Note: The rating for category ‘Story’ has not been taken into account for the aggregate score

It’s been a wild ride for Fatshark and Vermintide 2 ever since its release last March, one which we took with them with our reviews of Vermintide 2, followed by its first and second DLC. To say the road so far has been a little rocky would be an understatement. Last February, Fatshark announced Winds of Magic, the first expansion to their multi-million-selling and award-winning title. The promise of a new faction, endgame mode, and weapons sounded very exciting indeed, even though the endgame mode would end up dividing the community into two groups. After two private betas and a pre-order beta, Winds of Magic has finally been released. Now only two questions remain- does the expansion live up to the hype and is it worth buying? Let’s find out.

Before we get into the juicy stuff, I’d like to clear some things out. This is a review of Winds of Magic expansion alone and will not include the changes to combat brought forth by the 2.0 update that launched last week. Although some changes like the raised level cap and reworked talents are crucial for this review, I won’t go into detail about the dodge nerf and the stagger changes. That’s a can of worms I’d rather not get into right now.

With that out of the way, let’s get down to business. So, Winds of Magic, what’s changed? The first expansion for Vermintide 2 adds a new enemy faction (Beastmen), new difficulty (Cataclysm), a raised level cap of 35, 5 new weapons (one for each hero), a new map titled Dark Omens, a new endgame mode and the progression that comes with it. Sounds fair for the asking price, doesn’t it? Well, it sort of is. There is a lot of content here, especially the weaves that goes up to level 120. But what matters the most is how well these are implemented. Quality over quantity always.

Beastmen

The true sons of Chaos are here and it’s up to the Ubersreik Five to make a stand. Now along with Skaven and Chaos, you get to fight Beastmen as well in the new map, weaves, and already existing maps. Beastmen comprises of five new enemy types including a boss. You have the standard grunts, bow/spear-wielding Ungors, the Standardbearer that can place banners to buff his allies, the armored Bestigor that can charge at you from afar and the Minotaur, the hulking boss monstrosity.

The addition of the new enemy faction is greatly appreciated. However, they feel very unpolished and rushed to a degree. Phantom hits and skating hits are now higher than ever, enemies seem to spawn right in front and worse, behind your back, without any sort of warning, The animations for the grunts feel really unpolished, out of sync and unpredictable, especially their running attack. The range of the enemy spears are a bit too high and you’ll be bombarded by pokes from deep within a horde. The Bestigor is too weak despite his intimidating appearance. Despite the excellent build-up using some excellent sound design, the Beastmen horde appears disheveled and underwhelming. The attack range, speed, and hitbox of the Minotaur should be balanced lest it conflicts with the dodge nerf.

Cataclysm

Straight out of the original Vermintide. Cataclysm is back and it’s brutal. Players have been asking for a higher difficulty for ages and we finally got what we wanted. You’ll need good teamwork, proper communication, and optimal positioning to score continuous victories in Cataclysm- just the way its meant to be. However, I feel like it should have been a free update and not locked behind the expansion. There’s also the matter of rewards for Cataclysm. You still get the same Legend chest for completing Cata and outside of a few frames, there are no unique rewards for it. While one part of me says that it’s the right decision as inexperienced players won’t rush into Cata just for that shiny loot. But at the same time, I’m tired of getting the same duplicate red illusions for my weapons over and over again. Nearly 1000 hours does that to a person.

Raised Level Cap and Reworked Talents

Despite being advertised to be one of the features of WoM, the raised level cap is available as a free update to everyone. There was a patch yesterday that resulted in the players not required to hit lvl 35 to access the 6th talent. Even still, I feel like that the reworked talents are a huge misstep. Not only it made some great talents go away that was vital to some builds, but it also introduced a number of useless talents. What’s the point of having two stagger talents that almost function exactly the same in the same row? Since most of the changes are brought forth by the 2.0 update, that’s is all I’m going to say about this.

