The Under-Empire
Beneath the world, the old halls still breathe—and the things in them still hunt.
The Under-Empire is a campaign location in Warhammer: Vermintide 2, plunging the player deep beneath the surface into a vast subterranean realm of carved stone corridors, forgotten halls, and oppressive darkness. It stands as one of the game's more claustrophobic and atmospheric settings, contrasting sharply with the open forests and coastal towns encountered elsewhere in the campaign. In the broader Warhammer Fantasy world, the concept of an 'under-empire' evokes the ancient Dwarven holds and the vast networks of tunnels, vaults, and forges that stretch miles below the surface—realms where the light of the sun is a memory and the only illumination comes from guttering torches and the glow of molten ore. Vermintide 2's Under-Empire draws on that legacy, presenting a world where every chamber feels older than the kingdoms above it, and where the creatures that dwell in the dark have had millennia to grow strange and vicious.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Campaign location (Warhammer: Vermintide 2)
- Setting
- Subterranean; underground
- Atmosphere
- Dark
- claustrophobic
- torch-lit
- Architecture
- Carved stone, Dwarven-influenced construction
- Primary enemy types
- Goblins
- orcs
- and other bestial creatures
- Tone
- Oppressive
- ancient
- dangerous
Lore & Background
Long before the current age of men and elves, the Dwarves carved their great holds into the bones of the earth. Over countless generations, those holds accumulated wealth, secrets, and grudges. When a hold fell—besieged, cursed, or simply abandoned—its tunnels did not empty. The goblins and orcs that had always skulked at the edges of Dwarven territory moved in, filling the vaults with their own squalid warrens, their own crude forges, their own endless, hungry broods. The Under-Empire, as it is known in Vermintide 2, is one such place: a vast underground complex where the grandeur of Dwarven engineering is slowly being swallowed by the entropy of the creatures that now call it home. The architecture tells the story. Massive stone archways, once adorned with runes and the likenesses of long-dead kings, now bear the scratches of claw and the stains of old blood. Corridors that were once broad processional routes are choked with rubble, collapsed supports, and the detritus of a thousand small wars. In the deeper chambers, the light thins to nothing, and the only sound is the drip of water and the distant, skittering movement of something with too many legs. For the heroes of Vermintide 2, the Under-Empire is not merely a place to fight through. It is a reminder that the world above is only the thin crust of a far older, far darker reality. Every torch that is snuffed, every passage that narrows, every shadow that moves when it should not, reinforces a simple truth: down here, the darkness is not an absence of light. It is a presence. And it is patient.
Reader's Guide
The Under-Empire hits you with darkness first. The visual palette is dominated by deep umber, charcoal, and the warm amber of torchlight pooling against rough-hewn stone. Corridors are narrow, ceilings low, and the sense of enclosed space is constant. Dwarven architectural motifs—massive archways, geometric carvings, heavy iron fittings—frame the space, but everything is worn, broken, or half-collapsed, giving the area a feeling of slow decay rather than active habitation. Enemy encounters here lean heavily on goblins and orcs in tight, multi-directional engagements. The narrow passages mean you are often flanked or ambushed, and the darkness between light sources creates pockets where enemies materialize with little warning. Heavier threats—trolls or larger brute-type creatures—appear in the wider chambers, where the space opens up just enough to let them swing their weapons with real force. Environmental hazards are subtle but present: low ceilings that restrict movement, rubble that blocks shortcuts, and the ever-present threat of darkness closing in when your light source is extinguished. The area fits into the broader Warhammer Fantasy geography as a subterranean layer beneath the surface kingdoms, a reminder that the world extends far below the farmlands and trade routes. What makes the Under-Empire distinct from a generic dungeon is the tension between grandeur and decay. These are not crude goblin warrens. They are the ruins of something magnificent, and that contrast—ancient Dwarven craftsmanship slowly being consumed by the small, skittering things that now own the place—gives the location a melancholy, almost funereal quality that sets it apart from the more open, sunlit areas of the campaign.
More in World & Locations
Elsewhere in Warhammer Vermintide
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