Warhammer: Vermintide 2 News

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Starting now, the Versus Beta August Test (or BAT!) is live! If you haven't already, make sure to sign up by heading to Vermintide 2's Steam Store page and hitting 'Request Access' on the Playtest!



As mentioned before, this Beta is open to ANYONE, even non-owners of Vermintide 2! Make sure to spread the word to anyone who might be interested! Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets, tell strangers!




Versus is an upcoming free new Game mode for Warhammer: Vermintide 2! It’s an asymmetrical PvP+E experience pitting up to 4 Heroes against our AI enemies and up to 4 special players, what we call Pactsworn. A match will take place over several rounds, with each team swapping places between playing the Heroes and the Pactsworn each round. To simplify, each round consists of the Hero team playing a regular game akin to Adventure mode, while the Pactsworn players have to stop them.

Learn more about playing as the Heroes Learn more about playing as the Pactsworn (yes-yes!)


Plenty! We have two big features to highlight: Matchmaking changes and The Horde ability. Alongside that we've also done various balance adjustments and quality of life changes based on previous tests' feedback!

[h2]The Horde Ability[/h2]
One of the bigger features in the Beta is the Pactsworns’ new Horde Ability, available to each of the Pactsworn players on their own individual cooldown. When fully charged and ready, Pactsworn players are able to rally a small horde, spawning a group of AI enemies fighting for them onto the battlefield. This means that Packmasters can summon cover-kin to blend in for sneaky charges, Ratling Gunners can distract Heroes with melee fodder before laying down fire, or the team can sync up and trigger all Hordes at the same time and overwhelm the opposition.

• Cooldown Reduction: While the ability re-charges slowly over time, it is possible to quicken the progress by damaging the enemy team. Play well, and you’ll be able to send barrage after barrage.
  
• Carry over: Ability bar progress is carried over between deaths.

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
In the Alphas there were no guardrails preventing (for instance) solo queuing new players to meet an experienced four-stack, meaning that the experience could vary wildly from session to session. This, along with other reported issues, led to us reworking our matchmaking systems.

The new system should, on average, result in lower queue times, finding servers closer to you (resulting in lower latency), and more even games (for example, by trying to pair together premade groups). It will also allow us to more easily monitor the matchmaking in real-time and act quicker if we notice that something isn't working as intended.

It won’t stop variously skilled players from meeting up occasionally, but at least the system should be able to favour other match setups. We hope that this will lead to more balanced and fun games, as well as lay a better foundation for future feedback.

[h2]Features and Gameplay Changes[/h2]
[h3]Gamepad Support[/h3]
Controllers/Gamepads are now properly supported for Versus! Now that we are rounding up the core set of features we can finalize button assignments and focus on input tweaking to bring the controller experience up to par. For gamepad gamers out there, please let us know any feedback you have about the new implementation in this Beta!

[h3]Pactsworn HUD and UI[/h3]
We have re-done a lot of the Pactsworns’ heads-up-display in terms of art, gameplay and general quality of life.

• New Horde Ability progress bar.
• Updated Health bars.
• Ability Bar: Each Pactsworn has all of their available moves and abilities listed in the HUD, with cooldowns and input clearly shown in an effort to make the characters easier to pick play.
  
• Updated enemy health bars: Wounds, Streak Damage, Regular– and Temporary HP are now displayed directly above the Heroes’ heads.
  
• Ally information: Your fellow Pactsworns’ respawn timers are now displayed above their heads along with their names, hopefully making teamwork easier to pull off.

[h3]Ping adjustments[/h3]
The ping/tagging system has been adjusted to be more responsive, particularly noticeable for the Hero side. As in Adventure mode, pings should now be instantaneous and prioritize marking enemies better. This should make the system more responsive, intuitive and fluid, while still retaining the ability to place world markers and use the Social Wheel for more detailed callouts.

[h3]Health Draughts and Medical Supplies[/h3]
We are reconsidering how we should view health pick-ups in Versus. We want healing to have intent and consequences, and to be something that Pactsworn are able to make use of as well.

• Level placement: We have moved all healing supplies to be more prominent on each level’s main path. By becoming easy to see “hot spots”, we should be able to create even more interesting and intense scenarios, inviting the Pactsworn to use them for ambushes.

[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

• Updated the visual effects on the Warpfire Thrower and the Poison Wind Globadier. On top of looking better, these new VFX should better reflect the effective Area of Effect of their abilities when active.
  
• Adjusted objectives in Against the Grain to deter speedrunning and running ahead of the team.

