Warhammer: Vermintide 2 News

Versus: Sign up for the BAT! (Beta August Test)

Heroes and Pactsworn!

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!

Summer Dev Blog and Versus RAT Takeaways

Greetings Heroes and Pactsworn,

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

Versus Alpha Test extended to June 17th! Hotfix 5.5.6 + 5.5.7

Heroes and Pactsworn!

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.

Versus! The Returning Alpha Test is now live! Hotfix 5.5.6

[h2] Hotfix 5.5.6 - 4th of June[/h2]
[h3] Versus[/h3]

Fixed a couple of crashes related to unspawned or unselected characters

Fixed server crash that'd occur when players leave during hero select before being put on a specific side

Versus Voip Clients won't be in voip chat anymore when they have voice chat disabled

Bestigors won't crash dedicated servers while charging through Chaos Warriors anymore.

Fixed server crash in character select related to a player friend joining a game after another player leaves.

Fixed frame perfect server crash when player hot-joins at the same time as a Pactsworn character die-die

Fixed two crashes for Gamepad users caused by UI shenanigans.

Fixed server crash when a player hot joins during a small window when a match finishes

Defrosted the Globadiers' frozen hands and instead will do the reload animation at the end of the cooldown.

[h2] Hotfix 5.5.4 - 31th of May[/h2]
[h3] Versus[/h3]

Disabled Crafting and Spoils of War for Legacy UI

Lowered base movement speed of Bile Troll slightly.
[h3] General [/h3]

Fixed crash related to gaining the boon "Ranald's Mighty Gamble" and swapping from a higher power level weapon to a lower power level weapon.

Fixed a crash occuring when bot loadouts and clients are not in agreement on which loadout the host should use.

Fixed a bug where Outcast Engineer skips the first two shots when shooting. Also, tap shooting works again.

Fixed the temporary mod fix. It should really be fixed now.

Fixed a crash that would occur if you salvaged an item equipped on a different loadout

[h2] Hotfix 5.5.3 - 30th of May [/h2]
[h3] Features & Tweaks [/h3]

Limited loadout manager mod error logs to one unique log per level.

[h3] Fixes [/h3]

Fixed a Crash when a player activates an ability during the end of a game.

(Versus) Fixed so Ratling gunner can't shoot through a monster.

Fixed various crashes in Versus.

Temporary mod fix for UI Tweaks in Versus when attempting to render an ammo counter in team portraits as Pactsworn.

[h2]Developer Stream - Friday 16:00 CEST[/h2]
Make sure to tune in to our twitch channel tomorrow at 16:00 CEST to catch a stream with our developers! Join our Host Tom as he talks with Product Owner Erik and Design Director Joakim about the current Versus Alpha, the new changes and additions made since then, answer questions from the community and they play a round or two of Versus!

Heroes and Pactsworn!

Welcome to the Returning Alpha Test, or RAT for short! Starting today until June 9th, you’ll be able to hop on Versus straight from the main Vermintide 2 game! Simply make sure to pick ‘Versus’ from the main menu to enter the Versus lobby and access its matchmaking. This test is open to all owners of Vermintide 2 on PC, so tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets, get everyone in here!

Last test was our first time opening Versus to our entire player base and it was overall a great success! We saw great reception and got invaluable feedback from all of you, and we’re really hyped to see you guys try out the changes and the newest additions!

In case you missed it, here’s a link to the latest Versus Dev Blog, where we go over our thoughts and takeaways from the previous Alpha Test:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/552500/view/4139441932569145653

[h2]New addition: Playable Bile Troll![/h2]
As said in our previous announcement, this test shall see the first iteration of one of our most highly requested features: Playable monsters! For this test, we’ll be starting with the Bile Troll.

When it’s time for a Monster to spawn, one lucky member of the Pactsworn team will get to spawn as the Bile Troll and wreak havoc on the Hero team!

The Bile Troll is controlled in a manner similar to Heroes. Tapping Attack (Default: Left Mouse Click) will result in sweeping light attacks. Holding Attack will result in heavy unblockable attacks with the Bile Troll’s axe. Pressing the Career Skill button (Default: F) will let you puke acid bile on your tiny foes (The Bile Troll’s puke ability has a cooldown!). You can also crouch with the usual crouch button (Default: Left Control).

[h2]New Map: Against the Grain[/h2]
We have a new map for you guys to test out during this Alpha: Against the Grain! This classic map has been adapted from its Adventure version, similar to how the previous two maps were adapted, changing parts of the level, adding more objectives and overall tweaking it to make it more fitting for Versus.

We’re very curious about how you guys feel about this map in the context of Versus! The team wants to really nail not just this map specifically, but also in general what works and what doesn’t work for Versus maps, so please give us all your feedback!

We’ll have this as our only map at first but we’ll be adding the previously tested maps (Righteous Stand and Screaming Bell) to the map rotation later on during the test.

[h2]Gameplay Changes[/h2]
Whether you played the last Alpha Test or you’re just curious, here are the highlights of the main changes done to the game mode since the last test, including the Balance Changes done to both Heroes and Pactsworns alike. Please note that the balance changes mentioned here will ONLY affect Versus! As we’ve said before, we will never affect the balance of the PvE game modes of Vermintide solely for the sake of Versus’ balance.

Loadouts
The recently added Loadouts feature will also be available in Versus, with its own separate slots! We’ve also included two pre-made loadouts for each career, designed by our developers, to serve as a starting point for new players or those who just don’t want to bother making brand new loadouts for Versus and just want to jump right in!

Temporary Health will now decay faster
As healing items are limited in Versus, we don't want THP to be the only way to stay alive, nor do we want it to invalidate the efforts of the Pactsworn team. We will evaluate these changes during this test, but please let us know how you feel about them.

