Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Review (rategod)
The game deepens the already excellent Warhammer atmosphere. You won't know the exact year of the events, so it's not clear whether Altdorf is already burning and Archaon has reached Middenheim, but the mood of the end of the world is omnipresent and heavy. Dust falls on the ruins, doom hangs in the air, and Nurgle's gardens of loathing and decay thrive among the broken houses. The occasional cheerful song from the dwarf or the wizard Sienna teasing remark to the devoted sigmarite Victor is like a spark of hope in the darkness and, with its contrast, deepens the hopeless distress. The Warhammer lover will be delighted.
An exception would be found, however, in the form of the elf Kerillian. Yes, Warhammer elves tend to be dismissive and condescending towards other races, but there's a difference between the good-natured bickering of others and a constant stream of annoying insults that the heroine spews wherever she goes. You can put up with it for a while, but when he doesn't close his mouth even after two hundred hours and utters a hundred venomous rants during a mission, it gets on your nerves. In the end, one finds oneself actually quite glad when the elf is finally cut down by the hardened assassin.
Vermintide 2 is a sequel as it should be. The successful action core of the first one remains preserved, only a little more dynamism and rawness has been added to it, resulting from a larger number of enemies and therefore even more headless carnage. The creators have reworked the item acquisition system to some extent, eliminating much of the annoying role of randomness through simple but purposeful crafting. There were also light RPG elements, a more diverse environment that is no longer bound by a single city, and more types of enemies, as the original rats (Skaven) were joined by hordes of Norse barbarians in the service of Nurgle, and hideous armies of Beastmen. Fatshark's Vermintide 2 excels at conveying warrior euphoria.
Nineteen character options.
The ensemble of five heroes looks to have remained the same from last time, but that's only true at first glance. The latter will already reveal the welcome changes. Everyone now has a choice of 4 careers, which open up completely new possibilities and game styles.
If you want a dwarf Bardin, an indestructible ironbreaker or a possessed slayer with vision worthy of death. Depending on your own taste and mood, you can play the sorceress Sienna as a deadly fire-throwing machine or a melee fighter dressed in flame armor. Human mercenary Markus Kruber reveals the campaign as a Bretonnian warrior or a hunter with a death-sowing bow. Templar Viktor Saltzpyre also has a decent selection of characters available. My favorite character remains elf Kerillian, even though everyone hates him, especially his campaign as Shade, the servant of Malekith.
You literally have to build each character according to your imagination and choose the best combinations of skills, equipment and weapons and their respective properties.
Personally, after hundreds of hours I have mastered the legendary campaigns of all characters (which was my main goal) and I enjoyed each one.
I've read many Warhammer Fantasy books, so I have to criticize the game for one thing - it's not bloody enough. It would definitely need more second animation of death, real carnage as described in the books, just don't mess with heroes in gloves. Being torn apart by skaven, having a skull crushed by a beast, being eaten alive by a chaos monster... maybe I sound weird now, but this just belongs to Warhammer.
I may have beaten the game and have nothing to gain from it, but unless I find a successor, I'll still enjoy the carnage of Warhammer. I choose from 19 campaigns based on a random number generator.
Bigger, more predatory, rawer, more dynamic, more sophisticated, richer. In short, better. 90%