Hordes, hordes of zombie games everywhere! One addicting game that stands out in the crowd of first person shooters set within a post-apocalyptic zombie-filled environment is Killing Floor by Tripwire Interactive. Close-knit teamwork, decent gameplay balance, and an infectious multiplayer come together in one game I’ve been dying to review!
Far from being the newly infected kid on the block, the game was originally released as a mod for Unreal Tournament ’04 back around 2005. A few years later the lead developer of the original mod, Alex Quick, teamed up with Tripwire Interactive, the creators of Red Orchestra, to create the standalone. A vast majority of the original guns, mobs, and basic gameplay was brought over and given new life thanks to the Unreal engine and an easily accessible distribution platform via Steam.
Today, Killing Floor still leads as one of the top-selling games on Steam with well over 1 million copies sold. With frequent sales, loads of hours logged from the community, and a constant push for new content, it is competing with other top titles in the same genre such as the Left 4 Dead series, and Dead Island, all with good reason too.
Upon setting foot in Killing Floor, you’ll quickly realize the game takes place in London, England. After wandering around for a bit you’ll hear some thick accents claiming they dropped “dosh” (money), or you may spot a few infamous red phone booths, or maybe even stumble across the official map named West London when looking through maps to play on.
The story has it that Horzine Biotech was contracted to experiment with mutating genetics and some cloning operations. After doing all types of activities and experiments on human subjects, you can easily guess something went amiss, and the mutations took over said Biolab. As with all great zombie outbreaks, the infection fans out quickly, overcoming citizens and animals.
You step in as part of the British Army to regain control over the specimens using a slew of weapons and brute force. Will you and your team tame and the outbreak, or will you become a cannibalistic zombies brunch?
Killing Floor implements a unique perk system. These perks give you bonus weapons, extra damage, and other useful advantages The higher the perk level, the better the rewards. You have the ability to swap out these perks at the beginning of the match, then again at the end of each wave. These perks are ideal for certain gameplay styles. If you like torching everything in sight, Firebug is for you. If you like to get up close and personal with a knife, then the Berserker is cut out for you!
The perk system provides a balanced gameplay when maximized with teamwork and communication. For example, roll all medics, and your team will lack firepower. Roll all commando, and you will be itching for medical supplies. A highly diverse team with good communication will find the waves of zombies challenging at the least, but less than those with a bunch of solo runners in hero mode.
Depending on how the server is configured, you will have waves of zombies to eliminate Difficulty and length of these waves are dependent on the server. Between rounds of waves, you can change your perk and buy new weapons from the vendor using cash collected from the annihilated zombies. Purchased weapons and items are server instance bound, meaning after the boss is defeated they are gone, forever.The last wave will introduce the boss, know as the Patriarch who is hell-bent on unloading an arsenal onto you and pushing your team’s limits.
At the price point of $10, depending on sales, this game is practically a steal. Outside muddled AI skins and some minor; bugs expect relatively smooth game mechanics and good gameplay that seems always to bring you back. Add this to your wishlist and grab a few friends to flame, slash, and shoot some zombie scum. Unfortunately, as of now, it’s only available on PC, so console only fans will have to look over this one.
