My name is Anton and I’ve been working as a sound designer at Fatshark and Vermintide 2 for the past two and a half years. I have been working as a sound designer for the past ten years and have been working with and around music and sound for as long as I can remember.

Trivia about me:

• I have the best dog named Håkan
  
• I can tie my shoes really fast (worked part-time in a shoe store for a couple of years)
  
• I’ll turn off a movie or show if they have bad-sounding doors.

In this developer blog, I’d like to highlight what it takes to add to and administer an already great sound landscape (soundscape) present in Vermintide 2. Mostly, I want to highlight some details in the sound design of Vermintide 2.

On Vermintide 2 we currently have two sound designers: myself and David. I create and implement most of the sound effects while our audio lead, David, handles the VO. Both of us started working at Fatshark post-launch of Vermintide 2, so we’ve worked a lot with managing the already great soundscape while still evolving and exploring new ideas.

How do we do that? Well - I try to incorporate my voice in as many assets as I can, literally. As of now, I’ve been a rat in a hat, Sienna's skeletons, a giant pig in the Tower of Treachery, dying seagulls in Karak Azgaraz, Belakor’s flying skulls, poxwalker D (in Darktide), and now a lighthouse. Because I had a planned vacation, David got the honor of voicing our Nurglings - and I’m very jealous.


The lighthouse would be the centerpiece of the level, and it is possessed by Nurgle. Then and there I knew it needed some cool sounds. Obviously. When I started working on the first sound concepts, the gameplay implications were wild. I wanted to muffle all other sounds when you’re hit by the light beam emitting from the lighthouse. When you're hit by the beam, voices would start whispering to you. All of these ideas were fun but from a gameplay standpoint, they were not feasible. However, the ideas were not in vain.

While working on this, our writer Matt Ward recorded some voice lines that we could use for testing and prototyping. Matt did a great job, but I wanted to test with a more guttural approach to the Grandfather of Sickness. And how did I achieve that? You guessed it - I recorded myself.

Sidenote - I tend to record myself because it's very easy to iterate, press record, press export, start the game, listen, and do it again until you get the feeling right. I’m very easy to direct when I’m the director.

To make my voice sound like an ancient God of Chaos I used a lot of effects. I recorded myself at a very high sample rate, that’s a trick used when you want to change the pitch of the voice more freely without quality loss. Then I added my usual effects, compression, eq, delays, and reverbs. But something was still missing. It sounded a bit generic. Then I remembered an effect that could modify and blend multiple sounds in a very interesting way. I found this recording of stirring macaroni that sounded perfectly mushy, gross, wet, and sticky. That worked out great to get an even more guttural sound to my voice.

However, I was still not happy, it still sounded a bit human. Then I remembered Matt’s recordings. What would happen if I blended his voice lines with mine and added the macaroni? Success! It sounds so strange, so big, so gross in a cool way.

And this was only one layer. We still thought it would be too intrusive to have this played for the entire duration of the level. We also wanted to save the big guns for the big end event. I designed some drones with some synthesizers and rumbles, whispers, and gore. This would become what you hear when you're far away. In the level, I added some zones where it’s not as audible, so you get natural dynamics in the soundscape.

I would love to talk even more about the process, but hopefully, this gives a small insight into the sound design workflow. It was a lot of trial and error, implementations, attenuation curves, balancing, playtesting, playtesting, and playtesting. In the end when we added the wonderful music from our composer Two Feathers it all came together.

With all this said, was this the most fun sound design task? No, I like designing rain the most, but that could be an entire blog post by itself.

Thank you for your time, and the next time you hear a random whuaaaargh remember - it’s probably me.

Hi everyone! My name is Teodor, resident game designer on Vermintide 2. While I have been at Fatshark for a while now I am still fairly new to the V2 team, joining just last year. And so, this will be my first ever dev blog for the project. Let’s get straight into it!

This latest update saw the introduction of our new Chaos Warrior variant (and his big shield). Players coming from Darktide might feel right at home when looking at our newest enemy, but he does function slightly differently than his Bulwark brother from across the studio. We’ve been looking at adding a new Elite enemy for a while, especially one that makes room for some heavy-stagger-playstyles, so here he is in all his shield-wielding glory.



