Killing Floor 2 from Tripwire Interactive, is an online co-op first person shooter, and sequel to the original Killing Floor (2009). Players pick from 10 various classes, or “perks,” such as field medic, demolitionist, and more, then they proceed to various areas and try to survive waves of zombies called Zed. It’s sort of a mixture of Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2.
The main game mode for Killing Floor 2 is survival. Up to six players must work together as a team and try to stay alive by killing all of the various Zed that spawn in waves. Players can pick from four short, seven medium, or 10 long waves, depending on how much time you have. I played mostly short waves to get a good feel for different perks, and most survival games took about 20 minutes — if we lived. Killing Floor 2 is not easy by any means, even on the lowest difficulty setting it takes some time getting the hang of how to deal with the different Zed you encounter.
There are 11 different basic Zed types along with two bosses. They range from small and fast Crawlers, to bulky and hard to kill Fleshpounds. Certain perks have advantages with specific weapons and then those specific weapons tend to be most effective depending on the Zed situation you are dealing with. The main thing is to play your perk; if you are a field medic, you should be healing your team, if you are a sharpshooter, find a spot and snipe away. Headshots are a must for dealing maximum damage and some Zed have specific weak spots. It was a blast finding the different ways to kill them!
When it comes to perks, the different types don’t really shine until later levels when you unlock various bonuses. Every five levels your perk gains, players can choose from two different situational or play style bonuses. Almost all weapons have a certain perk they work best with, but all perks can use all weapons, and will actually gain experience for that weapons-specific perk. You are limited to how much weight you can carry, so this will cause you to generally focus only on your perk specific weapons. This doesn’t apply to the jack-of-all-trades Survivalist, who can use all weapons, and players choose which bonuses to apply to the weapons they prefer.
In between each round/wave of Zed, players are directed to the shop to buy weapons with the money they accrue. Each game players start out with the same base perk weapons but can then buy better ones. The money doesn’t stay with you, so spend it and then share what you don’t use for the next round. Just don’t forget to resupply.
The sounds and music in Killing Floor 2 are what you would expect. Lots of scary moans and such to get the blood pumping along with some fun death metal music in the background. The graphics are decent and some of the Zed are truly gross. My favorite would have to the Siren, you can hear her coming, and she is scary as hell.
Killing Floor 2 is really an online co-op only game, as there is no campaign and only a very short training level. While there is a single player mode, it’s almost impossible to win rounds without teammates. Fortunately, Tripwire added a secondary play-mode, VS Survival. In VS, players are still in teams of six, but must fight against another team of six, who are controlling various Zed. Players randomly jump into controlling the Zed and each have their own special attacks. Just like in standard Survival mode, if the Zed kill all players in a round, they win and then the teams swap places. The winner is determined on how long each team survived.
My biggest complaints about Killing Floor 2 were the lack of content and the long grind to specialize in a perk. The level designs themselves were beautiful and well done. The Zed are cool and creepy and truly dangerous in large groups, but there are only so many variations, and eventually they got repetitive. There are only two “bosses” at the very end of a game, the final round, and while they both are very fun, again, it gets very repetitive. I would of given Killing Floor 2 a much higher score if there was more variety to the gameplay itself and not just the perks and weapons.
In the future, if Tripwire releases more content and as more teams evolve, Killing Floor 2 will hopefully get better. Right now it’s too repetitive and is such a long grind to get a perk to shine, that it is only for the diehard, team-based FPS player. I will likely continue to play it in between other games, as it is a lot of fun in short increments. I just wish there was more to Killing Floor 2.
Killing Floor 2 is available on Playstation 4 and Steam. This review is based on a PS4 copy provided for this purpose.
