Killing Floor is a dark, gritty and terrifying indie game where co-op players battle to survive after a biological contagion releases cloned bloodthirsty human mutations upon the streets of London.
Originally developed as a mod for Uneal Tournament 2004, it became popular enough to release as a stand alone video game in 2009 by Tripwire Interactive and is still supported by the devs to this day, with an active player base.
Killing Floor is a first person shooter, with each match taking place in one of dozens of unique maps around England, where the players fight waves of zombie-like hordes until the ‘boss’ Patriarch appears to wreak havoc and the match ends in victory or death. It’s survival horror right at it’s very core. Players earn money by killing specimens and staying alive each wave, and between waves they may buy or sell weapons and body armor at a trader while it’s temporarily safe.
Each player may select a perk at the start of the match and switch between waves. Each perk is like a character class, and gives bonuses to certain items and play style. Each level up to a max of 6 gives increased bonuses, and Perks are leveled up using specifics to each class.
- Field Medic – Bonuses to healing and body armor with slight movement bonus.
- Support Specialist – Damage bonuses when using shotguns and welding bonus.
- Sharpshooter – Damage bonuses when using sniping weapons and scoring headshots.
- Commando – Damage bonuses when using assault weapons
- Berserker – Damage bonuses using melee weapons with movement bonus and damage reduction.
- Firebug – Damage bonuses when using fire weapons and resistance to fire.
- Demolitions – Damage bonuses when using explosives.
Beginner tip: Until you have a perk at level 5, you will always start a match with a knife and a pistol, so the best perk to start with is the Sharpshooter for it’s bonus damage using pistols as well as head shots. If you pick anything else you’re just gimping yourself, and the team. You can switch perks after the next wave when you have enough money to buy a better weapon.
Killing Floor can be played single player or co-op multiplayer up to a team of 6, with the game scaling automatically to fit the number of players and difficulty level. As either increases, so does the number and strength of most of the specimens coming to kill you. This makes team playing very important and players who don’t work together usually don’t last very long. Up to 32 zeds at a time randomly appear at various spawn points on each map, and head towards the nearest player. This means these mutated creatures could easily appear from above or behind your position and surprise you if you’re not careful.
Killing Floor also supports custom mods from players covering anything from new maps and items to new perks and profiles. I recently played a map which was a replica of Helms Deep from Lord of the Rings. Trippy. A great feature is if you join a server that is using mods, they will be downloaded automatically for you. You can also find and install them manually if you wish to play solo, or even set up your own server.
Killing Floor has a large number of downloadable content (DLCs) that are mostly cosmetic, providing different skins for the player or new items such as the gold plated AK47. The new weapons are roughly equivalent to existing weapons so these DLCs are mostly for show and to support the developers. The Commando Chicken outfit seems to be popular.
Although basically Killing Floor is about killing the crazed mutated specimens and surviving the match, the replay value is there due to the dynamics of team play, different strategies and random enemy spawns. Some teams may ‘camp’ a certain area so they know the direction the zeds must come from and try to defeat them with massed firepower, where other teams may keep moving around the map, kiting the zeds so as not to be surrounded. Both tactics are viable depending on the map and the players but make no mistake – this game is challenging. Even the best players will find themselves getting eaten more often than not on the higher difficulties. The simple yet clever game play in Killing Floor is what makes it so enjoyable.