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Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide, or just Vermintide as we’ll call it, is a cooperative first person basher/slasher/shooter set in the Games Workshop Warhammer fantasy universe. The story revolves around a merry band of adventures who come to the town of Ubersreik and wind up embroiled in a siege from a massive underground army of rat folk called Skaven, all to the backdrop of some “end of days” shenanigans.

Across 13 levels you and three friends, or internet denizens, must work together to squish your way through a seemingly unlimited number of anthropomorphic vermin. Pick from five distinct characters and unlock new armour, weapons and trinkets to customise your play style.

In a nut shell if I had to draw a comparison I’d say that Vermintide is a meatier and improved version of Valves zombie game Left 4 Dead. Play with others and play together as much as possible to navigate maps encountering hordes of enemies and a spattering of special type AI. Throw in some Diablo-esq unlocks as well and you’ve got a very well rounded co-op experience.

Although the five playable characters look varied (elf, human, dwarf etc.), they play remarkably similar enough to be customised to your liking, preventing too much squabbling when it comes to character selection. Each has a ranged and a melee attack. Naturally the Elf Waywatcher is more adapt at delivering accuracy with his mighty bow vs.  the Empire Soldier’s blunderbuss, albeit does less damage than a face full of lead. Ammo is in low supply so even when playing the Legolas like rapid fire arrow launching Elf, you need to be mindful of your supplies. As you progress trinkets and items (weapons and armour) of various rareness become randomly unlocked allowing you to tweak things them further (both aesthetically and in stats).

Team work is the most important aspect of the game. You can be as proficient as anyone with head shooting or decapitating the whiskered horde, but if you’re all alone the enemy will overwhelm you or pick you off quickly. Characters like the Dwarf Ranger can equip a shield which isn’t very *sexy* in guts and glory fights, but works as a crowd control device and perfect for giving the other players some space to do the messy wet work. Melee combat is, thankfully, handled well as it’s the core mechanic of the game. Blocking and swinging delivers some really fun gore and brutality with a degree of trial and error as how to best perform these.

Matchmaking is the biggest issue for someone without any like-minded friends. As with any game of its ilk, such as Evolve or the aforementioned Left 4 Dead, the game derives the most enjoyment when you play the objective and don’t go all “Leroy Jenkins” by running off lone wolf. This can get frustrating when you have “randos” getting lost, sucking up all the ammo and health or leaving you and the rest of the team as rat food as the enemy swarm out of the walls to get you.

The enemy types come in a nine flavours and can be classified, mostly, with a Left 4 Dead infected comparison. You have your:

• Common rat folks (Clanrat, Skavenslaves and Stormvermin). Each has a different weapon or armour set.
• The Rat Ogre is your L4D “Tank” with tons of health and dealing plenty of damage if you’re cornered.
• Poison Wind Globadier (Gas Rat) operates like a “Boomer” spilling area of effect gas.
• Gutter Runner is a flexible “Hunter” type. Hard to spot and leaps upon you.
• Packmaster is an ambusher, snagging and dragging you away from other players like the zombie “Smoker”

Beyond that you face the:

• Ratling Gunners who, as its name suggests, sports a massive automatic ranged weapon, and finally
• The Stormvermin who play very smartly and try and circle you on mass to cut you down.

Graphically the game is top notch. Levels and characters are rendered beautifully with an attention to detail. It almost makes you feel bad to cleave in half such a well presented Skaven …almost. At the moment things aren’t 100% optimised, so check your system specs before purchase because as soon as you start getting face-to-face with a wall of ratty enemies, some machines may struggle to process the carnage and body parts causing some hefty drops in frames.

Overall Vermintide is an excellent achievement for such a small studio. I do draw some comparisons to Left 4 Dead but to be clear Vermintide is its own beast. It looks and plays great with a sense that a lot of love put into it. Throughout beta the community has been listened to for feedback. It comes packed with heaps of replayability with a good AI director and plenty to grind for to get some legendary character gear. With the promise of patches, more modes and content you’ll have a ton of fun (as long as you’ve got good friends to play with).

Fatshark has worked wonders with the Games Workshop license. They’ve captured the essence of the fantasy world and built around a great lore. Here’s to more content and games from the team.

Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide is available now on PC. The game comes to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2016.

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