The first thing you’ll notice is that this new Chaos Warrior is heavy, but he does have an exposed weak spot in the form of his big, green swollen stomach (safely tucked away behind his shield, of course). We set out with the mindset of always promoting multiple ways of dealing with this new threat, so while waiting and sneaking in weak spot attacks during openings is entirely possible, you’ll find that heavy swings work just as well. Landing repeated heavy blows on his armor or shield will slowly knock down his stature. Once breached, the Chaos Warrior will stumble and open up for damage. Getting teammates in on the action is worthwhile as well as these stagger values do stack, ‘opening him up’ much faster. But try not to lose focus of him, as he’ll start recovering his poise if left alone for too long!

The second thing you’ll notice are his shield attacks. Being a bit of a scrambler-type enemy, the new Chaos Warrior’s role (on top of damaging the players and being an all-around menace) is to push the heroes away from each other, separating them. While a shielded Chaos Warrior might be less of a threat by his lonesome, he should amplify the threat of any horde he’s in pretty drastically (especially if there is a regular Chaos Warrior somewhere in the mix). We wanted to build something that jams well with other, more frantic, enemies, and hopefully, this new Chaos Warrior will accomplish just that.

Introducing a new enemy to an already well-rounded roster in a game like Vermintide 2 is always going to be an interesting time, so please let us know how you feel about it. I’ll be monitoring the new Chaos Warrior’s performance and sentiment over the coming weeks so that we can continue to develop the experience together and turn him into a more natural fit if need be.

Cheers!

Hotfix 5.4.2 - 17th of April

As a heads up, the patch size for this hotfix is unfortunately 25GB. We're still investigating what's causing some of our patches to have this issue to be able to avoid this in the future.

Features & Tweaks

• Added new sound effects for when the Chaos Warrior with Shield blocks a ranged attack.
  Slightly increased the likelihood of hero conversations starting in A Parting of the Waves.
  Tweaked some objective markers in A Parting of the Waves to avoid confusion.
  Added an idle animation for the 5th Hero in A Parting of the Waves.

Fixes

• Fixed the missing dialogue for Saltzpyre when he's the last man standing and when someone wastes healing. Ohhh he's gonna let 'em have it now...!
  
• Fixed a visual bug in the first person view of a particular fireball staff illusion, which was missing its proper glow.
  
• Fixed the text in the search bar of the crafting menu sometimes spilling out of the search bar.
  
• Fixed a bug with the Chaos Warrior with Shield when facing a hero that went invisible.
  
• Fixed missing stagger values for Chaos Warrior with Shield in certain difficulties.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Chaos Warrior with Shield playing a stagger animation twice when recovering from being lifted by a Sister of the Thorn.
  
• Fixed a visual bug with Saltzpyre's volley crossbow having floating ammo when switching from 3rd person to 1st person.
  
• Fixed a crash caused by having too many buffs active at once. Y'all are crazy.
  
• Fixed a host crash when a client joins on a hero that is not currently present near the end of A Parting of the Waves.
  
• Replaced a door in A Parting of the Waves to prevent a rare crash.
  
• Fixed an issue where Necromancer has their skull overridden by their potion if ending a Chaos Wastes level with a skull in potion slot and a potion in their extra slot.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Chaos Warrior with Shield not splitting into two enemies when certain tzeentchian modifiers were active.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Fixed the big barrel model disappearing at certain distances.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Moved ammo box on wagon before end event so its reachable by bots.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Taught bots how to navigate a sunken ship at the harbor.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Improved bot navigation at the pier.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Fixed some respawn points being set underneath the ground level.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Fixed a house disappearing at certain distances.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Fixed several locations where players could get out of bounds or into unintended areas.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Fixed a typo in the counter message for destroyed buboes Okri challenge.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Fixed a spot where enemy blood would turn into moss. Very nurgle-y, really.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Added a fix to prevent the challenge fish from being killable more than once. Like, how dead can a fish be?
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Removed a 'hanging from ledge' spot on a broken ship that was vestigious from previous designs of the map.
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Climb spawners on the first island were broken and made the spawned unit die on spawn. Not any more, so make sure you look up and behind you!
  
• (A Parting of the Waves) Added missing idle animations for the 5th Hero, waiting by the escape boat.*
  
• (Mission of Mercy) Fixed some spots where you could go out of bounds.
  