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]
[h3]Poison Wind Globadier[/h3]
The Globadier has remained an undisputed menace throughout the Alpha period, and we still want to keep him that way, but things will be a little different for the Beta. We've lowered the base damage of a globe's gas, but also added a ramping damage curve to Poison Wind tick damage, meaning damage increases exponentially over time.
Mindlessly throwing globes won’t be as effective anymore, but catching unfortunate Heroes in a bad spot will create just as much chaos as before.
[h3]Ratling Gunner[/h3]
The Ratling Gunner has received a healthy check-up on some basic values that should make him a bit more dexterous and effective at range (where he should be shining best).

• Decreased start up and reload duration.
  
• Increased effective range and bullet speed.
  
• Decreased bullet spread.

[h3]Packmaster[/h3]
When a Packmaster hooks a Hero and walks off an edge, the Hero will now hang from the ledge instead of falling to their doom. Was fun while it lasted, hehehe.

[h3]Bile Troll[/h3]
Introduced in our last test, the Bile Troll is a rare, playable boss that one random player will get to play as each round. He is large, in charge, and full of gross green stuff. For the Beta, we have focused on getting in a bit more polish and making him more fun to use.

• Adjusted movement acceleration to give a more sluggish and weighty feel to the character, as well as to limit twitchy movement.
  
• Reworked the Bile Vomit attack on a few different points:
  
  • The ability now has the option to be charged and held, letting players aim more accurately and prepare their attack. Hold the F key to start charging and let go to puke.
    
  • Added an aim indicator to better display where the vomit will land and the rough ground area that gets covered.

As always, we hope you have tons of fun playing Versus! Enjoy the Beta, invite your friends, and give us ALL of your feedback! We rely on you, your experiences and your opinions to perfect this exciting new game mode!

If you have any more doubts or questions, check out our FAQ.

Hi my name is Joakim Setterberg and I’m the Design Director on Vermintide 2. In this devblog I want to talk about Versus’ upcoming Beta August Test - or BAT - coming August 21st. With the BAT we’re wrapping up most of the larger systems and features of the core game mode. With a few exceptions, our main focus up to release will be to work with surrounding systems and refining the content, to polish the Versus experience and, to quote the team, “fix the jank”.

First, a note on feedback. For every test we do we collect as much of your feedback as possible to find out what we can improve and fix. We sort it, rank it, and talk about what we want to accomplish for the next test. Sometimes there’s a straight-forward way to solve a problem or to implement a suggestion, but other times we’ll go in a slightly different direction, if we believe a problem lies elsewhere. That takes us to our two big features we’re introducing for the BAT: the Pactsworn Horde ability and matchmaking.

Feedback from the last test, the RAT, showed that you wanted something more for the Pactsworn gameplay - like abilities or talents. We also saw requests for notifications when director controlled Hordes were about to spawn, or calls to introduce a Pactsworn special with horde summoning as a singular purpose. These were good requests, but we felt that the Pactsworn side would play even stronger if Hordes were more integrated in active player combat, rather than being played reactive. In the finest Clan Moulder tradition we stitched everything together.

The Horde ability gives all Pactsworn specials a way to summon a small Horde on their own, introducing a tactical element to the gameplay loop. This means that Packmasters can summon cover-kin to blend in for sneaky charges, Ratling Gunners can distract Heroes with melee fodder before laying down fire, or the team can sync up and trigger all Hordes at the same time and overwhelm the opposition. The Horde ability is on a timed cooldown, which decreases faster with successful attacks with your current Pactsworn special and carries over between deaths.
We are excited to see how you interact with this new feature and hear what you think about it, looking forward to your feedback on this one.

A bit trickier were various feedback regarding Pactsworn or Hero balancing, speed running, match quitters and a general feeling of unfairness: all valid points, which we’ll be tackling moving forwards, but this also highlighted one big underlying issue: the lack of matchmaking. In the Alphas there were no guardrails preventing (for instance) solo queuing new players to meet an experienced four-stack, meaning that the experience could vary wildly from session to session. We believe that some of the “unbalanced experience” feedback may originate from this.

For the Beta, we’ve opted to rework our current matchmaking system. It's always been in our mind to improve it as much as possible, and after hearing your feedback from the Alphas we decided to go with a new solution for Versus. The new system should, on average, result in lower queue times, finding servers closer to you (resulting in lower latency), and more even games (for example, by trying to pair together premade groups). It will also allow us to more easily monitor the matchmaking in real-time and act quicker if we notice that something isn't working as we intended.

It won’t stop variously skilled players from meeting up occasionally, but at least the system should be able to favour other match setups. We hope that this will lead to more balanced and fun games, as well as lay a better foundation for future feedback.

On the usability side we are adding gamepad support for those who enjoy button mashing over keyboard smashing. Now that we are rounding up the core feature set we can finalize button assignments and focus on input tweaking to bring the controller experience up to par.

