Killing Floor 3 brings Tripwire Interactive’s horde‑shooter series to consoles with a reasonable launch price.
The game is set in 2091, where the megacorporation ‘Horzine’ has unleashed waves of bio‑engineered monsters known as ‘Zeds’. A rebel organisation called Nightfall sends a team of specialists to stop the outbreak. The story serves mostly as an excuse for the chaos, with a short series of optional missions offering only a few hours of narrative content. But as is the way with games of this sort (think Left 4 Dead etc) the fun is really about mowing down hordes of zombies than the gripes and moans of rebels and multi-corpos.
The core gameplay loop remains familiar to the aforementioned horde-shooter classic: each match consists of five waves of Zeds followed by a boss battle. Players earn money by killing enemies and completing minor objectives, then spend it between waves to buy ammo, upgrade weapons, and craft mods. Matches can be played solo or in six‑player co‑op. This sounds more akin to CoD Zombies than Left 4 Dead to be fair although we’re probably splitting hairs.
There are six Specialist classes for you to choose from: Commando, Firebug, Engineer, Sharpshooter, Ninja, and Medic. Each class has 30 levels, with over 30 skills and a unique playstyle. This gives you lots of potential for customisation and character evolution. The Commando for example uses an auto‑fire drone for crowd control, while the Ninja wields a neon katana and throwable ninja star. Levelling up unlocks perks like faster reloads, increased ammo capacity, and other special bonuses. Fully maxing a character is going to take some time I think – I’ve been focused primarily on the ninja class and I reckon at 12 hours in I was only about half way. This is both good and bad – good, in that there is lots of opportunity to unlock after many hours, but bad in that some cool stuff comes later and it does start to feel like a bit of a grind.
The combat however, is where Killing Floor 3 truly shines. The new gore system (called M.E.A.T. 2) allows limbs to be blown off and skull fragments to spray across the environment, creating a satisfyingly bloody experience. Want to slow down the zombie horde? Start taking their legs and watch as limbs fly off and they’re reduced to crawling around. Each class has a diverse selection of weapons and equipment, and the gunplay feels suitably weighty and crunchy. Boss encounters – such as the Impaler and Queen Crawler – provide memorable highlights, although the difficulty of them is all over the place, ranging from ‘walk in the park’ to ‘rage quit’ levels of challenge.
Visually, the game benefits from Unreal Engine 5. Environments are highly detailed, and the gore effects are striking. On PS5 the DualSense controller enhances immersion with lots of noticeably different types of vibration. The performance is really smooth, although there are some stuttering moments going between big sections of levels but it’s a minor niggle. There is an automatic ‘Zed Mode’ which is essentially zombie bullet time. This is really cool, although oddly it triggers at seemingly random points but is still excellent nonetheless.
Supporting the bloody atmosphere is the audio design, which is decent. Weapons sound extremely punchy, and the moans and groans of the zombies are gruesome but also useful in understanding where they are before you get crushed by them. The music is a bit generic though, it does sound like ‘usual heavy rock over a video game’ which is a bit of a shame but probably as background noise for chaos, does a good enough job.
Longevity and support is always key for these sorts of games. At launch, Killing Floor 3 includes eight maps and six classes. There are a number of difficulty modes which add replayability, but repetition kicks in due to seeing the same environments time after time, and the grind for progression requiring that you really need to be enjoying the gameplay to pump lots of hours in over anything else. Specific perks are limited to certain characters, which adds to the replayability however the issue of the grind is exacerbated as you begin a journey each time to level up and progress each character.
Thankfully, Tripwire has already outlined a post‑launch roadmap promising new weapons, mods, maps, bosses, and additional Specialists across upcoming seasons. This is great news for early adopters, knowing that the game they bought will be supported although it does make me question if it’s all free (which it is planned to be), will it not be better to wait and get more game for cheaper?
Killing Floor 3 delivers a chaotic, gory shooter that excels in the feel of combat, dismemberment effects, and co‑op fun. The six distinct classes and deep perk system give players room to experiment, and the M.E.A.T. 2 system (despite sounding like a gimmick) is generally awesome to experience. However, the limited maps, light story, and early‑access‑like content may be a deal-breaker.
For fans of wave‑based shooters or longtime Killing Floor players, it’s an easy recommendation at its moderate price. For everyone else, it might be worth waiting for the planned updates to flesh out the experience. For now, Killing Floor 3 is a bloody good time.
Reviewed on PS5
