Vermintide 2 improves on the first in almost every way. The level design is way more varied and open, yet still retains that sense of tension and claustrophobia when enemies swarm. There are five characters, and each character has three classes. Each class has it’s own passive and active ability, in addition to different weapon types and their play styles are vastly different. Weapons all have different power levels, bonuses, and unique abilities at rarer item levels. Vermintide 2 adds Chaos to the mix, which means you really get a huge mix of enemies to fight. Vermintide 2 also has a pretty deep crafting system.
Replayability is high for Vermintide 2. Just like L4D, there is an overarching AI Director for each level-meaning that enemy spawns are never the same and if you are having an easy go of it, the difficulty will spike up. It doesn’t take long before you’ve played through every level, but it doesn’t get monotonous due to the AI Director. There are 13 maps currently, and when they release DLC you don’t need to purchase it to play the new maps-only one member of the party has to own the DLC for everyone to enjoy.
The difficulty of the game is huge plus imo and also really add to replayability. Sure, you can just fuck around on Recruit, but once you go up even one level, to Veteran, you have to stay focused. Even high level characters can find themselves in serious trouble on Veteran if they are being sloppy. Champion and Legend difficulty are brutally insane and require real skill. The learning curve of how to play adds longevity.
Also, each map hides five books-three tomes and two grimoires. The tomes take up your healing item slot (but can be dropped to pick up a healing item to use on the spot). The grimoires add extra challenge as each grimoire drastically reduces every player’s overall health pool. Once you pick up a grim you can’t drop it either-it replaces your potion slot. The books are all hidden on every map, some deviously so, and trying to find the books whilst fighting off a never ending horde is tense. There locations are static though, so once you know where they are you can plan out runs.
The books give you extra xp and level up the loot crates. You get loot crates for each level up of your character and successful run of a map. There are no microtransactions, so you don’t have to worry about getting EAd.
I wouldn’t even say it’s a sleeper-it sold over 500,000 copies on PC before the first week was over. The sequel is just so much more fleshed out and polished. And, again, I love the $ 30 price tag and supporting a good indie dev.