The first expansion for Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - Winds of Magic - is launching on August 13th, indie dev Fatshark revealed today.
Winds of Magic introduces a new enemy type known as the Beastmen, a faction of cloven-hooved bipedal jerks who, according to Warhammer lore, are intent on destroying civilization and being all around bovine-faced hooligans. After a meteor crashes in the Reikland, the Beastmen rush to its epicenter to claim their sacred Herdstone shrine. The result is a bloody mess of dark cow action, a first-person slash-and-prod in a deep fantasy woodland that is explorable by your collective of heroes. Watch the gameplay trailer after the jump.
]]>I've always thought Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide did a lot for the Skaven's image. What were once an unconvincing race of miniature rat folk, are now as horrifying as an entire horde of zombies.
]]>The next DLC for Warhammer: Vermintide 2 will call back to the first game, revisiting and reworking three of the cooperative FPS's most popular levels. Back To Ubersreik is its name, and making three old levels "Bigger, better, and crazier!" is its game, according to developers Fatshark. They've only confirmed one level so far, the game-opening Horn Of Magnus where our four ratsmashers have to blow a big ol' horn to warn everyone: rats, oh god rats.
]]>The bad rats are back again - no, not those ones. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 was a lot of grimdark, co-op hack n' slash fun, but some folks have already picked every last scrap of diseased meat from its bones already. Today, it got its first bit of paid DLC - Shadows Over Bögenhafen - adding another two missions to the mix, plus a massive patch for all. In this DLC, everyone's favourite plague god Nurgle is up to no good (again), so it's time to call our band of continually bickering heroes to come clean up, and maybe bop some rats while they're at it.
]]>This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they’ve taken to make their games. This time, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 [official site].
In designing Vermintide II’s melee combat, Mats Andersson ran through the same preset level 50 times a day for two years. This hodgepodge of the game’s most distinctive areas, enemies and swarms makes no sense and it looks terrible, but playing it about 100,000 times was what it took to ensure face-to-face brawling would be rich in heft and detail.
Andersson knew how fast he could clear that level, how much damage he should take, how many kills he should be getting; yardsticks by which he could measure each run, and it’s how clicking to swing your hammer feels like it’s caving a skull in, and why your sword feels like it can split a rat’s stringy carcass in two. “It’s very much home to me,” he says.
]]>I’d wager most folk around these parts devoured Left 4 Dead back in the day, just as I did. Valve’s “28 Days Later with your friends” infected my life for a good year, and a bigger, better sequel one year later only strengthened the disease. But as Valve haven’t really been in the business of making games for a good few years - hopefully, that’s about to change - and while it felt like Left 4 Dead was going to change the world back in (oh no) 2008, for a long time nothing filled the rotten hole where my heart used to be.
That is, until Fatshark’s rowdy rat-smash, Vermintide. The four vs the world setup and the UI were highly reminiscent of Left 4 Dead, and what are Gutter Runners and Pack Masters if not reskinned Hunters and Smokers? But there was much more to that game than swapping out zombies for skaven. With both series now/still on their second games, let’s look at how Vermintide ran with the legacy of Left 4 Dead, while managing to forge its own identity.
]]>I don't tend to think about how many things I murder in a murder-related videogame. I just remove whatever obstacles are in the way and move on, in the time-honoured tradition of solving problems in action games. In co-op online stabber-shooter Warhammer: Vermintide 2, I'm unusually conscious of the body count. It is, if you'll forgive a little early-90s melodrama, extreme. That's just one reason why Vermintide 2 successfully escapes the shadow of 'it's just Left 4 Dead but with Games Workshop' faint-praise damning that its predecessor stood within.
]]>Rat season has officially begun. Following directly on from Vermintide 1's bombastic finale-as-free-DLC earlier this week, the sequel - due for launch early next month - is letting players in for their first taste of next-gen first-person Skaven-squishing starting today and continuing over the course of the weekend.
Closed beta access is primarily for those who pre-ordered Warhammer: Vermintide 2, but those who picked up the Humble Jingle Jam charity bundle are being granted access as well, plus folks who snag beta keys at PAX South recently.
]]>We may be just two weeks from the release of Warhammer: Vermintide 2, but studio Fatshark are supporting the original game right up until the bitter end. In fact, the latest update for the game adds that bitter end for you to experience first-hand.
Released as part of a free update, yesterday's Patch 1.11 adds one final mission to the game, entitled Waylaid, which sets things up for the sequel in surprisingly dramatic fashion. Lohnar has a job for you, so it's back to the Red Moon Inn for one last round.
]]>The Vermintide will be coming in on March 8th, developers Fatshark have announced, giving us less than a month with which to sharpen our axes, re-string our longbows, and generally mentally prepare to carve up hordes of 'orrible ratmen in Warhammer: Vermintide 2. We've not covered the co-op FPS since its announcement last year, but since then it's been made clear that the ratty Skaven have teamed up with those jerks from the Chaos army, meaning we'll be fighting humans as well as rodents this time.
