Vermintide 2 will finally let you beat your rat friends to a pulp

This is not a drill. It’s finally happening: Vermintide 2 is getting a PvP mode. Tentatively named Versus Mode, it will pit two four-player teams in a battle to the gruesome, over-the-top death in ways that only Vermintide can deliver. Before we proceed, check out the trailer below.

A big first for Vermintide

To the uninitiated, Vermintide 2 is a Payday/Left 4 Dead cooperative first-person action game. It takes place in the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battles and focuses on melee combat. It has strong principles of team communication and high difficulty PvE objective-based play. And also slaughtering hordes upon hordes of monsters.

Developer Fatshark has said in the past they have no interest in creating a competitive mode for Vermintide 2. The studio is known for putting great effort into crafting complex cooperative gameplay. Balancing for PvP is not something that ever appeared to be on their radar, despite fan requests. Now it turns out that’s not the case.

“We have always had PvP as a mode for Vermintide in the corner of our minds,” Fatshark states in the announcement. “In terms of focus, it’s been in the ‘cool to have’ box for a very long time, but in terms of priority, the core co-op experience remained at the very top of our list. This hasn’t really changed even with the development of Versus.”

Fatshark conceived and expanded the mode during their in-house “Hack Weeks.” Versus Mode will be an independent game mode with a separate development schedule and team. It will also have its own balancing, so it shouldn’t affect regular Vermintide 2.

“We also want something for the competitive players, and this is what Versus brings to the table.”

When can we expect it in Vermintide 2?

The beta sign-up opened on June 10. Considering that Winds of Magic is set to come out in August, it’s not unrealistic to expect Versus Mode to arrive alongside it. Winds of Magic is the first full-fledged expansion for Vermintide 2. It expands the game with a new game mode, new difficulty, new content, and an entirely new enemy faction.

The announcement states that players will be able to play as enemies from the Skaven and Chaos factions. Curiously, there is no mention of the Beastmen faction arriving with Winds of Magic. Therefore, Versus Mode might come to Vermintide 2 sometime before the expansion does.

Stay tuned to Daily Esports for more news on this PvP mode as it comes out!