Killing Floor 2 Beta Report: Raising The Roof By Killing The Floor
My friend Killing Floor, what a long, strange journey it has been. There are points in your gaming life that make you feel like the old man of the internet, and seeing a polished and A grade Killing Floor title is one of those moments. Granted, I am only 25, so likely many of you reading this are older than me, but the story of Killing Floor is a decade long struggle to earn its spot at the top of the multiplayer zombie shooter mountain.
In the long gone golden age of the shooter total conversion mods, games like Half-Life and Unreal Tournament 2004 had gameplay limited only to your patience and capability to make the plethora of mods work. These games were developed with a different mindset: both game and engine were the product, and modifications were encouraged to lengthen time spent with the product. Beloved series like Team Fortress and Counter-Strike started as official modifications. As a child, my world expanded tenfold when I learned how to use the load custom mod command.
Apart from the official mods, fans and basement programmers could take their shot at glory by creating custom mods. This was a time when mods did not come with steam supported updates or sometimes even an .exe installer, but files had to be placed in specific folders and updates manually applied to each file. Mods rose to prominence through a combination of creative gameplay and stability, as even the best mod dies of it can’t keep up with the changing client updates. Think of this as the way people tried to gain fame before Kickstarters for open world survival horror games with crafting existed, with about as erratic of results.
Killing Floor started as such a project. Alex Quick and team called themselves Shatterline Productions, and converted Unreal Tournament 2004 into an over-the-top zombie smashing splatterfest. For years it existed in this idyllic state: free, fun, and with that loose unprofessional buggy quality that makes small studio productions so endearing.
As can be expected, not even the best of Unreal Tournament 2004 modifications can maintain their playerbase forever, so in 2009 the game was released by Tripwire Interactive as a retail PC title using the Red Orchestra: 41-45 engine. It still felt like a product of another age, with a sparse menu, lengthy and archaic server list set up, and general loose buggy-ness. It was a solid game that still has a decent following, but lacked a lot of the polish people expect from a retail shooter.
Here is where the history gets a bit murky. Killing Floor hit the market between the releases of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. The game sold very well with upwards of 3 million copies, but reports on the sales of the Left 4 Dead series suggest a figure in the ballpark of 11 million. You won’t read this in any official releases or reports, since Valve and Tripwire have had a good working relationship, but word of mouth perception between gamers was that Killing Floor was a “poor man’s” Left 4 Dead. It was a stigma that existed for a long while, and I can even hear parroted today.
Let me be clear that I do not consider the two games to be similar aside from shooting zombies and it being a cooperative multiplayer shooter. The perception that it was a knockoff came largely out of ignorance and an unfortunate release during the Left 4 Dead hype. Perhaps the sales were boosted because of the zombie shooter craze, but even so the stigma has stuck. The significance of a new, polished, and most importantly released a long time from other similar titles Killing Floor installment is massive. This is the chance for Tripwire to come out on top.
So, the history lesson is over. It’s time to talk about Killing Floor 2. If you want to know about the gameplay of Killing Floor, feel free to read this, because they are fundamentally the same. A team of 1-6 players chooses one of four “Perks” that dictate what role you play. Sharpshooters have a preference for long range controlled headshots, which have a chance to slow down time for everyone with each successfully popped skull. Support barricade doors and specialize in close quarters damage. Berserkers use melee weapons and are more durable. Medics… are medics.
Perks dictate passive stats as well as what type of grenade you throw. The medic healing grenade is particularly unique. Cash and experience are gained by killing zed (zombies), and at level milestones you can pick between of one of two interchangeable Perk bonuses. It takes a significant amount of time to gain levels, so don’t expect to grind to max in a weekend.
What has always been unique about Killing Floor is that your Perk only dictates your specialty, not what you can use. Since there are weapons littered about the map, early rounds often involve a scavenger hunt to create a makeshift loadout before buying more specialized weapons. It keeps the game fast and fun, as ammo is generally tight and guns can be dropped for ones with more bullets.
Games are dictated by two factors: length and difficulty. Rounds range between 4 and 11 rounds, with a boss round at the end. Difficulty effects enemy health, cash drops, and frequency of more difficult spawns. The amount of zombies also increase with the amount of players, meaning a player has to pull his weight to be valuable. It can be shocking to go from a 2 player game with your friend to a 6 player online match and see a wave consisting of 170 zombies, 30 of which can punch your teeth through the back of your skull.
To that effect, the game really focuses on diversity and teamwork. Character effectiveness varies greatly versus different enemies, and what perk matches well against what is crucial. While anything can take down anything, learning the nuances is absolutely crucial to beat higher difficulties. If your support is firing his AA-12 Automatic Shotgun into hordes of Clots because he likes to watch the bodies fly, good like having the ammo to take down Fleshpounders.
Despite how hard the game is and how much there is to learn, the splatterfest violence and taunting cries of your band of merry zed slayers brings a level of comedy to the experience. The character designs are all over the top, player and zombie. When you first face the boss Hans Volter, a hundred year old nazi doctor who drains your life with needle fingers, you know that this is a game that isn’t afraid to be ridiculous. It gives the game a charm that sets it apart from the competition, and allows the developers a freedom with the enemies they design.
What makes Killing Floor 2 stand out from its predecessors is the attention to detail. There are fewer weapons, classes, and levels so far, but what is there is very well polished. The menus are much more inviting and navigable, weapon effectiveness is clearly graphed, and enemies path correctly and very rarely float or get stuck on a 6 inch bump. Guns have idle reload animations for flavor, and you have to respect a game that allows you to wipe off your sword with the reload button. While alternate reload animations and time for a gun that is empty versus one that isn’t is nothing new, it speaks to a larger attention to detail that permeates the game’s design mentality.
As of now, the game is in Early Access, but this isn’t one of those Early Access games that makes you wait for months before failing to deliver on their promises. The game is frequently updated, and feels like a finished product. The content is a bit light with only a few levels and one boss, but games have released with less before. They have promised there are a handful of bosses still coming out, along with maps and weapons. Expect new things newer rather than later.
At the budget price of $30, Killing Floor 2 is definitely worth the asking price. At this point, you are buying it more for the promise of what’s to come, experiencing the new additions fresh and raw as they come. It allows you to experience the new at the same time as all the other players. Sure, everyone is still going to call you a noob, but at least you know they are just as noobish as you. Check it out on Steam Early Access!
Categorized:Horror Gaming News