• (Athel Yenlui) Fixed players being able to walk along the outer edge in the finale.
  
• Fixed a crash when quitting the game after getting a backend error.

Hotfix 5.4.1 - 11th of April

This patch fixes a common crash and adds various fixes to the new map, A Parting of the Waves.

Fixes

• Fixed a common crash related to the Chaos Warrior with Shield's animations.
  
• A Parting of the Waves Fixes:
  
  • Fixed so you cannot slap in the barrels at the rock wall or in the factory until you have been at the blighthouse.
    
  • Fixed the light from the lighthouse not disappearing after you guys blow it up.
    
  • Fixed some lighting issues where certain objects were darker than they should be.
    
  • Fixed some areas where parts of the map could visually disappear.
    
  • Fixed a spot where players could get stuck near a tome.
    
  • Fixed instances where the intro cutscene would not play.
    
  • Fixed a spot where players could get stuck on a tarp.
    
  • Fixed some issues with fire particles throughout the level.
    
  • Added a fence to block off an inaccessible spot that looked accessible.
    
  • Changed the water depth at the end area, near the exit.
    
  • Fixed a couple of LoD issues with some objects throughout the level.
    
  • Shrunk a misbehaving wall a bit.
    
  • Fixed an issue that caused there to be multiple copies of the same lantern running about.
    
  • Fixed a levitating pickup item.
    
  • Added some planks near the ship players can enter in the harbor.
    
  • Added some materials to make the escape a bit clearer.

The fourth and final part of the Karak Azgaraz saga - A Parting of the Waves - is out now on PC, free for all owners of Vermintide 2!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2445960/Warhammer_Vermintide_2__Karak_Azgaraz/

Join our Heroes on their bonding exercise, as they try to work through their quarrels and chase the fleeing Skaven to a gloomy whaling village, ravaged by storm and something sinister…

In addition to the new map, this update sees the introduction of a brand new enemy: the Chaos Warrior with Shield! This new enemy will show up alongside in any mission with Rotblood's presence.


We’ll also be hosting a developer stream on April 12, at 16:15 CEST! Join Community Manager Catfish, Art Director Joseph, and Design Director Joakim as they do a deep dive on the A Parting of the Waves update!

Without further ado...

• Added a brand new map: A Parting of the Waves
  
  • This map is considered the 4th and final entry in the Karak Azgaraz saga for Vermintide 2.
    
  • Includes its own set of Okri's Challenges and rewards! New paintings and portrait frames!
• Added a new enemy type: Chaos Warrior with Shield. Sigmar preserve us...
  

• Outcast Engineer: Increased the Cooldown of the bomb generated by 'Ingenious Ordnance' to 180 seconds (up from 120 seconds).
  
• Outcast Engineer: Decreased the starting bombs from the 'Bombardier' talent to 2.

• Fixed an issue with Outcast Engineer talent 'Linked Compression Chambers' not increasing fire rate properly.
  
• Fixed an issue with Necromancer not being able to see her Chaos Wastes potions when checking her inventory.
  
• Fixed some spots where bots would get stuck in Trail of Treachery and Tower of Treachery.
  
• Fixed a tome not spawning in Khazhukan Kazakit-Ha!
  
• Fixed an issue with the 'Eyes of the Crowfather' Okri's achievement being impossible to complete. Something something Tzeentch ravens.
  
• Fixed the skulking sorcerer from that one Nurgle curse on Chaos Wastes breaking entirely when lifted by the Lifestaff.
  
• Fixed a placeholder localization line on the 'Quit to Menu' button.
  
• Fixed a host crash when a Kerillian bot spawns and is being attacked the same frame.
  
• Fixed rare host caused by a bot Warrior Priest with 'The Comet's Gift' talent being replaced by a human player while they have their ability active on another player.
  
• Fixed a rare crash while spectating.
  
• Fixed rare crash when local game receives info about a projectile, but the projectile or hit unit was already removed locally.
  
• Fixed a crash when someone hotjoins the same frame as a pinged unit is destroyed.
  
• Fixed a very rare crash related to player despawns.
  
• Fixed a bug in the launcher that sometimes caused the wrong GPU to be selected when multiple GPUs were available (mostly affecting laptops).
  

