Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Impressions (a fantasy Left 4 Dead game)

I had never heard of Vermintide or played any Warhammer game until the beta that happened a few weeks ago on Xbox One. It feels like Left 4 Dead and Elder Scrolls had a baby. The melee and magic combat is actually way better than Skyrim and Oblivion. It's nice to play a co-op game that has some depth and strategy. I've been playing it a lot since it released on X1 a couple weeks ago and it being on game pass was a nice plus. It's in the same vein as Gears' horde, Mass Effect's multiplayer, etc but it's a fantasy game. I'm not sure if the guys have talked about it much on the podcast, but I'd check it out. I was wondering what others thought of the game and who do you usually play as?

I saw that there's a Discord/PC thread about playing together, if anyone else plays on Xbox and wants people to play with leave your gamertag. I don't like doing champion or legend difficulties with randoms.

I got back into it recently after getting a bit sick of it during the PC Beta (overplayed the few missions that were available). It's a really fun game and the kind of sequel I can get behind - don't fix what's not broken, just add more depth and variety. The equipment and loot system in particular is SO improved over the first game. Just like in the first game I play Bardin, Ironbreaker usually, because I love being in the thick of the battle and I love melting hordes with his drakegun. He also has the best banter, in my opinion.

my impressions: good

It’s a fun game to play with friends, for sure.

I may be misremembering the first game, but blocking, pushing, striking, and crowd control all feel much tighter to me.

I like having the dwarf around on the higher two difficulties, he's saved the day a few times when I've played. I think everyone is useful besides the mage. She was my first character and I got her to around level 18, but I think she's not that useful in champion and legend, since she's not really anti armor, specials, or bosses. I like the Waystalker (elf archer) first and the Bounty Hunter second.

I'm pretty sure Ben kept with it for a while, dunno how much he talked about it on the cast though.

I bought it just recently myself, and while it's enjoyable it left me disappointed. I've been really chomping for Warhammer games this year and it delivers on that front splendidly. Unfortunately I found the game itself to be fairly mediocre. The loot system is quite simplistic but also over-convoluted, and even with the random nature to the game I started getting bored with the maps quite quickly. It's fine as a "campaign" experience, but for me it failed to deliver as the "return to over and over" gameplay experience it tries to deliver. For the price I guess it's fine, but I wish it was fleshed out with more spectacular scenarios and more "pieces" to increase the variety. I guess in some way I'd want the game to have a fully-fledged well produced campaign, and then what the current game is would work as the supplementary multiplayer mode.

If I only played on recruit or veteran I'd probably get bored of it quickly, but increasing the difficulty as my character levels up keeps it fun and the way enemies spawn in completely different ways keeps it fresh too. I don't think the loot system is bad or convoluted, they handle it way better than something like Destiny IMO. It's a fun game, it's not a triple AAA game like God of War or near its level of quality, but it scratches what I liked about Gears' horde, Left 4 Dead, and other similar games.

I played a lot of it when it came out but fell off after about two weeks. It's satisfying to smash hordes and the banter between the characters tends to be pretty good. I think I'll definitely jump back in when they release another set of levels.

@japanesebuffalo: I didn't play the first game, so I don't know how they handled DLC. They added levels in the first game? How about new characters or costumes? Instead of a fire mage an ice one would be cool to see, since slowing down or freezing hordes would be useful.