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The biggest live-service Zombie games all have something unique that makes them stand out from the rest.Call of Duty: Black Ops 6has tight gunplay and puzzling Easter eggs,World War Z: Aftermathhas varying level design and horde physics, whileDayZhas huge multiplayer servers with hardcore permadeath gameplay.Killing Floor 3is clearly hoping to join the ranks of these games-as-a-service zombie titles, with a season pass and microtransaction systems appearing throughout, but it fails to create an experience that’s actually worth replaying for hours on end.
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The “Future” of Zombie Slaying
Killing Floor 3is a departure from past games in the series, ditching the moody and analog atmosphere of past titles and going for more of a military-tech vibe (not unlike those seen in Call of Duty titles likeBlack Ops IIIorAdvanced Warfare). This new style ends up being one of the many bland and uninteresting aspects of the Killing Floor 3 experience. The sprinting and sliding speeds are the slowest I’ve ever seen in a first-person shooter, making the player feel sluggish and weighed-down. Objectives for missions consist entirely of scavenger hunt quests for items laying on the ground, with uninteresting exposition-filled dialog explaining the cookie-cutter narrative at play. Animations across the board are awkward and janky, with sprinting co-op partners floating across the ground and zombies that pull you into a grappling quicktime event spinning you around at whiplash-inducing speeds.
This new style ends up being one of the many bland and uninteresting aspects of the Killing Floor 3 experience.
The gameplay loop is similar to the past titles in the series: kill waves of zombies, restock and purchase supplies and equipment, and repeat until you reach a boss wave. There’s an illusion of “progression” in level design, as the buy station for upgrades moves to different parts of the map each round, but in reality, there’s not much to make each area different from each other. Special enemies with more health have a variety of different abilities, such as exploding on contact or jumping long distances, but are largely more of a nuisance than a challenge.
You can also level up and select your specialist in the new class-based system, not unlike other hero shooters or specialist-based games like Overwatch 2 or Rainbow Six: Siege. The starting loadout is unique for each class, but you can mix-and-match everything besides their ultimate ability once you’re at a buy station in a match.
A Home Base Free of Undead
The “home base” for your zombie-slaying activities is your standard co-op shooter hub: crafting, selecting levels, equipping items and purchasing cosmetics can all be done at different stations around the base, but are more easily accessed in the pause menu. The game’s attempt to stretch out the upgrade/grind system is by requiring players to find blueprints and components for every individual attachment for your weapons, encouraging you to play longer so you may find more components while playing or completing missions.
The “home base” for your zombie-slaying activities is your standard co-op shooter hub
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Then there are the microtransactions, which thankfully appear to only be for cosmetic items. These cosmetics, however, are some of the dullest and most uncreative designs I have ever seen in a battle pass. Basic color and pattern adjustments for Specialist skins are located at the highest tiers of the battle pass, such as a generic futuristic helmet getting a new camo print and neon light accent color copy-pasted on to the same model as a previous tier’s reward. The most interesting that designs got was adding a Union Jack pattern to a leather gas mask, with most of the designs barely reaching the level of quality seen in the “common” rarity of cosmetics inApex: Legendsor other similar titles.
It’s hard to tell who the desired audience for this game is, as it fails to do anything exceptionally unique or interesting compared to its other competitors in the zombie multiplayer space, while simultaneously ignoring the calls of fans of the originalKilling Floorand its sequel for a return to form for the series, which has seen a huge number of updates and changes since both games have released. Hopefully the team at Tripwire Interactive can take the constructive feedback from fans and make the necessary changes to the game before its upcoming release on PC and consoles on March 25.
Killing Floor 3
