Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide Reviews
Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide seems like an eerie, well-done Left 4 Dead mod on the surface. But players that soldier through disheartening dice rolls will find a replacement for their co-op and loot-driven needs, Warhammer fan or not.
Vermintide is a triumphant co-op experience at its best, held back from greatness due to minor technical flaws. Despite being developed by a smaller studio, Vermintide can stand proudly alongside most AAA titles.
Warhammer: End Times Vermintide is a new take on the Left 4 Dead formula. It brings enhanced combat (particularly melee) and some RPG elements, but it loses the PvP aspect and user generated content, both critical to longevity in this genre. Still, if you have a group of friends this game can definitely provide lots of fun.
Warhammer: The End Times: Vermintide is by now means a bad game, but the sense of over-familiarity makes it difficult to recommend to all but the most ardent of Warhammer Fantasy fans. The workings are here of a good game, but prolonged play reveals it's overly chaotic and often repetitive, despite moments of genuine fun. If you've got four buddies after a co-op game then that's probably a different story, and there's enough in Vermintide to keep you hacking and slashing until the credits roll.
It is very easy to simply dismiss Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide as a Left 4 Dead clone and leave it at that, but in reality, this is a great cooperative game that uses Valve's zombie game as a base, but then built its own personality on top of what Left 4 Dead had originally brought seven years ago. With great feeling melee combat, gruesome action, solid level design and brutal difficulty, this game is a hell of a lot of fun and is ideal for anyone looking for more first-person action to cure an itch for cooperative fun who doesn't mind grinding on the side to impress the rats with their better gear.
Fatshark took a property and an idea and made something glorious out of them. Games Workshop appears to be giving out licenses for everything. For every Mordheim there's been a Snotling Fling. Any company, any property would be lucky to have a game as lovingly and wonderfully designed and put together as Vermintide. It is easily for me the jewel in the Warhammer gaming crown above Space Marine, Eternal Crusade and Dawn of War. If Fatshark didn't innovate further, that may never change. With their plans for the game, I think it's certain that it never will.
While it does have its fair share of issues, many of which frustrated me greatly, I still think it's a solid, enjoyable title. Warhammer fans will have a lot to sink their teeth into, and Left 4 Dead fans will have something to fiddle with until the next iteration. Well…if Valve ever learns how to count to 3, that is.
Much like Vermintide itself, it may not be groundbreaking in any one way, but it's reliably and consistently fun, and still beautifully immersive in that Warhammer sort of way.
Warhammer: Vermintide was a simply enjoyable game bringing the fun of cooperative action to the universe of fantasy Warhammer.
A brutal, bloody and brilliant multiplayer brawler.
Vermintide's gameplay formula is nothing new, and doesn't bring much to the table. What makes this game worth playing however is the well-crafted world and the level design. Each level has a purpose in the story, and the way that purpose is fulfilled is carefully thought out.
While there are plenty of co-op only titles on the console, most of these were built with consoles in mind and therefore had devices in place to make a mandatory teamwork experience a smooth one. It doesn't take long to see that Warhammer: The End Times – Vermintide for PS4 was certainly not constructed with consoles in the forethought; it's quite the afterthought, and it painfully shows. Stick to the PC for this one.
Occasionally stupid AI and the lack of split-screen play aren't enough to dull the formidable lustre of Warhammer End Times: Vermintide as one of the most entertaining and flat out enjoyable online co-op games you can get on PS4. Killing rats has never been so much fun.
As blatant a clone as you've ever seen, but while the PC version was a novel take on Left 4 Dead, the severe price hike on consoles ruins the fun.
Vermitide is a great co-op experience. It's fun alone and competent enough to play through, but with online folks or friends it's even better, and where the experience truly shines.
A nice conversion that retains the best features of the original PC version while adding new content, and without being too technically downgraded.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Vermintide is an under-appreciated gem with loads of replayability and heaps of atmosphere.
Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide is a solid attempt at replicating the Left 4 Dead formula, but it also misses the mark in a few key areas.
I recently previewed Warhammer 40,000 Eternal Crusade and, like most Warhammer games in the last few years, I was let down. Severely. Enter the lovable folks at Fatshark games and Pierre-Yve's glowing review of Vermintide on the PC and I thought "Here it is, finally, a Warhammer game to be proud of!" I was wrong, and that pains me to admit it. Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide is not a bad game, but it is a bad port.
Given the inexplicable yet continued absence of Left 4 Dead in this current console cycle, Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide steps up to fill that festering void with gusto. Granted, it doesn't stray too far from the zombie slaying blueprint laid out by its undead inspiration, but given that it's one of the better co-op experiences currently available, it's easily forgivable. With that said, it would be hard to recommend this to any non-PS Plus/Xbox Live subscribers, as ignoring its online social aspects pretty much flies against its raison d'etre. The thin narrative and occasionally iffy AI of the bots just don't come close to replacing the sheer joy of surviving a vicious onslaught of Skaven with a well co-ordinated bunch of mates (or strangers, for that matter).