4 years after it was announced, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is finally making its versus mode a reality with a closed alpha: 'We put it on the shelf to marinate for a bit'

GamesActionWarhammer: Vermintide 24 years after it was announced, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is finally making its versus mode a reality with a closed alpha: ‘We put it on the shelf to marinate for a bit’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Fatshark)

A flame rat in Warhammer: Vermintide 2 cackles maniacally while shooting a gout of fire.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve announced Versus; and our first reveal happened way back in 2019. We had run some small external tests with a select group of players during that time and weren’t completely happy with how things were running, so we put it on the shelf to marinate for a bit.” I mean this in the kindest way possible: four years is not ‘a bit’, it’s a university degree with change. But, hey—better late than never.

It’ll be interesting to see how Fatshark handles the issue of balancing the damn thing. While Left 4 Dead has zero progression, Fatshark’s take on the horde shooter involves a bunch of RPG mechanics. Talents, hero classes, and so on. It’s part of the charm—when I played Vermintide, I turned Kerillian into a boss-slaying assassin who could shuck off huge chunks of HP with a couple of backstabs. For PvP, though? A design nightmare.

These tests were actually confirmed in adeveloper streamin December last year, where the game’s product owner noted Fatshark had run a small playtest already—though considering the last playtests happened four years ago, you couldn’t be blamed for taking that with a pinch of salt. An honest-to-Under-Father closed alpha test, though? It’s finally happening, everybody stay calm.

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