Aesthetic Charm

In order to fully appreciate the high quality graphics in Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide, you’ll need a relatively powerful computer. Using a Gigabyte P35, Intel i7-4720HQ 2.60GHz, 16GB Ram, GeForce GT 965M allows me to play on the highest graphic settings but on a less powerful computer we have available, the graphics had to be tuned down to the lowest setting. And even then the average FPS was around 17.

Environments in and around Ubersreik are beautifully dark and dingy. Being able to look out at the city during a mission is a very attractive inclusion and everything is so highly textured that during your first few play-throughs you might find yourself being beaten down a fair bit because you’re too busy checking out the different designs of the Skaven or just the general area you’re exploring.

The music and sound effects add a great deal of immersion to the areas you play through and missions you undertake. I especially love the music played during the introduction movie.

Final Thoughts

Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide takes co-operative games to a new level and provides an incredible fantasy experience. Lovers of the Warhammer world will take great pleasure in slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands of Skaven.

The disparate characters to play as allow you to choose which way you want to play, and being able to customise their equipment from hats to grudge-rakers gives enough freedom to truly customise a pre-made character design.

Gameplay-wise, co-op is the way to go. Playing by yourself with A.I. allies is possible, but at times very frustrating. A few missions can feel a little bit unfair as swarms of elite enemies just seem to keep coming relentlessly until either your party all get killed, or you get carried away by a single Packmaster whilst your team struggle to hold off teams of ratmen.

Fatshark keep releasing awesome free and paid DLC, but the best part is not everyone has to own the DLC. If your friend already owns it, you can join their game and play it as well even if you haven’t purchased it.

Ultimately, Vermintide is probably one of the best co-op games I’ve ever played. Combat is extremely satisfying, building up an arsenal of powerful gear takes a good amount of time, there’s heaps of different weapons to acquire and the atmosphere is so dark and foreboding that you’ll be loving every moment of being in Ubersreik.

Score

4 stars – amazingly absorbing co-operative experience in the Warhammer Fantasy city of Ubersreik