New Weapons

The new weapons are the best things brought forth by WoM. Kruber’s heavy spear, Saltzpyre’s billhook, Bardin’s throwing axes, Kerillian’s spear and shield and lastly, Sienna’s flaming flail are some neat additions to the game. They aren’t as overpowered as Back to Ubersreik weapons yet are fun to mess around with. Sadly, there are no veteran, let alone normal illusions for the new weapons which is a baffling choice since the weaves have its own sick-looking weapon skins (even for the new weapons). It’s as if Fatshark forgot to put them in.

New Map

There isn’t much to say about the new map. Dark Omen looks good and works pretty well design-wise as well. It serves as an introduction to Beastmen which ends up being rather funky than intimidating due to the poor cinematic design of the intro. Completing Dark Omen is also how you unlock the new weapons. It’s a shame that this is the only new map and I feel like it will end up being the next Bogenhafen, in the sense that people would rather jump off the map than go through it once they unlock the new weapons.

The Weaves

The Weaves will either make or break Winds of Magic for you. This is the new endgame mode that has got the community divided into two. Some players will like the increasing challenge while others flat-out won’t since no one really asked for it. The way the Weaves work is by offering exponentially more difficult challenges in visually altered and reversed variations of already existing maps, each with a special modifier related to one of Warhammer’s eight winds of magic. Each modifier last for 5 Weaves up to Weave 120 with the modifiers being repeated at higher difficulties. For example, one Weave might have random lightning strikes in periodic intervals while some have destroyable totems that buff enemies. You are required to carry out several objectives during the first phase of the Weaves resulting in a finale.

Compared to normal runs, these are rather short two-section segments that can be completed anywhere from 10-15 minutes. The Weaves also has its own progression mechanic and players will need to upgrade their weapons and character from scratch using the points gathered from the weaves and normal runs. Fortunately, yesterday’s patch significantly reduced the grind of this progression mechanic by making your necklace, charm and trinket stats shared across all five characters. You now only need to upgrade melee and ranged weapons separately.

Even though it wasn’t love at first sight, I eventually grew to like the Weaves. Sure, it’s not something we asked for but it does bring something new to the table. Still, I do think it’s for people with a dedicated crew and won’t work between random players. In a time where people even find ways to cheat in professional Esports tournaments, the point of having a standard leaderboard is pretty laughable and I don’t find the concept of seasonal Weaves working in a game like Vermintide either.

But the biggest problems with the Weaves is the repetition, how much disjointed it feels from the main game and how unrewarding it feels at the moment. The only rewards you get for completing weaves are basic commendation chests and lame-looking portraits. There are no new hats, no new illusions, no new cosmetics, nothing. The least Fatshark could have done is reward us with the unique weapon illusion used within the weaves to be used in normal runs. Saying we never intended skins to be the endgame just won’t cut it anymore. There are still unused hats in the game files that we still can not use. What’s even the point of having an endgame when it doesn’t incentivize to play it in the first place?

Miscellaneous 

The game still crashes a lot, there are still lots of bugs and glitches that are apparently hard for Fatshark to reproduce. There are no shortages of backend errors, crashing while crafting, crashing while finishing the game,  players falling into the ground and dying, players not respawning, enemies spawning unnaturally out of thin air, enemies getting stuck during animations and on and on. In other news, water is wet. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Vermintide 2 is Fatshark’s broken masterpiece but this is cutting it a bit too close.

VERDICT

When everything is said and done, Winds of Magic is a mixed bag. People tired of the gameplay loop of the base game may find the new gameplay mode to be refreshing but It’s hard to recommend the expansion to players who weren’t interested in Weaves in the first place. Even if you buy it for the enemy faction and the new weapons, chances of walking away impressed are pretty slim. Update 2.0 didn’t do the game any favors either. That being said, I like to be optimistic and hope that Fatshark listens to all the feedback and delivers a more polished and rewarding Winds of Magic experience in the near future.