On the quality of life, balancing and bug fixes side there’s a number of things that are changed since the RAT. Some highlights include:

• We’ve updated the Pactsworn UI to display more useful information.
  
  • Enemy healthbars now also display stuff like remaining Wounds and shows regular and temporary HP as separate.
    
  • Your Pactsworn’s abilities and moves are all displayed in the HUD and it also shows their cooldowns.
  • Allies now have their names and respawn timers shown above their heads, hopefully making teamwork easier.
• We have moved all healing supplies to be more prominent on each level’s main path. By becoming easy to see “hot spots”, we should be able to create even more interesting and intense scenarios, inviting the Pactsworn to use them for ambushes.
  
• Based on prior test feedback we’ve made the Bile Troll a bit slower and less twitchy, but also gave him the ability to hold his vomit attack to aim it better before launching it.
  
• Buffed the Ratling Gunner by speeding up his ramp up and reload times as well as improving his effective range.
  
• Nerfed the Globadier slightly by making the initial damage of a globe lower but making that damage ramp up dramatically over time.
  
  • Mindlessly throwing globes won’t be as effective anymore, but catching unfortunate Heroes in a bad spot will create just as much chaos as before.
• Tweaked some objectives on Against the Grain to deter speedrunning and running ahead.
  
• Tweaked the VFX for the Warpfire Thrower and Globadier. On top of looking better, these should be easier to read in first person and more accurately show the actual area of effect.
  

For all of these features we are of course looking for further testing and feedback.

After the BAT ends, we aim to do at least one more Beta test focusing on some final systems and whatever adjustments come from the feedback we receive during this test. We unfortunately can’t give any details on what it’ll contain at this time, but we’ll tell you guys more when we get there.

On behalf of the entire Vermintide team, thank you for helping shape Versus into something great. See you in a BAT!

It is time to sharpen your blades, polish your whiskers, and get ready to sneaky stab-stab in the Versus Open Beta on August 21.



You heard that right, we're moving up from Alpha testing to Beta testing! This Beta will be open to ANYONE who signs up, including non-owners of Vermintide 2! Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets, everyone should come check out Vermintide Versus!

To sign up, head to Vermintide 2's store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/552500/Warhammer_Vermintide_2/

You should see a button to sign up to the Warhammer: Vermintide Versus - Open Beta
Simply click the 'Request Access' button to sign up! Once the Beta goes live next week, you'll be notified and immediately able to play it!

We also have a Versus Dev Blog coming up ahead of the Beta so keep your eyes open for that, as well!

My name is Joakim, Design Director on Vermintide 2, here with a game update recap just in time for the summer.

As you all know, we started this year with a Closed and an Open Alpha Test for Versus, we celebrated the 6th Anniversary with a Quiet Drink and then wrapped up the Karak Azgaraz storyline with A Parting of the Waves - where Kruber’s team building excursion led to an encounter with a new type of Chaos Warrior.

A bit over a month ago, for Warhammer Skulls 2024, we released a big Chaos Wastes and Things™ update where we introduced Weekly Expeditions with new boons and rewards. Per popular demand, we added a loadout system to the game as well as the (even more requested) option to equip weapon illusions outside of Weaves. Both game modes saw some quality of life- and bug fixes, which increased their popularity and hopefully set you up for some fun games over the summer.

As for the Skulls event itself we once more had you collecting daemonic skulls and killing enemies - this year we set the aim for 1 billion kills, which you reached on the last day of the event. We did notice an issue with kills not counting correctly for losses in Versus or Chaos Wastes and we mitigated that halfway through the event in honor of some of the more devout pilgrims of you (Shoutout to Lancerkils and his 113 Cataclysm attempts in the first Weekly Expedition! Cousin Okri would be very proud indeed!)
Also, being able to purchase last year’s frame and weapon illusions with shillings during the event seems to have gone down well, so we’ll take that into consideration going forward.

Halfway through Skulls, we booted up the Returning Alpha Test, or RAT, where just over 25000 Steam players kill-slayed together in over 16000 games of Versus. Compared to the last test, the GOAT, the test ran for a bit longer and introduced the playable Bile Troll boss, pre-made Hero loadouts, and the PvP version of Against the Grain. Based on previous feedback we addressed the hotjoin hero picker, tweaked and tinkered with balancing for some of the Pactsworn, as well as adjusted some Hero temp HP gain and decay.

The survey made an appearance again, and the responses show that you’re still happy with the way Versus is progressing, giving it an 8.38/10 rating, with the score increasing for every test we do. Pactsworn are still perceived as more fun (no surprises there) but the Hero side is lagging behind. Part of this is due to class- and talent-specific balancing and tweaking, but other big requests relate to preventing speed running, onboarding & practicing, as well as clearing up objectives and scoring; some being specific to Against the Grain while others apply to the mode as a whole.