]]>Humble's latest Bundle is the ninth in the series of Jumbo bundles. As the name suggests, these gather up larger and more popular indie gems into one big package where - as per normal - the more you pay, the more you get.
This ninth Jumbo bundle includes river-bound roguelike The Flame in the Flood, Left4Deadalike Warhammer Vermintide, clumsylike platformer Human Fall Flat, trenchalike shooter Verdun and we-really-like American Truck Simulator, among others for up to $10/£8. A portion of your money will go to fund the AbleGamers Foundation charity or any other charity of your choosing if you have a specific one in mind.
The Humble Jumbo Bundle 9 is live now and up for the better part of the next two weeks, if it seems like your thing. More games are set to be added at the end of next week, as well, so check back to see what else your money will have gotten you.
]]>The 'Left 4 Dead but with ratmen' cooperative first-person action of Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide will return with a sequel, developers Fatshark formally announced today. Bearing the shorter, simpler name of Warhammer: Vermintide 2 [official site], it will... do about the same? Fatshark don't have much to say or show right now, holding their secrets back until October. But screenshots show more outdoors-y areas than the first, and beyond that I'd broadly guess you and your mates kill giant humanoid rats in the face unto death?
]]>Poor old Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide [official site], it's a perfectly decent Left 4 Dead-but-with-ratmen, but for me it's now doomed to forever be "the one that looks a bit like Bloodborne but isn't anything quite as transcendent." I am obsessed with Bloodborne now, I'm afraid. I pray it somehow comes to PC so that I can endlessly jabber into your terrified face as to why that's the case. But while Bloodborne is like an unofficial Warhammer adaptation, Vermintide is the real deal, and its solid first-person Skaven-bothering is now reinforced by a free weekend and some castley DLC set in the mountains outside of its main town.
]]>Here's the thing: I recognise that Måns Zelmerlöw's Heroes was probably the best Eurovision song in last year's contest, but it wasn't the best song. Are you, reader dear, listening to Heroes regularly? Exactly. Yet I'm still giving Rhythm Inside by Belgium's Loïc Nottet plenty of play and- oh fine, I'll skip to the point.
Fantasy FPS Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide [official site] today launched its wave survival mode 'Last Stand' in a free update, and Swedish devs Fatshark have celebrated that with a trailer set to Heroes. Hey, you, it's not May 2015 anymore.
]]>Like Left 4 Dead, which so clearly inspired it, Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide [official site] is getting a cooperative wave survival mode in a free update. You know, a 'be swarmed by hordes of increasingly tough and numerous monsters' sort of a mode. Developers Fatshark mentioned plans for a survival mode last year, and now have more to say about when it'll launch, what it'll offer, and what will cost money.
]]>Warhammer End Times: Vermintide [official site] is an enjoyable fantasy throwdown, easy to describe as Left 4 Dead with Skaven, but with a loot and upgrade system that brings some RPG trappings to the four-player cooperative vermin extermination. One of the main complaints that I heard repeatedly when playing the game prior to my review related to the game's indiscriminate loot drops. Play as a bright wizard and you might find equipment that only a dwarf ranger can use, or vice versa. The free Sigmar's Blessing update, released today, allows you to tip the odds in favour of your chosen class, as well as adding an entire new tier of veteran loot.
]]>"Left 4 Dead with ratmen" is how I summarised Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide [official site] when we first heard from it, though after reading Wot Adam Thinks I'd upgrade that to "Left 4 Dead with ratmen and persistent progression and loot." If the last part of that is causing you grief, good news: free 'DLC' next month will bring new items and more control over getting which loot you want. Developers Fatshark say this is the star of their plan to alternate free and paid additions, and they're working on a survival mode too.
]]>Left 4 Dead with Skaven. That was surely the elevator pitch for Fatshark's Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide [official site] and the game, now released, hews fairly close to that mash-up. Four players, each taking on the role of a specific character, must fight their way through swarms of Skaven, including special variants, to achieve objectives that vary from one level to the next.
At first glance it's all very familiar. At second and third glance there's little to change that initial judgement. I've been glancing for days though and can report that Vermintide does have its own identity. Here's wot I think.
]]>Here's a trailer you may have missed among the bigger news of E3 2015, but fans of anthropomorphised rat slaughter will nevertheless want to check out. This short Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide [official site] trailer shows off the variety of environments you'll be trudging through with friends once the co-op FPS releases this autumn.
]]>"Left 4 Dead with ratmen" is how I'll crudely summarise what little I know about the newly announced Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide [official site]. It's a co-op FPS pitting heroes against hordes of Skaven in shoot-o-melee action, coming in the second half of this year from War of the Vikings makers Fatshark.
Warhammer 40K is more my bag than Warhammer Fantasy, so all I really know about the Skaven comes from Kieron in pubs. They're hordes of ravenous little ratmen, I get, but also giant rat ogres and sometimes ride in rodent wheels bristling with knives and lightning guns. Cool-o!
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