Warhammer: Vermintide 2

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 takes you on a massive coop-friendly journey that will take you on a journey across the Warhammer world crushing insane amounts of enemies (and rats) with a combination of melee and ranged combat. With up to 4-players, you can choose between one of 5 characters, each with different classes, talent trees, and weapon types they can use. And with tons of updates and new modes, including a roguelike style game mode, there is so much to do! Think Left 4 Dead with RPG mechanics and some progression and you will have Vermintide 2!

Valve has Vermintide listed as "Unsupported" due to anti-cheat issues, but that luckily isn't the full story. This game can not only run, but actually runs quite good seeing the kind of game it is! At max settings, it does tend to chug along and while it does look better, it drains battery immensely with not-so-great framerate. I believe it could be possible to get this at 30 FPS, but it will need a bit more tweaking which we will provide in our full review. I found that the low quality preset with TAA anti-aliasing, 1152x720 resolution, and FSR Sharpness 1 work fantastic with a 40 FPS cap and TDP of 10 to get around a 2.5-3 hour battery. There are little moments where framerate can drop, but because it is at 40, it didn't feel noticeable.

There are a couple of small quirks I would like to mention too. First, the game does have some small text in the settings menu. It isn't completely illegible, but it is quite hard to read and I needed to move closer to make sure I was selecting the right options. I didn't see a specific option to increase the text size, though you may be able to edit config files to blow up the UI.

I also found that the game needs to be online to play. You may be able to run in offline mode entirely, but this gets rid of coop and such. There are reports that it does work offline, but it also doesn't transfer your save to play online. Speaking of which, if you are going to play multiplayer you will NEED to host the game. You can't join an already made lobby, you will be kicked after a couple minutes. But if you host, others can join you without getting kicked.

The last thing I noticed is a small battery drain lingering. This means if you are facing hordes of enemies and the battery drain spikes to 17W, it will stay at 17 for a bit even if the enemies are gone. It does end up dropping back down, but it is worth noting.

Overall, I am extremely happy that Vermintide 2 works. I am a huge fan of the game and seeing that "Unsupported" tag was a bit disheartening. With the recommended build, the game drained at around what I would have expected and held a solid 40 FPS. This is definitely going to be a game I keep playing on Deck and am looking forward to some LAN parties with friends!

Screenshots

Comparisons:

I had to restart the game for some textures and other effects to pop in, but I couldn't line it up perfectly. This is the true max settings right here.

Stills:

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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