Warhammer: End Times: Vermintide – Karak Azgaraz DLC Review

Vermintide has now has three awesome new levels, but unfortunately there are very few people to play them with.

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Dwarfs the competition?

Vermintide was one of my favourite games last year, and now there’s more of it with new DLC. What’s not to love?

Story:

The Karak Azgaraz sees our existing five heroes attempt to warn the Dwarven capital of the Skaven incursion in time to stop them falling to the same fate as the Empire. The story in Vermintide has always been light, but there’s a good theme here that does play out quite nicely across the three levels.

Gameplay:
The DLC doesn’t bring any new enemy types or gameplay changing twists, but it does deliver three extremely solid new levels, with plenty of alternative paths and some really interesting new events, including a neat one where you effectively have to stay still in order to light a beacon. Limiting your mobility has to change your strategy, and it’s a neat touch.

In addition, there are new quests and contracts to encourage you to keep playing, although levelling remains too slow for my liking. The levels aren’t any longer than you’ll have come to expect, so getting through them will take a good ninety minutes or so. There’s still as much replayability as ever though, and the core gameplay remains good enough that it feels like a chore to play a level over and over, especially if you are into the end-game grind of levelling your characters.

There’s also some neat achievements which require a bit of planning or luck to get, which will probably mean you have to keep playing to wrap things up.

Multiplayer:

Unfortunately, there seems to be very few players left online. Across three nights of trying to get into games, I managed to play a grand total of one level with one other human being. The online works well still, but there seems to be a real problem with finding people to play with, despite a new bundle that comes with the DLC.

Presentation:

Karak Azgaraz has a great look to it that clearly separates it from the other levels released to date. The first level takes place deep within a Dwarf city, before the following two levels take you into some snow-topped forests, quarries and passes to raise the warning. The levels have been designed well, and it’s nice to see such a fresh change in visual direction. The game also uses visuals to a nice effect in one of the ‘events’ with steam in a brewery clouding your vision and making it much harder to see.

 

Conclusion:

I still really, really like playing Vermintide, but it’s a shame to see that few other people seem to be. It’s telling that less than 1% of owners generally have any of the DLC achievements. There’s three great levels here, but if you want to see them, then be prepared to play with bots.

Good

  • Good new levels
  • New art & design

Bad

  • Very limited playerbase
  • No AI improvements
8.1

Great

Story - 7
Graphics - 9.5
Sound - 9
Gameplay - 9
Multiplayer - 6.5
Value - 7.5
Editor - Reviewer GamerKnights

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