When it comes to Killing Floor 3, I keep asking myself, “Where’s the rest of it?” I’ve been collaborating with waves of mutant clone zombies for the past week, and it was a lot of joy to aimlessly hack and slash at these Zeds. However, my coworkers and I frequently asked each other, “Is this the final release, or is it just Early Access?” Many of us, including myself, enjoyed Killing Floor 2. In addition to being a lot simpler, more tightly-woven shoot-em-up than its predecessors, Killing Floor 3’s single Survival mode is generally enjoyable, regardless of whether you enjoy playing online or want to play alone.
Its foes are well-balanced; they are scary when you allow them to swarm you, but boy, do they die well. The weapons and classes it does have are at least a blast to use. However, once you’ve seen everything it has to offer—which doesn’t take long—all of this fast-paced action loses its appeal.
The action in Killing Floor 3 is condensed for a quicker, more live service-oriented delivery, but it still follows the same formula as the first two games. This includes faster movement that feels fantastic right away, enabling you to powerslide from sprint to crouch, mantle up surfaces, and dash from side to side. In between attacks, you will continue to slash and blast your way through waves of foes, erecting defenses and earning money to buy better weapons, armor, ammunition, grenades, self-healing refills, and other items.
At launch, there are only six playable classes called Perks, thirty weapons (including the knife), thirteen enemy varieties, eight maps, and three bosses. There is also no linear storyline to break up that chaos. Compared to the notoriously bloated Killing Floor 2, it does make this a good starting point for anyone looking to get into the series, but it will be more difficult to convince series veterans who have grown accustomed to a higher degree of complexity and tactical depth.
The eight maps have a rather distinctive layout and visual style.
The 13 monster types in Killing Floor 3 are much more realistic-looking and enjoyable to battle, leaving behind gore puddles and permanent environmental damage. The updated physics system also makes the monsters’ reactions to your attacks seem and feel more realistic. The actual difficulty is in managing your resources, including ammo, health, grenades, trade tools, and your class’s special skill, while still putting up a strong enough battle to prevent them from outnumbering you. They die fast enough to give you a sense of strength.
Spitting acid. Most of the other sub-boss type enemies, such as the series-classic Scrakes, who now wear heavy armor, cybernetic augmentations, and a terrifying combination of chainsaws and grappling hooks, appear much more frequently in Killing Floor 3 than I remember, as do bloats and sonic boom-launching Sirens. Just be ready for a lot of blood effects that seem realistic. In a typical Final Fantasy X cutscene, there is more water than Zed blood flowing across your screen in any one frame.
Although the eight areas you’ll battle on have a fairly distinctive layout and visual style, none of them stand out from the others. The primary distinctions are in tactical benefits, such as Convoy’s liberal turret placement or the elevation provided by R&D Lab’s several floors, where you can swiftly escape from attackers in the main atrium using zip lines, but you will die if you mantle over the guardrails. My particular favorite is Radar Station because of its eerie central Washington setting, which includes mist-covered trees around a full moon.
Two more challenging difficulty options are available in addition to Normal difficulty to put your reflexes on every map to the test, as well as your tactical knowledge of class, weapon, and monster dynamics. Additionally, the global map menu has a very awesome Weekly Mutation option that throws you into a match with randomized modifiers that favor the Zed swarm. It’s safe to say that these more difficult matches present a good challenge because neither my party nor I have yet to defeat one of them. When I eventually defeat a boss on Hell On Earth difficulty, I’m sure that spending more time on Killing Floor 3, raising my characters a little more, and improving the mechanics will feel worthwhile.
Playing each of the six classes seems like a meaningfully different experience because they are sufficiently diverse from one another. You have the close-quarters combat-focused Ninja, the utility and heavy-weapons-savvy Engineer, the crowd-controlling Sharpshooter, the pyrotechnics-obsessed Firebug, the adaptable small arms-wielding Commando, and a Medic with SMGs that shoot healing darts. On the surface, these classes are fairly conventional stuff, and it’s wonderful that you can switch up your weaponry, but their specific powers and distinctive grenades, together with genuine skill growth, make them all feel different.
Additionally, each one begins with a unique set of trade tools. For example, the Engineer’s Multi-Tool can easily activate points of interest on the map, such as armor lockers, zip line routes, and automated turret installations. Instead of waiting to purchase additional self-healing syringes at the end of a wave, players can stock up on them in the middle of a battle thanks to the Medic’s Syringe Bag.
Weapon progression is sacrificed for a deeper sense of class customization.
The between-match skill-based progression from earlier entries was made much more accessible by developer Tripwire Interactive by introducing it earlier. It now begins when you hit level two with a class rather than level five, a la Killing Floor 2, and then unlocks new options every two levels rather than every five, leading to what seems to be a level cap of thirty. After a lengthy sequence of consecutive attempts to choose a large number of new skills for a particular character class, returning to the hub area can feel overwhelming (in a positive way) because leveling up happens so quickly between sessions.
All of it is okay, though, because talents offer small boosts in tactical effectiveness in a variety of areas, each of which guides your character toward a particular playstyle without ever going so far as to entirely alter a class’s look or function. For instance, the Ninja is a direct forerunner of the Berserker in Killing Floor 2, using shock traps to take advantage of enemy movements and brandishing melee weapons such as the dual Katanas, Shurikens, and Kibas. Instead of investing in his Bow or Tanto weapons at the Trader in between waves, I have my Ninja set up to heal himself by parrying and increase the damage of his heavy attacks. This encourages me to stay with his starter Kiba for a longer period.
The skill advancement of my Sharpshooter, on the other hand, makes her a stationary combatant by, for example, freezing enemies with her Cryo Grenade or granting her bonuses to damage when crouched in place. As long as I keep her distant from the action, this gives her a tactical edge regardless of the weapon she chooses. I can choose how I want to interact with the carnage in advance without getting bogged down in the skill menu, thanks to this abundance of meaningful choice. My only complaint is a strange glitch that required me to restart my game every time I hovered over a skill choice for an extended period of time,e since it caused my user interface to totally lock up.
The Verdict
Killing Floor 3 is a well-executed follow-up that seems both cleverly simplified and a little vacuous. While the fun lasted, my teammates and I enjoyed blasting through Zed hordes together. The classes are unique, and the co-op shooting feels fantastic. But this feels more like a good Early Access build than a full release because it only has eight maps, six classes, and a backwards weapon progression system that already needs some work. The groundwork is in place, and Tripwire might create something truly unique if it continues to add material, as it did with Killing Floor 2. However, there is currently enough for a fun-filled weekend.
