I really like this game. I think this is my favorite game and has been for a few years. That being said, I think it is worth buying when it goes on sale. It may be worth full price, but there are a few things that make me say get it on sale. I find the end game to the most fun. The early game and mid game are fine as a hack and slash, but I did not find anything to keep me invested in playing to the end game.

There we go, that is the hot take.

I only had a few hours (6-10) of game play until there was a 3 times XP event. During which I spent 40 hours with my friends playing over a long weekend. I manged to get all the characters to max lvl in that time (total play time 56 hours). That still does not get you to the end game as the weapon power levels up separately. To level up that efficiently you need to open all the commendation chests and reward chests from leveling characters on a single character. Once you hit power 300 you need a 300 trinket necklace, or charm. Then you can open chests on the other characters. If you have bad RNG (like one of my friends) you then need to dismantle all the items you just opened and attempt to craft items until reaching power level 300. Finally, you are still not at endgame as you need orange weapons to be viable in the harder difficulties. Luckily you should have plenty of dust from all those low level weapons you had to open/craft. Now you are able to start enjoying the end game. Note: XP events tend to happen once or twice a year. (Quick tip: higher difficulties do not give more xp. Finding books does give more xp. As does quick play, but I found memorizing books on one map to be faster. If you want to speed run lvls, memorize one map and have a grail knight and a warrior priest bot/player.)

There is also the weave system which has its own grind. To level that efficiently, play it before leveling up characters. When you reach a certain point in weaves you will unlock the ability to get the weave currency from the normal game mode. Then do all the grinding to level up characters. That way you will get you enough weave money to fully setup at least a few of the characters.

There are some more interesting ways to play before the end game. For instance, the new Chaos Waste game mode where item quality does not really matter. Also having a dedicated group to play with can make the game a lot more fun. The official vermintide discord has a fairly active community and LFG chats. It has been a few years since I started playing and the new player experience may have changed.

Vermintide 2 has an official server and a mod server. In the mod server anything goes but leveling is locked. The mod community is very large as there are tournaments in even harder modded difficulties. (I am no where close to these difficulties as I find the base game challenging for now.)

The official server allows sanctioned mods. These are non game breaking. Many of them are just slight adjustments or UI/graphics changes. I recommend running most of the sanctioned mods as they allow you to keep track of how your team mates are doing.

If you are interested in modding there is also a modding discord. Mods are written in lua using the vermintide modding framework. The game's lua script source code is given out each update via GitHub to support a healthy modding experience. (They wrote their own engine in C++ and script the game in Lua.)

I really like this game. I think this is my favorite game and has been for a few years. That being said, I think it is worth buying when it goes on sale. It may be worth full price, but there are a few things that make me say get it on sale. I find the end game to the most fun. The early game and mid game are fine as a hack and slash, but I did not find anything to keep me invested in playing to the end game. [h2]Some hot takes[/h2] [h3]Vermintide 2 is better than Darktide (but not in graphics)[/h3] There we go, that is the hot take. [h3]Words on getting to end game[/h3] I only had a few hours (6-10) of game play until there was a 3 times XP event. During which I spent 40 hours with my friends playing over a long weekend. I manged to get all the characters to max lvl in that time (total play time 56 hours). That [i]still[/i] does not get you to the end game as the weapon power levels up separately. To level up that efficiently you need to open all the commendation chests and reward chests from leveling characters on a single character. Once you hit power 300 you need a 300 trinket necklace, or charm. Then you can open chests on the other characters. If you have bad RNG (like one of my friends) you then need to dismantle all the items you just opened and attempt to craft items until reaching power level 300. Finally, you are still not at endgame as you need orange weapons to be viable in the harder difficulties. Luckily you should have plenty of dust from all those low level weapons you had to open/craft. Now you are able to start enjoying the end game. Note: XP events tend to happen once or twice a year. (Quick tip: higher difficulties do not give more xp. Finding books does give more xp. As does quick play, but I found memorizing books on one map to be faster. If you want to speed run lvls, memorize one map and have a grail knight and a warrior priest bot/player.) [h3]After thought on weaves that you actually need to do before speed leveling characters[/h3] There is also the weave system which has its own grind. To level that efficiently, play it before leveling up characters. When you reach a certain point in weaves you will unlock the ability to get the weave currency from the normal game mode. Then do all the grinding to level up characters. That way you will get you enough weave money to fully setup at least a few of the characters. [h2]Basically ignore everything I wrote before this[/h2] There are some more interesting ways to play before the end game. For instance, the new Chaos Waste game mode where item quality does not really matter. Also having a dedicated group to play with can make the game a lot more fun. The official vermintide discord has a fairly active community and LFG chats. It has been a few years since I started playing and the new player experience may have changed. [h3]Mods: why does no one have the same UI?[/h3] Vermintide 2 has an official server and a mod server. In the mod server anything goes but leveling is locked. The mod community is very large as there are tournaments in even harder modded difficulties. (I am no where close to these difficulties as I find the base game challenging for now.) [b]The official server allows [i]sanctioned mods[/i][/b]. These are non game breaking. Many of them are just slight adjustments or UI/graphics changes. I recommend running most of the sanctioned mods as they allow you to keep track of how your team mates are doing. If you are interested in modding there is also a modding discord. Mods are written in lua using the vermintide modding framework. The game's lua script source code is given out each update via GitHub to support a healthy modding experience. (They wrote their own engine in C++ and script the game in Lua.)