A free new update is coming to PC on April 11, containing a new map: the conclusion of the Karak Azgaraz storyline! This fourth, final map is not a remaster of a Vermintide 1 mission, but a brand new, stormy mission!

Those who have followed Lohner’s Chronicles recently might already know, but our Heroes are not on the best of terms right now. After Sienna picked up Necromancy and started raising the dead to fight the onslaught of Skaven and Chaos better, things have been… tense. Distrust slowly surged amongst our heroes. Today, the Ubersreik Five are on the verge of falling apart.

That’s when jolly ol’ Kruber had a fantastic idea! The Five should group up and set sail, chasing after the Skaven ships fleeing after being routed in Khazukan Kazakit-Ha!
Slaying rats is what got them together in the first place, surely it would help bring them back together.



Only, the seas might not be so kind. As they chase the scurrying Skaven to a whaling village, the storm is getting dangerous, the waves are roaring, and the guiding light of the village’s lighthouse seems more ominous than comforting…

We’re excited for you to explore the final chapter of the Karak Azgaraz storyline on April 11.

More dangers are lurking in A Parting of the Waves than just rain. A brand new enemy type is coming with this update: A Chaos Warrior armed with a shield and mace. This foe is mighty and tough. It’ll take some mighty blows to fell these soldiers of Chaos, or a cunning hero able to expose their weak spot.

The Chaos Warrior with Shield will be available in all maps with Rotbloods presence.

Hope you had a great 6-year anniversary! My name is Joakim and I’m the Design Director for Vermintide 2. In this dev blog, I’ll provide an update on the Versus game mode by following up on the recent Open Alpha Test. Actually, we dubbed it the Great Open Alpha Test, or GOAT, as it was preceded by the Closed Alpha Test, or CAT. Tradition now mandates that we can’t have a next test before we decide on a good animal acronym. Suggestions are welcome.

First off, thank you everyone for playing and supporting the game! The GOAT was active at the same time as our Anniversary event, from March 7th to March 17th, with Versus being available from the (new-ish) PC main menu. The test saw some polishing and balancing, it featured a new Versus map - Righteous Stand - and supported our DLC careers.

All in all the test was successful, but unfortunately, it was quite unstable in the first days of play, requiring five hotfixes to resolve the stability issues.
After 6 years Vermintide 2 consists of a lot of moving parts, and as the previous test had been on a separate beta app the integration of the game mode into Vermintide simply proved trickier than anticipated. Apologies for all the inconvenience it caused for your Quiet Drinks - but hopefully this should have been one of the biggest production hurdles, and we expect things to roll out smoother now for any future binging in Helmgart.

With that, cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the rats of statistics!

The GOAT saw just shy of 24000 players fighting across 39529 rounds in 9345 games, compared to the 3600 players in CAT. The tweaks to balance and scoring were successful in reducing the number of games ending in draws on both maps - only 0.4% compared to nearly 7% in CAT. With Righteous Stand we also wanted to test a longer, three-section map over Screaming Bell’s two sections, and we saw match times averaging around 30 minutes toward the end of the test. Overall you seem to approve of both the map and the longer playtime compared to the previous test, and we’ll take that into consideration going forward.

The balance tweaks and the introduction of the DLC careers had a definite impact on the Hero meta, with the top ten most-played careers shifting slightly as a result:


Grenades and sniping weapons continue to be the core of the weapon arsenal against the Pactsworn; handguns, crossbows, longbows, and bolt staff are in the lead, while brace of pistols seemed to perform well, specifically for Saltzpyre.

From a Pactsworn perspective there was little change in terms of pick rate and longevity compared to the CAT: the Globadier still outperforms as a safely hidden damage dealer whilst the Warpfire Thrower could do with more buffing to increase usability and appeal. The Gutter Runner saw a slight uptick in picking, which may be a result of the general open layout of Righteous Stand, and the Packmaster players were probably having the times of their (short) lives, happily lurking by the cliff sections in the third set (or in the second set’s labyrinthine sauna spots).

With the GOAT being available to so many players we saw lots of good feedback on the forums and in our social channels, all of which is much appreciated. The survey made an appearance in the launcher as well and we got a great turnout of over 1500 responses. Huge thank you for all your responses and feedback, it makes all the difference going through your answers and tracking how things are improving over different tests.