Increased the rate at which Temporary HP decays by 20%
Increased the amount of Temporary HP lost per tick by 50%

Pactsworn Choices Tweaks
We’ve added a weighted system to the RNG choices offered to Pactsworn players when they’re about to spawn to reduce the chances of multiples of the same special being present at the same time.

Warrior Priest

Nerfed the duration of Shield of Faith (Career Skill) from 5 seconds to 2 seconds
- We are working on getting the correct tooltip in.
Unyielding Blessing talent now makes the shield last for 5 seconds instead of 10 seconds.
Damage of Shield of Faith explosion is lowered against all enemy types except Monster.

Ironbreaker

Nerfed the Gromril Curse talent: now also makes the cooldown of Gromril Armour longer (from 20 seconds to 30 seconds).
- We are working on getting the correct tooltip in.

Sister of the Thorn

The Deepwood Staff has received an internal cooldown of 40 seconds specifically affecting lifting Pactsworn players. The rest of the staff functions normally, but you can’t lift up an enemy player until the cooldown has expired.

Reduced damage of all crossbows.

Warpfire Thrower

HP has been increased from 25 to 50
Damage has been increased from 2.5 per tick to 3.0 per tick.
Knockback has been increased.

And that’s about it for now! We’ll be monitoring your feedback on the new changes and additions, alongside everyone’s thoughts and feedback on Versus as a whole! Hope you guys have fun this week!

Hotfix 5.5.2 - 30th of May - Patchnotes

[h3]Known Issues[/h3]

Voip is currently not functioning as intended in Versus. We are investigating
The mod 'UI Tweaks' is currently causing crashes. Please disable until resolved to avoid issues.

[h3] Features & Tweaks [/h3]

Added 3 more loadout slots to all careers.
Increased the duration of the Skulls event buff by 50%. Get crazy for longer! Suffer from withdrawal less often!
Added an option to quit the game directly without going to the main menu.
Added an option to rebind the Chaos Wastes miracle keybind (Default: i)
Implemented a way to patch sanctioned mods until they are updated by the owner. This should increase the lifespan of sanctioned mods, most importantly abandoned ones.
- Loadout Manager mod no longer gives bots adventure items in Chaos Wastes.
- Loadout Manager mod can also no longer overwrite the player's versus loadout with adventure items.
(Chaos Wastes) 'Taal's Roar' boon: Increased radius by 67%. Increased stagger power against armored enemies by 67%.
(Chaos Wastes Skulls Event) Event boon rarity reduced from 60% chance to 37.5%.

[h3] Fixes [/h3]

Fixed an issue with unreachable respawn spots in the Citadel of Eternity.
Fixed the host crown icon failing to display on the Holseher's Map in the Chaos Waste.
Fixed a bug where using the Hide HUD option while posing did not hide Grail Knight quests.
Fixed the Twitch mode "More Info" description text going out of bounds and overlapping with search Tab.
Fixed the "Curse of tainted blood" effect on the player's health UI going out of bounds until the player stayed idle for the curse recovery.
Fixed a localization issue in all languages.
Fixed the Bloodthirster Frame in Lohner's Emporium of Wonders having an outfit icon instead of a frame icon in its thumbnail.
Fixed the icons for the equippable careers for the Bloodthirster Frame going out of bounds.
Fixed a placeholder icon being shown for the Bloodthirster Frame when accessing it from the Featured tab.
Fixed inconsistencies with Outcast Engineer's career skill attack charge sound sometimes not triggering
Fixed "Piston Power" Engineer talent sound effect being heard by the non-engineer Host if their engineer bot had the talent.
Fixed Be'lakor homing skulls curse not playing related sounds when outside of a Be'lakor node (due to weekly event, for example).
Fixed Huntsman longbow not displaying an arrow when weave skin is applied.
Fixed a bug where players were not able to apply weave skins to Bretonnian Sword and Shield and Bretonnian Longsword if they didn't own the Grail Knight cosmetic dlc upgrade.
Fixed a Ranger Veteran infinite stealth exploit from using ability again before first one runs out. Huh, I'm getting Deja Vu...
Fixed a bug where oil barrel challenge was completable in levels than other A Parting of the Waves.
Fixed the Inventory Details screen failing to close while pressing the I/Esc on the Holseher's Map in the Chaos Wastes.
Fixed a bug where Taal's Roar boon did not receive lower cooldown depending on missing health. Now cooldown is halved at 30% health.
Fixed a bug where Anath Raema's Cruel Volley boon does not increase cost on moonfire bow
Fixed a bug where subtitles were not displayed when enemy lords hold dialogues.
Fixed occasional crash when switching loadout to a loadout with different weapons, and swapping a weapon.
Fixed a crash when the game tried to remove a buff that no longer existed.
Fixed crash related to being affected by multiple support or aura boons at once.
Fixed crash for voip when getting broken connection to the host
Fixed crash when throwing javelins or throwing axes and swapping weapons before it lands.

[h2]What is Versus?[/h2]
Versus is a free new Game mode for Warhammer: Vermintide 2! It’s an asymmetrical PvP+E 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 the Hero team must play a regular game akin to Adventure mode, while the Pactsworn players have to stop them.

And for those who haven’t tried out Versus yet or want to know more, have a look at our Versus FAQ

New Vermintide 2 update brings back Versus, but not for long

Warhammer Vermintide 2 is now six years old, with a passionate fanbase that could rival games twice its size. In the wake of Warhammer Skulls 2024, fans and newcomers alike will have ample reason to jump in and see what Fatshark has to offer, with a huge new patch, and exciting news about Versus.

Read the rest of the story...