Warhammer: Vermintide 2 pre-order beta now live alongside new gameplay trailer

The Warhammer: Vermintide 2 closed beta has wrapped up, making way for the pre-order beta.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2's pre-order beta, as the name suggests, is available only to those who pre-purchased the game. Unlike many betas of this style, any progress you make carries over to the full game.

This is basically a near-finished version of the game. Assuming nothing goes wrong, ranks and any other progress made won't be reset come launch. Developer Fatshark also made several big changes since the closed beta.

The most obvious of these is that the game's Recruit difficulty was toned down a bit based on closed beta feedback, but there's also a host of fixes and additions, all of which can be seen below.

While you're here, give the latest trailer a look, too. It's pretty good, as these tend to be, and it shows more of the game's environments than we'd seen before.

You should also grab the latest Nvidia drivers if you're going to be jumping in. They bring support for Vermintide 2, which is a plus.

Watch on YouTube

Pre-order beta patch notes:

Feature

• Added new intro movie

Balance

• Axes should now feel 'wider' and as such feel more effective
• Dots now require damage to apply
• Lessened the amount of shield vermin in patrols on recruit
• Reduced the effectiveness of damage boost potion
• Reduced the range of berzerker/raider attacks
• Reduced the range of Knight Kruber's charge
• Sienna's mace now reaches further
• Small staggers should not make downed Chaos Warriors stand back up
• special spawning, patrols and horde timing tweaks
• Switch beam staff left/right
• Tweaked crossbow spread speed up
• Various other balance changes (just try things out, we made a lot of adjustments!)

Bots

• Bots can now use talents, huzzah!
• Bots should no longer freak out in shallow water
• Fixed a case where bots would stop reviving a player whenever a ranged attacker performed an attack (regardless of the distance between them)

Stability

• Fix crash caused by Chaos Spawn chew attack
• Fix rare crash that could happen after a chaos warrior launch attack
• Fixed a crash caused when hitting a ragdolled enemy
• Fixed a crash that could occur if you got disconnected from the game just as the win/lose screen was finished
• Fixed crash caused by paintings
• Fixed crash issue when joining game
• Fixed crash when setting overcharge values on a weapon that was unequipped
• Fixed issues with crashing when opening a loot chest or crafting when the host leaves the game
• Fixed opening charm tab in inventory or clicking currently equipped charm occasionally leading to a crash
• Fixed various other tougher to describe crashes

Fixes

• Added camera animations to Sienna's flamethrower staff along with a new start animation for the charged attack
• Added hero selection hotkey to keybindings menu
• Against the Grain Fix for unlocalized objectives
• Bounty Hunter talent "Extremely Impatient" should now properly reset cooldown of "Impatient" on melee kills
• Changed Zealot passive damage increase calculation to allow high buff stack amounts even when grimoires are picked up
• Fix wizards sword light chain and push
• Fixed all kruber shoulders and thumb poses for the 2h hammer set
• Fixed bug with loot chest reward backgrounds were drawn during opening presentation
• Fixed certain activated abilities not being able to be used during a weapon action
• Fixed Gutter Runner having issues while jumping on Bardin
• Fixed Lifeleech perception, can no longer change target mid-attack
• Fixed not being able to deal damage to explosive barrels with certain weapons
• Fixed some locations in the Keep where you could get stuck
• Force ragdoll on death when an enemy is in a vortex
• Ironbreaker: Critical beard fixes
• Kerillian's 1h sword should no longer ignore heavy attack input
• Keybinding added for Weapon Special
• Maiden Guard: Fixed missing material assignment
• Polished staff animations
• Removed overly explosive impact effects from Flamestorm Staff.
• Shortened the game end timer from 10 to 4 seconds when last standing player is dead. Game end timer is still 10 seconds if last standing player is only disabled
• Sienna Pyromancer activated ability no longer bounces on training dummies
• Swapped stat improved by talent for Zealot
• The amount of crafting materials you gained are now correctly shown after completing a Salvage
• Unchained no longer vents overcharge by pushing enemies
• Venting no longer triggers Gromril Armour cooldown
• Waystalker: Added arrow in quiver

Sound

• Added missing sound triggers to heavy attacks with Sienna's mace
• Fixed character foley and voice over not always loading correctly
• Fixed charge sound on Flamestorm Staff
• Fixed missing light attack sounds on Kerillian's Wardancer Blade
• Horde music should no longer get stuck in a loop

UI/UX

• Added enemy shield armor indicators
• Added fade in delay for item compare tooltips
• Added keywords on weapon tooltips
• Added missing enemy portrait textures
• Added new images for trinkets and charms when presenting them in chest opening screen
• Added new item icons for Sienna's Beam Staffs
• Added new necklace icons
• Added new shading environment for weapon presentation in chest opening screen
• Added new trinket icons
• Added tooltip in inventory screen to explain Hero Power
• All items should now have working tooltips (WIP)
• Changed mission voting ui to reflect the new additional options
• Fixed double item tooltip compare for Slayer Bardin
• Fixed issue with item sorting not being applied
• Fixed so skin name and descriptions are presented on weapons with skins applied
• Fixed updated weapon skins with the correct icons
• HUD weapon icons are now showing correct item type icon when playing Bardin Slayer.
• Level presentation in mission voting popup are now using the correct frame
• Now properly displays inventory tabs for slayer bardin
• Only salvagable items will now be presented in the the Crafting page for Salvage
• Rarities on items are now being presented in the background
• Reskin for friends view
• Updated some talent icons

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is out March 8 on PC. A PS4 and an Xbox One version are in the works, though they do not currently have release dates.