Yes, this is basically Vermintide in the Warhammer 40.000 setting with a bigger focus on shooting over melee. There is still a lot of melee in this game. There are four classes to choose from that come with different abilities and weapons. The encounter design is good with some randomness put into the mix to make replays more interesting. Graphics are good as well and so are the sound effects and music in this game. Both gunplay and melee feel satisfying and are fun - especially in co-op with friends. But the game also works rather well with randoms.

Unfortunately this game is very unfinished. I know it’s meant to be a live-service game that will be updated over the next few years. And if the Vermintide games are anything to go by, developer Fatshark is rather good at that. But there is also only one chance to give a good first impression. And this game fails miserably here. The first thing you will notice is the abysmal performance. The game doesn’t even look that much better than Vermintide 2, but it keeps struggling with low FPS and long load times. It also likes to randomly crash or disconnect which can be especially frustrating if it happens towards the end of a ~30 minutes long mission. Worst case, you will get nothing out of your run. Not to mention that there is no cross-play between the Game Pass and Steam version. Yes, you can’t play with your friends, even when you are both on PC when you bought the game in different stores. And there is also no way to transfer your save game between the two versions either.

Another baffling decision is the lack of a good story structure. Instead of giving you a chronological mission structure with cutscenes there is only a hub world that changes available missions and modifiers randomly at set dates. Want to play a certain mission out of the pool of 14 missions? Well, good luck that this mission is available at the moment. To be fair, there are still a few cutscenes here and there that are triggered by your character's progression level. But these are neither interesting nor well made.

And these are not all of the missteps of the game. The progression system is barebones, the loot system is very grindy and not motivating and the crafting system isn’t even fully implemented. They really had the audacity to put a “coming soon” sign in most parts of the crafting menu. This is a fully priced, finished game. It also does not help for longtime motivation that the maps all look and feel very similar. The only setting you will see are the Underhives of a Megacity. Same goes for the enemies. Get used to fighting endless hordes of cultists. The game lacks content and variety, which is a shame with a setting as rich as the Warhammer 40.000 universe.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still room to have fun with this game. But I am really fed up with games releasing in unfinished states. Developers have to finish their games before putting a price tag on them. I don’t care if this is meant to be an ongoing live service game. And if a developer is aware of the unfinished state of the game but wants or has to release it anyway, at least be upfront about it and put an Early Access-sign on the shop site.