When comparing Warhammer: Vermintide 2 vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best online multiplayer games on PC?” Dark Souls III is ranked 11th while Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is ranked 55th. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Dynamic enemy placements to keep the action exciting
This game always keeps you on your toes by having enemies that can appear anywhere. Whether you've just turned a corner, climbed a ladder, or destroyed a wall with a cannon, there's no telling when and where the monsters will spring a chaotic ambush. This is accomplished through an overhead AI system that watches your path and pace through the level, placing enemies dynamically wherever you tread. As a result, replaying levels often leads to wildly different experiences, preventing the action from going stale for a long time.
Pro Weapon choice actually matters with each weapon type providing its own playstyle
Weapons have their own stats and special bonuses like critical strike based on what random stats your loot happened to roll, but what's especially interesting is the weapon type themselves vary in their physical combat capabilities like speed, damage, and swing arc. For example, swords have a wider swing arc than maces, making them better for taking out large groups of monsters. Daggers are quick and require timing to use properly. Spears are slow but have a huge arc and can knock down enemies. This adds a strategic element to play as you'll have to choose the right weapon to get the job done.
Pro No microtransactions
Everything is completely available and included in the cost the game. It has no microtransactions. All loot and loot boxes are earned via normal gameplay by completing levels and leveling up your character.
Pro Heroic Deeds give you the opportunity to replay levels in new and exciting ways
A Heroic Deed is a consumable item that lets you replay levels with specific challenges and modifiers. For example, the enemies might be tougher or more numerous, you can't use certain weapons or abilities, or you will see a new storyline play out. Upon completion, you will get bonus experience and loot, making them a way to replay levels in a rewarding new way. This adds a nice degree of replayability and keeps gameplay fresh by playing old levels in new ways.
Pro Intense melee focused combat
Vermintide 2 really draws you into the action by having up close and personal encounters with monsters. You hack, slash, and skewer enemies to pieces with axe, sword, or spear, which can feel quite unnerving as opposed to throwing a fireball from a safe distance. The tension is further reinforced by the unpredictability of the enemies, since you never know from which side they'll strike. Some enemies can even sneak up in your party's blind spot, dragging away an unsuspecting member. The end result is a very intense combat experience, where you're always in the middle of the action.
Pro The skill system is detailed and diverse with a bunch of different builds
Using the diverse talent system, you can pretty much make any kind of character you want to suit your playstyle.
There are five different character classes, each with a series of abilities that are unlocked every 5 levels. Additionally, at levels 9 and 12, you can split off your talent tree into subclasses which opens up a whole new tree of active and passive skills - meaning each class has access to 3 distinct subspecs with 25 skills each for a whopping 75 talents to choose from.
Pro The difficulty levels are far more than just tougher enemies
Rather than just making the enemies tougher, a lot of work went into making sure each difficulty setting adds something new to the mix. There's 4 difficulty levels total to choose from, and as you increase the difficulty, the enemies will obviously hit harder and have larger health pools, but the game goes beyond that. Item drops also become more scarce and the loot is better quality overall. On the harder difficulty levels friendly fire exists, so you can't just swing wildly. Your hits and spells will have to be timed and precise so you don't kill your friends or your AI teammates on accident.
Pro With the crafting system, getting loot is rewarding even if you can't use it
The crafting system is flexible, allowing players to craft their own gear and weapons with the stats or bonuses they want if RNG has been unkind. If you get any loot you don't want or can't use, you can salvage it into raw crafting materials. These materials can then be used to forge new weapons, upgrade existing ones, reroll the stats and bonuses on a weapon, or give the weapon a cosmetic illusion effect. For example, if you find a weapon with a cool glowing effect but it's a downgrade for you, you can transfer the cosmetic effect to your weapon of choice.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Rare enemy spawns will sometimes break your immersion
Occasionally a rare Chaos Warrior will appear seemingly out of thin air. It kind of ruins the immersion a bit when you can see an enemy literally spawn into the game world right in front of you.
Con Some of the side objectives are tedious or don't match the level theme
At times, you are asked to do some side objectives like lighting a cannon, but they don't really fit in with the overall theme of the level. In this case, you would have to search for the cannonball and then find the cannon itself. It feels like a way to inflate the play time in some cases, and some are rather boring as they detract from the otherwise fast paced action.
Con Some of the passive skills are uninspired
Some of the passive abilities like a small bonus to dodge feel boring as they require no input from the player, there's no animation attached to it, and the effect in-game is negligible at best.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.