The main gist of Vermintide is some really nice locations and a ton of Skaven or rat-people to kill, randomized waves of weak enemies with some more powerful enemies thrown in to keep things interesting. Anyone who's a fan of first person melee combat should not hesitate to check this title out, unless of course they have connection problems and are unable to play games online (see AI section). There are 5 heroes to choose from and there is some nice variety here, a couple of the characters are slightly more tank based and can equip shields, while other are a nice mix of melee and ranged damage with 1 character specializing in pyromancy. Maps are pretty big with lots of little side areas which really encourage exploration.
Ease of Entry
This game is very easy to pick up and play, especially if you've ever played one of the Left for Dead titles as it is very similar in many ways. The only things that really take some getting used to if you're an inexperienced gamer are the Wizards overheating mechanic, which is essentially a 'press and hold reload', and then the blocking/pushing mechanic which has charges that replenish once you stop blocking or pushing. As always with these types of games staying close to your team members is a key part of success, especially on the harder difficulties. Nobody should be ashamed to start off on the easy difficulty as the equipment you start off with is pretty average, but moving up to normal and then hard should not be a problem once you have some gear.
Progression
There is a really interesting loot system in place that rewards you based on certain actions taken during the missions. Certain item pickups in the form of tomes and grimoires can affect dice rolls, these rolls happen at the end of the mission to determine how good your rewards are. To carry these pickups though you will have to sacrifice your healing item slot, so its like a bit of a gamble. The loot you can acquire and upgrade consists of melee weapons, ranged weapons, head gear and other trinkets. There is an overall level but its not tied to any of the 5 characters, so you do not need to level them up individually.
AI
The AI as it stands now is pretty bad, they do not really help with map objectives which is quite annoying, however they are OK in combat but they can really get stuck when it comes to dealing with certain types of special enemies and quite bad when it comes to reviving you when you go down. In some cases they will be standing right next to you and do not revive. As far as I can tell there is no way to ask them to do something, like request for them to heal you or pickup a particular item. I fully understand that this is primarily an online game but it IS advertised on Steam as having 'Single-player'.
Visuals
Vermintide is a gorgeous game, some top quality texture work especially on the main characters and enemies, I did notice a couple of the weapons had slightly lower res textures but I've only really played with lower level equipment so it may well be that higher end weapons have had more effort put into them. The levels are a visual treat and offer some nice variety in terms of locations, colour palette and lighting, even town areas have a really nice amount of detail and I feel that visually the maps did a fantastic job of immersing you in the experience.
Sound
sound design is pretty good, standard atmospheric noises and nice weapon sounds, but nothing outstanding like the sound design you might find in Battlefield or Dead Space. I love the voice acting, the characters often say some pretty funny things and regularly talk about what's going on around them and call out when they see pickups or a dangerous enemy. The music in this game was created by Jesper Kyd, who worked on the music for franchises such as Borderlands, Hitman, Assassins Creed, SoulCalibur and Mortal Kombat. Its quite raw and very well done, not the typical orchestral type of score you might find in other fantasy games or films.
Options
Overall I was quite happy with the amount of options of offer, there is both controller and mouse/keyboard support, FOV slider, only a couple of anti aliasing options though, optional frame rate locks to 30, 60 and above, motion blur toggle, depth of field toggle and the ability to just generally scale the graphics quite far in either direction with many other options like texture quality, light sources, shadows and all that good stuff.
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Indian Noob shares their opinion as to why Warhammer: Vermintide series of games features the best first person melee combat system ever made.
BacklogCritic :"Vermintide is a pleasant experience of chopping down countless hordes of Skaven, even more so with friends. Its a brutal game too, with the difficulty curve reaching brutally punishing levels if you play on the hardest mode."
