[of enemies],” says Batsford. “Another one we have is
where two bosses spawn and you have to defeat both of
them. And the Wind mutator is in effect.”
As players progress to higher Weaves, the difficulty
will continue to increase. “We have continually scaling
difficulty that goes way beyond the highest difficulty that
we have in the game,” says Batsford. “We don’t want
people to ever reach a cap on this. The cap will rather be
when it gets just too hard for them to do it.” While the
first few Weaves will be fun, easy introductions to the
modifiers, later ones will be harsher—providing less regen
on Life Wind levels, for instance.WEAVING A SPELL
One of the key ways Winds of Magic’s new mode will
differ from Diablo III’s Greater Rifts is that Weaves won’t
be randomized. Everyone will be playing the same set of
Weaves, meaning that players can work to find solutions
to specific problems. More than just a combat challenge,
Fatshark wants Weaves to feel like puzzles—challenging
players to experiment with different weapon sets and
career compositions. “People can then share that on
forums, Reddit, whatever,” says Batsford. “I think if we
can nail that it’s going to work out really nicely.”
Another benefit of having predetermined Weaves is
it lets Fatshark add leaderboards. “You’re going to get a
score while you play these,” explains Batsford, “and your
score is going to be based on how long it took you to
complete it, and then also how much damage you took. So
you might have [a Weave] where the best way to get score
is to do it slowly but make sure you don’t take much
damage, or you might have one where you speedrun it
and it doesn’t matter how much damage you take.”
Fatshark is also planning a leaderboard that tracks how
many Weaves you’ve completed. Thanks to the difficultymutators should be tied to each
Wind, but the prototypes I’m shown
seem designed to offer both positive
and negative modifiers. The Life
Wind, for instance, currently grants
constant health regeneration, but
causes players to lose health
whenever they hit an enemy.
To aid variety, Fatshark plans to
remix each level chunk. As an
example, I’m shown a Weave that
takes place on a section of Against
the Grain, but
played in reverse.
To finish a Weave,
players will be
required to
complete an
objective, like
killing enough
enemies to fill a
progress bar,
slaying a certain number of a specific
enemy, or capturing objectives. “The
objectives we have, we want them to
be different,” says Batsford. “We want
them to be a different way to play the
game rather than just going from A to
B and killing stuff ... just different
ways to play each time.”
Once the objective is completed, a
portal will open that will take players
to an arena where they’ll need to
complete a final event. “Right now
we have one that is like survive wavesRIGHT A selection of
the angriest goats in
the room.specific goal. But if your ambitions go
beyond some fancy hats and nice
pictures, Fatshark has a plan for you
too. This year’s biggest addition will
take place this summer, with the
release of Vermintide II’s first
expansion, Winds of Magic.
The expansion will add a new
enemy race, new difficulty, and new
weapons. At its heart, though, Winds
of Magic is designed around one big
idea: To give players an endless
gauntlet of progressively more
difficult challenges. “The basics of
the expansion is to provide an
endgame.” says Wahlund.
Winds of Magic will likely offer an
introductory story mission, but new
adventure maps aren’t the focus.
Rather, the main progression path for
the expansion is a new mode. “I think
the most similar game mode would
be the Greater Rifts that Diablo III
has,” says Wahlund, “where you go in
and they scale in difficulty. We’re not
doing the same thing, though. We’re
doing it in our own way.”
IT’S MAGIC
Each stage of
Winds of Magic’s
new mode is
called a Weave,
although that
term—as with
many things in
the expansion—is
subject to change.
Each Weave will
take place on a chunk of an existing
level marked by one of the eight
Winds—the currents of magical
energy that flow across the
Warhammer universe.
“The idea behind the Winds is
they’re going to change the look and
overall feel of the level completely,”
says programmer Tom Batsford.
“Each Wind should look very
different from each other, even on the
same level, and also give a mutator.”
Fatshark is still figuring out which
TO AID VARIETY,
FATSHARK PLANS
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