Speaking of Against the Grain - it does play quite differently compared to the previous missions and we were really keen on seeing what you’d do with the open fields and long sightlines. So far the feedback is a bit mixed, but now we can compare your opinions on the Screaming Bell, Righteous Stand, and Against the Grain missions. Aside from being popular Adventure missions, they represent a cross-section of Vermintide’s environments, map lengths, and topologies that will guide future PvP mission work.

The Bile Troll was generally perceived as a good (although squishy) addition to the game mode that made boss-killing Hero careers more relevant; the Bounty Hunter, Outcast Engineer, and Zealot made it into the top 10 list for the first time, with weapon preference staying mostly the same apart from the addition of the Blunderbuss. On the Pactsworn side, the Globadier is still strong and the buffed Warpfire Thrower got a better rating in RAT.

As always - a huge thank you to everyone who participated in the test, to all of you who filled out the survey (we got nearly 750 responses to read through), as well as everyone posting videos, streams, and thoughts on social media, discord, and forums. We can’t do it without your invaluable feedback!
We’ll be looking over all the feedback and bug reports to see what’s feasible for the next iteration - but as a lot of you wanted more mechanics for the Pactsworn side we’re looking into if we can expand their gameplay with some form of ability. We’re also making progress on matchmaking to pair up similarly skilled players for the next test, but we’re saving up on a Versus progression and reward system for release.

We are of course working on other things as well outside of Versus. As a fun teaser, here’s an animation reference prop for a potential upcoming weapon. Care to guess what it is and who it is for? You might win a pumpkin, you lucky bleeders.



Vermintide will take a bit of a break in July, but keep an eye out for updates and be hyped for an exciting autumn. By Sigmar, the Hammer, and the Empire - have a very pleasant summer!

Joakim, and the Vermintide team

Surprise! We've actually decided to extend the Versus Alpha for another week! Today's hotfix, 5.5.6, includes a few fixes to both Adventure mode and Versus, and has some balance adjustments made to the playable Pactsworn for Versus.

The RAT will now end on June 17th! Starting from yesterday and until the end of the test, the Versus servers will automatically swap between the three active Versus maps: Against the Grain, Righteous Stand and Screaming Bell. You get to play all of them this week and have more fun with our playable Bile Troll!

In case you haven't already, we have a Versus Feedback Survey that we'd really appreciate if you all filled it out and gave us all your feedback from playing this Alpha!
You can also find the survey link on the launcher.

[h2] Hotfix 5.5.7 - 13th of June [/h2]
[h3] Fixes [/h3]

• Fixed challenge "Sheltering Thicket" not tracking blocked ratling gunner shots properly.
  
• Fixed crash when hosting a game with a Waystalker Bot whose loadout contains a javelin, while the hosts own Waystalker loadout has a bow.
  
• Fixed an issue where you could select career by using the arrow keys.

[h2] Hotfix 5.5.6 - 12th of June [/h2]
[h3] Fixes [/h3]

• (Chaos Wastes) Fixed rare crash when boon drones fly towards something very far away.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur if you upgrade an item currently equipped on any other loadout.
  
• Fix crash when trying to update character data while having 5-6 loadouts on all careers

[h3] Versus Tweaks [/h3]

• Enabled automatic map rotation between Righteous Stand, Screaming Bell and Against the Grain.
  
• Monsters now block warpfire thrower fire.
  
• Increased Bile Troll health from 600 to 750.
  
• Increased the size of Bile Troll's vomit hit boxes, to make it slightly easier to use.
  
• Increased damage taken while standing in Bile Troll vomit by 40%.
  
• Decreased spawn chance for Poison Wind Globadier slightly.
  
• Increased Packmaster damage by 50% (per tick).
  
• Increased Packmaster health from 30 to 50.

[h3] Versus Fixes [/h3]

• Fixed pinging a potion with the ping wheel in versus causing a server crash
  
• Fixed crash when showing pact sworn choices while playing with a controller
  
• Fixed rare end of game dedicated server crash related to warrior priest ability being active.
  
• Fixed certain spots in Against the Grain where Packmasters could pull hooked players out of the playable area and leave them stuck.
  
• Fixed a climb spot in Against the Grain where Pactsworn players could get stuck while climbing.
  
• Fixed NPC enemies getting stuck on destructible stuff in Against the Grain.
  
• Fixed NPC enemies sometimes getting really obsessed with attacking a spot on the ground in Against the Grain.
  
• Fixed players being stuck in matchmaking if a hero picker appears and times out
  
• Fixed crash caused by friend joining into a versus keep after playing as pact sworn.