Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide Review

I have never played a Warhammer game before so fans of the series please forgive me ahead of time. I have always been intrigued by Warhammer's fantasy world and characters, but never a fan of the gameplay in previous releases until now. Passionate about the Warhammer series developer Fatshark took the series in a direction it has never been taken before: First Person Shooter. I consider FPS my wheelhouse and knew this was the gateway introduction to the Warhammer series for me. End Times is a multiplayer co-op where up to four players choose a class of hero to journey through parts of Ubersreik that has been overrun by Skaven, very large rat-men. The gameplay is identical to Left for Dead where players fight their way through waves of enemies with mini boss encounters along the way in an attempt to thwart any progression and overall success.

Unlike the Left for Dead series the hero selection does make a difference. End Times provides five classes to choose from with varying skills and weaponry though all classes have two modes of attack, melee and a ranged attack. The Bright Wizard focuses on magic attacks, Witch Hunter is quick and agile, the Dwarf Ranger may be small but makes up for his size by the sheer amount of brute force damage he can inflict, the Waywatcher is a rogue hunter which is silent but deadly up close and afar, and my favorite class is Empire Soldier which is similar to the Dwarf Ranger and can dish out a lot of damage but is slower and built more like a tank. You will find them leading the charge into battle in most, if not all, situations to take a beating and keep the group safe.

As mentioned before, each character has a melee and ranged ability. Each comes with a starting weapon of choice, but with a varying style and mechanic. The speed and amount of damage which can be dealt will depend on the hero and weapon choice you make. Melee attacks also have a charged mode to inflict much more damage - however, in a pinch may not be the best of moves. Melee can also act as a defense mechanism to block incoming attacks though is limited by shield buffer icons that deteriorate after successful blocked attacks. Once the buffer runs out your character will be open for attacks. The secondary method of attack again is ranged and typically a gun or bow except for the Bright Wizard who has magic. These ranged attacks are limited by a form of ammunition. Even though the use of a ranged weapon sounds ideal for every situation you will run out of ammo fast and it can sometimes be a limited drop while working your way through the environment, with lack of ammo ultimately leading to your death.

To aide in your mission there are several item perks along the way to be discovered in chests and within buildings. Most of the time these items are medical or replenish your ammunition before or after a big battle, while other items are buffs to your character and provide more damage or speed. The problem with the item perks is that they are shared among the rest of the team and sometimes I found that players become very selfish and take everything for themselves. In most cases that spells disaster and a failure of the overall mission. To limit group selfishness each character can only hold one specific item perk per category which helps, but beware if you already have an item in a certain category and pick up another - the previous item you had will be dropped and forgotten or left for someone else to snatch up.

During each mission scenario most of the time you are fighting off waves of rat-men, though occasionally there will be a special enemy that randomly attacks to throw you off balance. Or you may have to haul special items to a wagon or ship while fighting off waves of rat-men or even a mini boss that hits like a truck and is very fast. There isn't much variety between the missions, but they can be very intense. Again, if the group doesn't work together, then more than likely the mission will fail. The saving grace is that if a colleague does fall in battle they can be revived, though be careful because more than likely there will be a large horde of rat-men nearby. There is a time limit after which a person will bleed out and die. If everyone is in a downed state, then the mission will fail. I did find it very difficult to revive people, but again it takes teamwork and everyone correctly preparing before each fight to be successful. Overall communication is key. There is a built-in chat system, though not too many folks use it. If you play with friends I am sure you can use third party voice chat which would make strategizing much easier. Every once in a while you will encounter someone that is very knowledgeable on the mission and the locations of the item stashes, which will more than likely result in success and everyone being happy. Otherwise the only time you will see people communicating in chat is to berate and belittle others and rage quit.

If you manage to be successful on a mission you get a chance of random loot at the end. The loot system is random but more than likely results in better items and trinkets for your heroes. In order to receive a higher or rarer item you must collect and carry a tome during a mission until the end. This tome does take a medical item perk slot so be careful not to drop it and leave it behind. The items can also be upgraded and forged giving almost unlimited amounts of build types and customization to a playstyle you prefer. I personally do not like a randomized item grind system like this, but there are many that do find that it is a good way to perfect a type of hero build and that it also adds to the replay value. Again leaving my happiness to a random number generator is not my kind of fun, but in all honestly it does feel pretty darn good to get a way better weapon than before.

As with most team-based cooperative games, everyone just wants to win and never lose. If you even show a hint of being new or not being a team player most people tend to bail leaving you to your own devices or to also calling it quits yourself. Granted a human player does get swapped out for a bot, but the AI is just not competent enough to really assist in a victory. Combine the impatience of others and the almost endless random item grind and I do not see a casual audience getting swept away in the Warhammer hype by this game. Even Warhammer fans should make note that just because you may know the lore of the series it won't grant you a wonderful team experience ... but it may grant you some street cred to get you by.