Player Preview - Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide

Title: Warhammer: End Time - Vermintide
Developer: Fat Shark Games
Status: Closed Beta
Release Date: 23/October/2015

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1OkYCmF
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1jcEg25

 

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the Co-Op medieval FPS, Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide, developed by fat shark games the same guys behind War of the Roses and Escape Dead Island. Vermintide brings 4 heroes together to push back the Skaven hordes as they mount a full scale offensive on the people.

The comparison to Left 4 Dead is an easy one to make as many of the games mechanics are very similar if not the same. The biggest difference though is instead of fighting off zombies with guns you will be fighting off hordes of rats or Skaven as they’re known in the Warhammer universe with primarily melee weapons like swords, hammers and daggers. Being the same developers behind War of the Roses, a Medieval Combat game, all the melee weapons feel great to use with quick and heavy attacks tearing through the Skaven hordes in a satisfying matter. When things do get a bit dicey or overwhelming you can block enemy attacks at least for a little while until you run out of stamina. If you’re getting completely mobbed you can also push enemies back causing them to stumble, giving you a couple of seconds before they fully recover.

While your melee weapon is your primary form of offense each character also has a ranged weapon, most of which are ammo dependant, the bright wizards fire staff the only exception. These ranged weapons can be bows, crossbows, pistols and single shot rifles. Almost every one of these weapons are a one shot kill however even being extremely powerful as they are, they’re best used to pick off a couple of enemies here and there before the horde manages to reach you. You can’t really use them as your main weapon either due to the ammunition consumption, even using them now and then will result in you running out of ammunition, luckily Ammo crates can be found at various locations around the map so you can top up if need be.

Other items found around the map to help you out on your missions include potions, grenades and healings items, each with their own inventory slot. While utilising these items isn’t entirely necessary in the easy and normal difficulty modes, you will have to take full advantage of them in the other 4 modes. The potions you have available to use include a power potion that increases your damage output and a speed potion that increases your move speed and your attack speed both potions being equally important and requiring you to use them at the optimal time as they only last around 10 seconds or so. As for grenades, there is also 2 options with a normal explosive grenade dealing a large amount of area damage and a fire grenade that will leave all enemies caught in the blast burning and taking damage over time. Lastly the healing items and again there are currently 2 options with bandages that can heal you or can be applied to a team mate and a healing potion which can only be used by the owner both items healing for around the same amount.

As a character based game Vermintide currently has 5 characters to play as, allowing only 4 players for each game this does allow for slight strategic picks. The different heroes include the Witch Hunter with a pistol and rapier best used in the front line attacking extremely quick while also being quite resilient. The Bright Wizard with a fire staff and a Wizard Sword, the only character that relies on a ranged weapon more than melee but you will have to stagger your damage output so as not to blow up. The Dwarf Ranger with a battle axe, shield and Dwarven Crossbow that can take a beating and dish it out. The Waywatcher with a longbow and Dual Elven Daggers that is rather fragile and better of sniping targets at a distance with her bow and finally the empire soldier with a Handgun and Great Sword that is all about brute strength breaking through even the toughest armour. These characters aren’t locked to these loadouts able to change to different weapons once obtained that will have variations in 5 different stats including speed, damage, knockback, targets and finally range depending on weather it is a range weapon or not. 

The missions in the beta, of which there were 3, varied quite a bit. In one mission you will be running through the city streets, the next climbing a massive tower. The mission objective however is a bit the same throughout basically coming down to making your way to a certain objective, activating it and then having to hold out against a very large horde of Skaven. I hope there is a bit more variation in the final game, which I fully expect there to be with different objectives like trying to outrun a horde bearing down on you or even perhaps some boss fights.

The enemies you will be facing are all Skaven based units starting off with the common clanrat with weapons and armour consisting of whatever they can their hands on. Skavenslaves take the next spot but only barely being completely unarmoured with basic weapons and their main purpose of overwhelming their target rather than overpowering. The elite units of Stormvermin are like a Spartan unit with heavy armour and halberds, these guys march around the maps in large groups and are best avoided if possible. That does it for the basic units of the game but there are still quite a few specialist units like the poison wind globadier that will throw gas grenades on your position, The Gutter Runner that will assassinate any team members found by themselves, the Packamster that will single out a player and run off with them trapped in its pole arm catcher, the Ratling Gunner that is equipped with a Gatling gun and finally the most powerful of the lot, the Rat Ogre. A large abomination that is capable of destroying a whole team on its own but when aided by other members of the Skaven horde makes it almost impossible to deal with. 

Vermintide offers some progression elements to the game utilising its unique character loadout system in a really cool way. At the end of a mission that has been completed successfully you will get an opportunity to roll dice in order to unlock and obtain either a weapon, helmet or trinket. The higher the roll you achieve the higher the rarity of item you will be able to unlock. You can help your chances of a better item by collecting tomes scattered around the level that will give you 1 higher chance die for each tome. There are also Skaven Grimoires that will give you a guaranteed roll success but will also reduce your team’s health quite significantly while carrying them. Finally in terms of collectable ways to increase your chances there is a slightly better chance die that can be found in any loot spawn area like chests. The biggest difference in your item rarity chances however is the difficulty level you play a mission at with normal difficulty allowing you to only achieve a blue item on a 6 die success while on harder difficulties you can achieve an orange item, the rarity colour scheme going white, green, blue and then orange. So a 3 success roll on normal you will get a green item but the same roll on hard will give you a blue item.

So what do these rare items do exactly, well their base stats don’t change from the standard version of an item to a red rarity item. Instead, the rarity will provide a weapon with bonus stats. Green giving you 1 bonus, blue giving you 2 and so on. These bonus stats include things like a 5% chance to gain 25% attack speed on a kill or a 10% chance to replenish a weapons ammunition on a kill. These bonuses also work off the same rarity system, for example a green weapon can have an orange bonus stat, and the bonus stat need to be unlocked at the forge with a gem before taking effect. These required gems can only be obtained by deconstructing weapons at the forge with the resulting gems rarity dictated by the deconstructed weapons rarity. Another option you have for unwanted weapons in your inventory is to trade up 5 same rarity items for 1 higher rarity item again via the forge.

Other features of the game include a really nice lobby system that is almost completely void of menus and menu screens. Loading into the game you will load into the tavern as your selected character able to move around, attack, try out new weapons, access the forge, your inventory and the mission map all via the in game tavern. It’s a small feature and not an entirely needed one but it is much nicer then menu screens. Other than that there is also best performance awards given out after every successful mission with most kills, most damage taken and least knockdowns being a couple examples.

Altogether Warhammer End Times: Vermintide is a great Co-Op experience that looks great, feels great particularly on the melee weapons and adds a ton of replayabilitiy to the left 4 dead formula with the RPG item rarity feature. I would like to see some more mission variety and maybe a couple of boss fights here and there as something else to work towards outside of better gear, harder difficulties and completing the storyline. I would also like to see a special ability or ultimate of sorts to add onto the combat system but that may just be the MOBA player inside of me speaking. For anyone looking for a really solid Co-Op game to play with friends with a really great setting and progression system then Vermintide is definitely a game to check out.

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Warhammer End Time: Vermintide. The game is officially releasing the 23rd of October on Steam for $30 or your regional equivalent. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links Above. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you guys next time.