The stale smell of blood is thick, and coats your weapon in layers. Hope is thin. But how you go is up to you--quietly as a coward or screaming into battle. This is the End Times and you are faced with the impending apocalypse.

Warhammer Vermintide 2 is the much anticipated sequel to the violence-laced title sharing game before it. With a bleak outlook of a story, you're meant to take down hordes after horde for the Empire. Various beloved faces make their way into this pre-apocalyptic setting, ready to fight by your side. 

The entire game tosses you into the idea that you're biting off more than you can chew. Not that it will stop you from gritting your teeth and trudging on.

Vermintide 2's graphics are much as to be expected. It really takes a backseat to the whole of how you take it in. Slick like Skyrim, you come to expect the quality right off the bat, and are not disappointed in the least. A problem with running however, even with a computer that can certainly handle ultra, or another high setting, the game seems to want to fight against rendering--often resulting in some screen tears and chugging.

Set solely for co-op, Vermintide 2 is optionless for single player campaign. Meant to be played with friends online, the game forces you to work together in your bloody endeavours. Improving means building through a career tree, coupled with weapon traits. Detailed and finely crafted, I'll provide a link here to VG24/7's Alex Donaldson's guide to weapon and item traits, which can be quite useful:

A few downsides, as is to be expected with such an ambitious title. Even with a very capable computer set-up, horde attacks still trigger frame drops. There are bugs to watch out for too--a rare one that was just patched would cause a crash, then an uninstall of the game itself. It seems like the developers are very busy sending out regular patches to fix these things, but it's important to keep in mind that some things might go pear-shaped for now.

If the host of a match disconnects or crashes, it will kick everyone out of the match without any rewards. The biggest bummer of them all (for me): there's no offline play whatsoever. If you are buying this game, you're buying it with the purpose of having to play online multiplayer--which is not everyone's cup of tea. 

Coming from someone that casually plays these types of games, it's very fun, but to get skilled, you must invest a lot of your time. With the Warhammer fandom being so incredibly popular, you shouldn't have any trouble finding able-bodies to fight next to. I can't recommend it to everyone, but I will say that those who do enjoy online multiplayers, serious combat, and some good ole fashioned challenge, will find this title most enjoyable.