Vermintide 2's Versus mode was first announced in 2019, after which developers Fatshark went dark on it. After four years of the usual suspects harvesting upvotes by whining about the absence of Versus mode and how they'd been lied to, it was finally confirmed as still being in the works last year, with the announcement of a closed alpha test. That closed alpha is now complete, and has been followed by an open alpha anyone can join directly from the Vermintide 2 main menu.
In a developer blog about the results of the closed alpha, design director Joakim Setterberg discussed some of the things Fatshark took away from the test. For starters, it went well. As Setterberg said, "we got a ton of good feedback, the servers were fairly stable and we did not see any overly alarming crashes or issues preventing play."
Just over 3,600 players got to try the mode, playing PvP across the Screaming Bell map, "with 7% ending in draws, and with matches concluding in general within 20-30 minutes". Apparently the Heroes outperformed the Pactsworn—not too surprising since players are already used to playing them—and so that's where a lot of rebalancing will come in. Players may already be seeing the results of that in the current alpha, where those dastardly hookrats are doing quite well for themselves.
The current map being tested is Righteous Stand, which players fight across over the course of several rounds. Up to four players can participate on each side, alternately playing as Heroes and Pactsworn specials in each round. A scoreboard at the end of the match lets you know which team is the overall winner.
This round of testing will run until March 18. If you're not interested in PVP, a six-year anniversary event is running at the same time, giving double XP and re-enabling the pub crawl map called A Quiet Drink. You'll find it under the Weekly Event tab in matchmaking. Complete the map during this event, and you'll earn a new anniversary portrait frame for your avatar.
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Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor
Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.
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