Last time we did the survey, for CAT, we ended up with a majority of Legend and Cataclysm player responses. A goal for GOAT was to get more responses from Recruit, Veteran and Champion players, and/or players with <60h playtime, and we… mostly accomplished that. To our 8 Recruit players; thank you, but we need to make sure even more of you find your way to the survey next time.

In general, all of you seem to have a really good time in Versus, with 84% of you rating the game mode between 7-10 in “fun”, and with Cataclysm players being overwhelmingly the most positive to both Versus and playing Pactsworn. Looking at the mid-to-negative responses, the majority of these mention balancing and stability as the biggest issues we can improve on.

So what do the feature requests look like at this point? Well, nothing has really changed from CAT, with the most common requests being balancing the teams further (special shoutout to Warrior Priest and Life staff this time!), adding Pactsworn talents or abilities, designing a training area for Pactsworn and implementing both some form of matchmaking and private game options.

Oh, and also to add a playable boss. But we’re working on that, so don’t you worry.

We’re also aware of frustrations with getting a random Hero when joining into a game, as well as having too many Globadiers around at the same time, and we’ll look into these things as well. The next test, Animal Name Pending, will be a fun one I reckon.

Appearances aside, we are working on other things aside from Versus. For instance, we are finally working on a loadout system and hope to have that out together with the next test. But what about the Ubersreik 5, you may ask? What’s in store now that Karak Azgaraz is saved (again), Sienna has a penchant for the undead and Lohner is receiving unexpected guests? Whale, we can’t reveal anything about the future just yet, so you’ll just have to wait and sea what it holds for oar heroes.

But not for too long, we expect.

Thank you for these past 6 years and for your continued support. In a year we’ll meet up again to try to find that door to the Obese Megalodon (though if Queen Kerillian was a door - she’d be the best door, obviously).

Joakim, and the Vermintide team

Never one to pass up an opportunity to keep the old war funds flowing, I reckon it's time to take the Emporium of Wonders in a whole new direction, namely shoes, boots, sandals, sabots, and clogs - a festive festonery of footwear. I mean, some folk might say that an army marches on its stomach, but wiser heads know that it's the feet that make the magic happen. Gotta look after them, is what I'm saying ... for the right price. Now, who wants what?


Do you wonder to wander? Searching for the boot for your route? A shoe to break your blue? Dare not to leave your toes bare? Maybe Ladrielle has asked you to step up your footwear game?

Lohner’s Shoe Emporium of Wonders offers those wandering among us (looking at you, Kerillian) a place to keep your toes dry. For the price of a couple of shillings, your Hero can wear the most dashing and daring of sole-full accessories and receive Lohner’s grateful toe-ken of appreciation.

A store full of sole is walking your way.

Coming after the release of Bardin’s Songbook.

Heroes!

The Versus map will be changing back to Righteous Stand from 10:00 CET for the remainder of the Alpha Test. Just a reminder that the Alpha Test ends on 17th March 23:59.

Thank you to all those who have played so far!

Heroes!

Thank you for all your incredible feedback on the 'Righteous Stand' map so far, we will now be swapping map to 'Screaming Bell' from 13:30 CET 12th March - 10:00 CET 15th March. We will swap over gradually so it may take some time before you start to queue in to the 'Screaming Bell' map.

For those who played or watched during our Closed Alpha Test here are the changes we have made to 'Screaming Bell' for this test:

• Increased enemy presence (including enemies triggered by certain events)
  
• Reduced pickups / health
  
• Added a Reach objective stage after the Bell event (before the Bridge of Shadows)

Hotfix 5.3.5 - 15th of March

Fixes

• Fixed a consistent crash when completing an Essence Weave objective.

Hotfix 5.3.4 - 14th of March

Fixes

• Fixed players being booted to the main menu upon being disconnected, they're now booted to the Keep.
  
• Fixed various crashes related to the chat window.
  
• Fixed a crash when starting a Back to Basics deed while having an Outcast Engineer with the Gromril Plated Shots talent.
  
• (Versus) Fixed the last sub-objectives being counted twice when completed
  
• (Versus) Fixed a softlock when using controllers in Versus.
  
• (Versus) Fixed a bug that allowed firing while in ghost mode as Warpfire Thrower and Ratling Gunner.
  
• (Versus) Fixed a bug that allowed Pactsworn to spawn from ghost mode on top of Heroes when using the Catch Up feature.
  
