Killing Floor 2, the second edition of popular and very fun Killing Floor, is released on Steam as an early access beta game today, April 21st. Since we loved the first one I thought I’d take a look at the second edition, what’s changed, how it looks, and how much it costs.
First off it seems this game, despite it’s popularity, hasn’t built up much hype for it’s release on to early access, I’ve not really heard much regarding the release and people seem to be taken back by it. Tripwire Interactive, the company making Killing Floor 2, haven’t really said much about it either, they put out one press release back on the 8th of April announcing the early access release date, but that’s it.
During the Early Access period on Steam players will be able to dive into a fully functional, highly polished subset of Killing Floor 2 content, including:
- 3 non-linear levels
- 4 perk classes
- 27 weapons
- 11 Zeds
- 7 playable characters, including a female character
- 1 boss character (not the Patriarch)
- Mod SDK supporting custom level creation
Tripwire generally do well at listening to feedback from their audience, so this is probably the best way of releasing Killing Floor 2 and making it the best possible game it can be.
In Killing Floor 2, players descend into continental Europe where the outbreak caused by Horzine Biotech’s failed experiment has quickly spread and gained unstoppable momentum, essentially paralyzing the European Union— Just one month after the events in the original Killing Floor, the specimen clones are everywhere and civilization is in disarray; communications have failed, governments have collapsed, and military forces have been systematically eradicated. The people of Europe know survival and self-preservation too well and lucky survivors have gone into hiding.
Not all have given up hope though… A group of civilians and mercenaries have banded together to combat the outbreak and established privately funded operation bases across Europe. Upon tracking specimen clone outbreaks, players will descend into zed-laden hot zones and exterminate them.
The graphics have massively improved since the first iteration, the environment looks crisp and pretty detailed, the zombies are looking good, the guns are high quality and the blood effects are cool (as per usual). Speaking of the guns, there is a flamethrower, a saw blade gun and a modified sledgehammer. Do you realise how cool this is? Very, very is the answer. Zombies also come with chainsaws, imagine a zombie running after you with a chainsaw when you’ve ran out of ammo, again, pretty damn cool.
Killing Floor 2 has built in full controller support, co-op, single player, multi player, and acheivements. The co-op in Killing Floor was incredibly fun and I’m assuming it will be as much fun this iteration. But for the price of £19.99 in early access, would I get it? Yeah probably, it’s a good game, what can you do.
Killing Floor 2 Screenshots
Key Features
- Visceral Gore – Killing Floor 2 ramps up the gore with a proprietary, high powered persistent blood system bringing new levels of fidelity to the genre. Players will send entrails, severed limbs, and blood flying as they wade through hordes of enemies. But they need to watch out! If caught, enemies will rip them, and their entire party limb from limb
- 6 player co-op or solo play – A multitude of varied playable characters await for players to choose from as they enter the fray in online co-op mode or solo mode for those willing to brave the horrific specimens alone.
- Terrifying Zeds – New enemies and fan favorites from the original game are back with expanded and smarter artificial intelligence, dishing out powerful attacks, attacking in mobs to weaken the player’s party and pushing the challenge level and fear factor to new levels.
- New take on “Difficulty” – Most games just ramp up health and damage for the enemies. In KF2, the Zeds will start to behave differently as you work through the difficulty levels. New attack moves. New ways to get at you. New strategies. Be prepared for surprises!
- Unique Blend Of Weaponry – Modern military assault rifles, brutal improvised makeshift weapons, classic historical guns, and off the wall “Mad Scientist” weapons, Killing Floor 2 has a unique blend of killing tools that will satisfy any gamer.
- Expanded Perk System – Perks from the original game have been reimagined with more added to the fold. All perks now progress with meaningful talent choices that amplify different play styles, giving players a progression path that is expansive and full of rewarding milestones.
- Brutal Melee Combat – Killing Floor 2 reinvents melee combat completely. Players now have control over the type of melee attacks they can perform, enabling them to deliver bone-breaking crippling attacks to Zeds.
- SDK – as always with our games, the tools to create maps and so much more! With Early Access, this will allow the creation of new levels. The full SDK support will be rolled out through the Early Access period.