Warhammer: Vermintide 2

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is a first-person action video game developed and published by Fatshark. It is the sequel to the 2015's Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide. Vermintide 2 was released for Windows on March 8, 2018. It was released for Xbox One on 11 July 2018, free for members of the Xbox Game Pass. It is expected to be released on PlayStation 4 sometime in 2018.

Gameplay
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is a game with gameplay experienced from a first-person perspective. Set in the Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, players battle cooperatively against the Chaos army and a race of rat-men known as the Skaven. The game features five different characters to play as. These characters are divided into 15 different careers, each with a unique set of skills and abilities. After players complete missions, they receive rewards through a randomised loot system.

Plot
The game is set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe during the early days of the End Times, an apocalyptic event that eventually ended in the destruction of the Warhammer World. The game follows the Heroes of Ubersreik from the first game against the skaven hordes of Clan Fester and their new allies, the Rotbloods (a chaos warband dedicated to Nurgle, the Chaos God of Disease and Decay).

Story
Following the events of the first game, Grey Seer Rasknitt (antagonist of the first game who was presumed dead and leader of Clan Fester) has successfully captured the five Heroes of Ubersreik. Without the interference of the heroes, the city of Ubersreik fell to the forces of Clan Fester. Rasknitt has since ordered the construction of a massive portal known as the Skittergate, which will allow the Chaos Champion Bödvarr Ribspreader and his Rotblood army easy access to the border-city of Helmgart. However, the Skittergate intermittently fails, preventing Bödvarr from summoning his entire army. When the Skittergate disastrously fails to activate again, the resulting destruction frees one of the heroes, Markus Kruber, from captivity. He fights his way through the skaven lair and reunites with the rest of the heroes: Victor Saltzpyre, Bardin Goreksson, Sienna Fuegonasus and Kerillian.

They escape the lair and are transported to a ruined keep where they meet up with the rest of their allies: Franz Lohner (a former innkeeper who directs the heroes' missions) and Olesya Pimenova (a witch who creates the bridge of shadows, the heroes' main method of transportation). Reunited, the heroes and their allies work together to stop the combined forces of Skaven and Chaos. They first slay the sorcerer lord Burblespue Halescourge, who attempted to enact a ritual to unleash a massive plague upon Helmgart. Next, they defeat skaven warlord Skarrik Spinemanglr, who had set up a base in a fallen dwarfen karak. Enraged by the heroes' continuous interference, Bödvarr sends the majority of his forces to discover the heroes' keep and eliminate them. However, this leave his war camp lightly defended. The heroes attack Bödvarr's war camp and slay him in an arena.

With Rasknitt's allies dead and his forces depleted, Lohner states that the time is now to destroy the Skittergate and Rasknitt once and for all. He informs them that they need to activate the Helmgart Skittergate and travel through it to Norsca, where the other part of the gate is located. Once there, the heroes proceed to destroy the Norscan Skittergate and return to Helmgart. Rasknitt appears and summons his Stormfiend, Deathrattler, and combats the heroes. After a vicious fight, Rasknitt is at last slain. The lair and the Skittergate collapse, whilst the heroes escape back to the keep.

Development and release
Vermintide 2 was developed by Swedish video game studio Fatshark. Vermintide 2 was announced in August 2017. The game's worldwide reveal occurred on 17 October 2017. The game was released for Windows on 8 March 2018. The game was released for the Xbox One on 11 July 2018 and is available at no cost to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. It is also expected to be released on PlayStation 4 in 2018.

Reception
The game sold over 500,000 copies in four days after the initial PC release. Tom Marks, writing from IGN, wrote positively about the game, comically praising it on the creative forms of dismemberment that the players can participate in against the "ratmen", one of the primary antagonists of the game, and lack of microtransactions, which he compares favorably against Star Wars: Battlefront II.