• (Versus) Fixed players crashing when trying to use the emote wheel (default: U) as Pactsworn.

Hotfix 5.3.3 - 11th of March

Features & Tweaks

• (Versus) Added an 'exit ghost mode' button as a rebindable keybind, instead of only being bound to M2.
  
• (Versus) Increased the Warpfire Thrower's health, close range damage and overall damage.
  
• Added some extra support for certain legacy sanctioned mods.

Fixes

• Fixed the recent 'Access Violation' crash that's been the most prevalent in patch 5.3.X
  
• Fixed a crash when hotjoining and an object was in the middle of being despawned.
  
• (Versus) Fixed rare crash when using "Catch up to heroes" more than once and using it once again the moment between a player leaves and a bot replaces them (or vice versa).
  
• (Versus) Fixed a crash when pinging near a pactsworn right as it dies.
  
• (Versus) Fixed a crash when a player hotjoins inbetween round transitions.
  
• (Versus) Fixed crash when brining up the social wheel while switching teams in versus
  
• (Versus) Fixed a potential crash when players attempt to play Pactsworn.
  
• (Versus) Fixed an exploit where the hookrat could grab Heroes while in Ghost mode. Cheeky buggers.
  
• (Versus) Fixed Necromancer Sienna being able to send her skeletons after invisible or ghost mode Pactsworn.
  
• Fixed player talents and equipments sometimes being reset when switching between game modes.
  
• Fixed various crashes
  
• Fixed an issue with enemies not becoming visible properly in Shadow/Ulgu Weaves.
  
• Fixed an issue where the illusions for the Soulstealer Staff would still be locked even for owners of the Necromancer Cosmetic Upgrade

Re-Sanctioned mods

• Numeric UI

Unfortunately, the Numeric UI mod was still causing crashes after this fix and has been unsanctioned again. We'll keep tinkering to fix these issues.

Hotfix 5.3.2 - 8th of March

Fixes

• Fixed a number of miscellaneous crashes
  
• Fixed an issue where the chat message target did not switch back correctly when changing between Adventure and Versus modes

Mods temporarily de-sanctioned

As of this hotfix, we've also temporarily de-sanctioned the following mods:

• Numeric UI
  
• UI Tweaks
  
• Loadout Manager

These mods were disabled because they were causing crashes and some exploits, but these are only temporary measures while we indeed work on fixing the issues and work with the modders to fix the mods. They'll be back as soon as possible!

Hotfix 5.3.1 - 7th of March

Tweaks

• Disabled quickplay play button for modded realm.

Fixes

• Fix crash when hotjoining while another pact sworn is very close to spawn
  
• Fixed crash when starting the game and getting a backend disconnect
  
• Fixed client crash when being hoisted at the same time as picking up a barrel
  
• Fixed music crash when joining a game
  
• Fixing crash when shooting with crossbows, javelins, or steam pistol while having a buff that makes it not consume ammo.
  
• Fixed crash when blocking with Kruber's Spear & Shield variant "Talabecland Waldguarder"
  
• Fixed shutdown crash from leaving a lobby as host
  
• Fixed various other crashes
  
• Fixed bug where player is awarded talent related steam achievements when they enter versus, even though they haven't met the requirements yet.
  
• Fixed bug where first person weapon animations were triggered on third person characters
  
• Fixed some cases of the logs and/or chat window being spammed with messages.
  
• Fixed wrong round number showing in the Tab screen and end of round
  
• Fixed an issue changing keybinds in the options menu in the main menu

Patch notes for the hotfixes after this patch can be found in our Hotfix 5.3.X Megathread

It’s time! The Sixth Anniversary event for Vermintide 2 has started and is now live on all platforms! It will run from today March 7th to March 18th, so make sure to enjoy it while it lasts!

Six years, huh? That’s quite a while! We said this before, but we really wanna hammer it home: We are SO grateful to you guys that this community is still going strong after all this time, having fun and enjoying the shenanigans of the Ubersreik Five. Here’s to many more years, here’s to all of the content coming in the future! There’s still a lot in the works, and not just the Versus Game Mode!

