughest levels will only reward you with middling gear.

FORGIVENESS

But it’s an easy game to forgive. In much the same way that the disparate adventurers in the game pull together despite wretched circumstances, it’s fun to weather Vermintide’s idiosyncrasies. Some levels can start with a wipe almost immediately, but it’s still enough fun that you can sigh, chalk it up to unfair circumstances, and head back in with dogged optimism of a dwarf after a barrel of Bugman’s.

It’s also a reminder of how much fun online gaming can be

Even with the tutorial’s laconic, Sam Elliott drawl explaining the basics to me, I still manage to mess up my first kill in theHunter. I clip the deer’s neck then have to spend ten minutes following blood trails to find it. But it doesn’t matter. As it turns out, pursuing a terrified deer through miles of dense undergrowth is exactly the introduction you need to this curiously zen-like animal murder simulator.

So much of what I enjoy about this game happens between kills: The cautious tracking of animals, the signs of other nearby life, and the focussed dedication you feel following a single target. It makes theHunter one of the most unique stealth games I’ve ever played, and certainly the slowest. I’m constantly at war with my own impatience. Animals are quick to flee and the element of surprise always feels hard fought. And once it’s gone, regaining it feels like putting shaving cream back in the can. This means that theHunter requires a degree of patience unlike anything else I’ve played. At the risk of sounding sinister, I’m generally quite happy to spend my time crouched behind a thicket in a game, but there are times when there’s too much nothing happening in theHunter, even for me. But this does make those precious moments when you finally take a shot hugely exhilarating

I’m not keen on the subject matter—few things fill me with hatred like seeing some slack-jawed chad sitting atop the corpse of a lion that’s been shot at 600 meters—but theHunter feels like a different beast. It’s not exactly Doctor

Doolittle, but I feel like I know more about animal behavior having played it.

“Thrakzulk would sometimes stare out to sea and remember home-home.”

This could be a Bob Ross painting if not for the rifle in shot.

Man against feral beast. A story as old as humanity itself.