Warhammer: Vermintide 1 or 2? | Video Games Open (2024)

They are on sale right now on Humble. The "Collector's Edition" for 1 and 2 are each about 15 bucks. Looking to two copies to share with a friend for very casual play.

Anyone have thoughts or recommendations?

V2 has the bigger player base - but if you do not intend to play with other players, it doesn't really matter.

Some people will say that they like the mechanics in V1 better than in V2. There certainly have been issues in the past with bugs in V2 - but typically those issues really only have an effect upon "high level" play. I generally don't play at "high levels", Champion is generally as high as I go in difficulty level, so any bugs or issues don't cause too much concern.

Personally I prefer V2.

In my experience, the bugs people complain about most in V2 also exist in V1, and the people who advocate the first game over the second are mostly talking about mood and grit. The second is more of a player power trip, and more of the maps are set in daylight.
Mind you, you can and will get wrecked in the second one, but you'll slay a lot more enemies while doing it.

I like both games, because they're not really identical, and both explore the setting in slightly different ways. Also, there's a unified story arc that feels more complete with both.
I do play the second one more, partly because I'm more likely to be able to get humans to play with me in it.
The second game is continuing to get new development and content, while the first is frozen.

Both have DLCs, and the DLCs go on sale with some regularity, so if you play one or the other (or both) base game and enjoy it, watch for those sales.

Stork! said:

Can they both be played with just two and not strangers?

Click to expand...

Yeah, although the two empty spots must be filled in with bots (if you want to play quickplay you must set the game to private once the game has started), and past a certain difficulty level (Nightmare for 1, Legend for 2) bots really struggle to stay alive. Both games are very good in their own right, but 2 has far more replayability, and the gameplay is, in my opinion, much better (if faster paced). There's a sizable group of players in RPG.net that will be happy to give you a hand should you go for VT2 (in case you're not opposed to playing with more non-randoms).

One thing I think worth noting between the two games is the character progression.
In VT1, all of the characters advance in "level" together, but levels don't make a large difference in the effectiveness of the character. More time in the game will get you better equipment, but in terms of raw power against the enemies the difference between a level 100 character with all top-tier equipment and a level 1 character with starting equipment is fairly small. The primary difference is player skill, and someone who's good at FPS games and learns quickly can be pretty effective with a low level character.
In VT2, the characters you play all level separately, and level has a direct impact on both the amount of damage you can do to enemies and on the array of bonus "talents" you have available to ease play. Additionally, equipment ramps up in power quite steeply as you play more. A level 35 (max level) character with all top-tier equipment in 2 is vastly overpowered for the lowest two difficulties of play, and almost can't help but dominate a game played alongside a level 1 character with starting equipment.

Upshot of that is that if you get VT1, I'll play with you no matter what level of difficulty you choose, because even though the enemies aren't as dangerous as at higher difficulties, the game is still entertaining to play with an advanced character. If you get VT2, call me when you're at the very least running the second difficulty (veteran), because Recruit is almost painfully easy for an advanced character.

The online community of random players trends toward relatively benign for this game. There are the occasional "sweaty" (a term I just learned this week!) players who'll gripe at you, but mostly people just want to run maps and have fun, and some people will really help you out if you ask questions. There's a small but dedicated group of people who regularly stream VT2 on Twitch, as well, if you want to see gameplay and ask questions in real time. Don't go to the Steam forums for the second game with questions - it's a cesspit. The Steam forums for the first game are sparsely populated, but the people who check there really like the game.

On top of what was already said - I don't know about V2, but V1 had a lot going on behind the scenes that was not well explained or readily visible to the player*, and finding a good guide was instrumental to my enjoyment of the game.

*) Stuff like: You can shield-block at the same time you're helping an unconscious ally. Or there's a setting in options that makes your allies always outlined, which makes them 500% easier to see. Or when dodging enemies, you shouldn't be trying to get out of the visible line of attack, but rather out of their attack distance (and actually I'm still not sure I got this one right). Or when you put a DoT on the enemy, then switch weapons, and then they die from the DoT, it counts as kill with the new weapon for purposes of talents.

Here's the list of everything we wish FatShark had told us about Vermintide 2

Here's a lot of that stuff for V1

The game doesn't support that BUT
If you have a separate Steam id, and share the game with that id, then one of your Steam ids can have a set of characters at level X with accrued equipment, while the other has them at level Y with different collected equipment.
Doing something like that may be against Steam's terms of service, but shouldn't be a problem with the license for the game, since you're not going to be playing it on both accounts at once.

Note that this isn't an RPG. You don't create your own characters, choosing class and fantasy race or whatever. There are five fixed characters each with their own sets of weapon options, and, in 2, three career options with some different play styles.