We’ll be hosting a stream with Joakim our Design Director, and Erik our Product Owner today at 16:30 CET / 10:30 EST. Tune in to chat about Vermintide and all the years that led us up to this point, the Versus test that’s happening during these weeks, and watch developers play a round or two of Versus themselves!
Link to stream.

As always, the celebratory map of ‘A Quiet Drink’ will be re-enabled during this anniversary event, letting you go out partying with your friends as the Ubersreik Five look for another place to drink! Access it through the Weekly Event tab in Adventure Mode Matchmaking!

Complete the anniversary map ‘A Quiet Drink’ during the event to earn a brand-new anniversary portrait frame!

Another Round


For the new players joining us, this’ll be a treat! We’ll also be doubling the XP earned from all matches for as long as the Anniversary event lasts! So, time to power level if you’re not maxed already!

Of course, that’s not all! For the entire duration of the Anniversary event, you’ll also be able to try out Versus! Available to all owners of Warhammer: Vermintide 2, you’ll get to hop onto the Versus-specific lobby from the main menu.

We had a ton of fun (and a ton of feedback!) from the Closed Alpha Test we held early February, so we’re really excited and hopeful to see that and more during this one, where everyone gets to participate!

What is Versus?
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.

In case you missed it, here’s a link to our latest Dev Blog, where we go over our thoughts and takeaways from the Closed Alpha Test:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/552500/view/4139441932569145653

For those of you who have participated in the Closed Alpha Test, or just those curious, we’ve compiled a list of the major changes between the previous Test and this one:

• Current testing map has changed! New map is Righteous Stand.
  
• Added a scoreboard at the end of the match.
  
• Team scoring has been reworked a bit to be more granular.
  
• Enabled all 5 premium careers.
  
• Tweaked some more outliers in abilities and talents. Of note, Outcast Engineer’s bomb spam has been toned down for this round of Versus testing.
  Developer’s note: We know that Outcast Engineer currently needs looking at in the adventure mode as well, but we’re only touching him in Versus for now as a quick patchwork before giving him a proper thought out adjustment in the base game.
  
• Increased the amount of NPC enemies.
  
• Reduced the amount of pick ups scattered around the map (both ammo and health).

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

Now that the final Premium career has been released with the coming of Necromancer Sienna, we have added a complete package bundle that includes all of the Premium Careers together, as well as a bundle that includes all of the Premium Careers and the cosmetic upgrades. If you don’t already own all of them, this is the best way to complete your collection!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38849/Warhammer_Vermintide_2__Careers_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38850/Warhammer_Vermintide_2__Careers__Cosmetics_Bundle/

We hope you enjoy celebrating this new Anniversary with us, and we look forwards to hear your opinions on Versus! Without further ado…

• Added brand new dialogue and level banter to the following levels:
  
  • The Screaming Bell
    
  • Righteous Stand
    
  • Festering Ground
    
  • Hunger in the Dark
    
  • Into the Nest
• Several improvements, fixes and optimizations for better sound performance and prioritization in high intensity combat
  
• Improved memory optimizations across different sound categories.
  
• Necromancer can no longer command skeletons to attack enemies behind obstacles.

• Fixed more issues with geometry being invisible or visible when it shouldn't in Righteous Stand and Mission of Mercy.
  
• Taught Sienna's skeletons how to not get stuck in the end arena event of The War Camp.
  
• Fixed some sound issues with elevators.
  
• Fixed some audio issues with specials that were nearby.
  
• Tower of Treachery’s alchemy puzzle had the labels for Distillate of Shyish and Azyr swapped. Whoops...! That explains a few explosions.
  
• Trail of Treachery: Fixed the collision on some fences so that you can't phase through them and fall to your death anticlimactically.
  
• Fixed an issue where Sienna’s Beam Staff would sometimes lower music and ambience sounds for other players
  
• Fixed an issue where the Bounty Hunter career ability would not trigger its sounds correctly in first person.
  
• Fixed issues with Beastmen Wargor that made them play too many sounds sometimes.
  
• Fixed issues with Outcast Engineer’s Piston Power talent that made it play too many sounds in some situations.
  
• Fixed the initial cutscene sound on Dark Omens not playing if music was turned off.
  
• Fixed some sound cues sometimes cutting out in Dark Omens’ end event in high intensity combat.
  
• Fixed the Grudge-raker’s Weave illusion not playing any firing sound.
  
• Fixed Saltzpyre’s Brace of Pistols triggering two shot sounds every single shot.
  
• Fixed damage taken sound effects sometimes not playing when taking damage from globadier gas.
  
• Fixed an issue where Keep painting Voice Over would not stop playing when switching painting or exiting the menu. Lohner gets the hint now.
  
• Mission of Mercy: Patched a hole in the ground with rocks. Rocks always fix things.
  
• Fixed the fog from the valve event in Mission of Mercy not always going away properly.
  
• Fixed a bug where the barrels in the end event of Mission of Mercy could spawn outside the map. Also made them stick to the detonation points easier.
  
• Removed an invisible wall in Khazukan Kazakit-ha! that could get players stuck.
  
• Removed a floating test object in the background in Khazukan Kazakit-ha!
  
• Fixed a bug where you could shoot the same bird multiple times to get more than one point of progress in the Eyes of the Crow Father challenge. You monsters.
  
• Fixed some wonky terrain and ledge collision in A Grudge Served Cold.
  
• Fixed a gap in the ceiling in A Grudge Served Cold.
  
• Fixed collision for some spots in A Trail of Treachery where players could previously get stuck.
  
• Fixed a spot where Battle Wizard could teleport out of bounds in Fortunes of War. Of course it was Battle Wizard, up to no good.
  
• Fixed an issue where the cannonball in Fjord Brush-n-Buckle could spawn in a place that is sometimes inaccessible.
  
• Fixed a door in A Grudge Served Cold and in Khazukan Kazakit-Ha! where enemies could phase through. Not today, Tzeentch!
  
• Added missing spawners for Ravaged Art in Khazukan Kazakit-Ha!
  
• Fixed a spot where players could jump off the castle in Tower of Treachery.
  
• Fixed an exploitable spot where you could get out of bounds in The Pit.
  
• Fixed a bug where bots would die when crossing the Skittergate. Lore accurate, really.
  
• Fixed some spots in Festering Grounds that could result in instant death for no reason. Also lore accurate, really, that’s a nasty place.
  
• Fixed a respawn spot in Trail of Treachery where players could respawn under the map.
  
• Fixed a bug where the respawn in the finale of Khazukan Kazakit-Ha wouldn’t be used under some circumstances.
  
• Adjusted a ledge in A Grudge Served Cold so it doesn’t trigger prematurely.
  
• Fixed some flickering walls & roofs in Tower of Treachery.
  
• Fixed some rattling skulls in the intro for Tower of Treachery that were making unnecessary noise.
  
• Re-added Bardin's handgun missing hammer (it was clipped inside the weapon all along).
  
• Fixed the bug where the cannon in Fort Blargula didn’t display a moving progress bar while interacting with it to aim it.
  
• Fixed a bug where players who hotjoined into Trail of Treachery would still see the illusory village if they joined after it had disappeared. Olesya’s magic was just that strong.
  
• Fixed Olesya not teleporting away into the night for clients at the end of Tower of Treachery.
  
• Fixed an issue where aiming with the crossbow would play the sound twice.
  
• Added missing sound effects to certain gates in The Pit.
  
• Fixed bug where Packmasters kept their outline after pinning heroes on their hook.
  
• Fixed an issue where certain light sources wouldn’t show properly behind spiderwebs or in certain lanterns.
  
• Fixed a client crash when another player starts helping the client up from hanging on a ledge just as the client is about to fall.
  
• Fixed an issue with the first person view of the Champion of Ubersreik Waystalker skin that would cause clipping when using the javelin.
  
• Fixed some Tzeentchian looking noses for Slayer when using hats with built-in beards.
  
• Tweaked the ice illusion for the Moonfire bow so that it doesn’t block the crosshair.
  
• Fixed some localization issues.
  
• Taught the bots how to use the ladder in Halescourge.
  
• Fixed a bad respawn point in A Grudge Served Cold.
  
• Moved a pickup and a bucket in Khazukan Kazakit-Ha! to prevent players from getting stuck.
  
• Removed a leftover prototype object in the pyre for Khazukan Kazakit-Ha!
  
• Fixed a spot where enemies could fall into the abyss and not die in Khazukan Kazakit-Ha!
  
• Adjusted a spot where players could hang in midair, rather than from the edge of the cliff, in A Grudge Served Cold.