I Tried to Get Into Killing Floor by Playing Killing Floor 3 — Here's What Happened

I Tried to Get Into Killing Floor by Playing Killing Floor 3 — Here's What Happened

Thank you to the publisher for providing a code for coverage and critique purposes.

The title of this video isn't just a warning of a kind but an attempt to clue you in on how this video is framed. While I've spent some time with the Killing Floor series,I can now say that Killing Floor 3 is definitively my most-played Killing Floor game, with over 20 hours in the full release of the game at this point.

This includes finishing what campaign is in there, as well as making decent progress in the current battle pass and ticking off the majority of its trophies. Though I'll try to give you an overview of the game, some of its new features, and whether or not I'd recommend it, my thoughts will be shaped by my lack of prior experience. I've not had to spend the years waiting for the game, plus stress tests, betas and everything else.

Killing Floor 3 feels like a fairly niche game and, from what I’ve played of the second and heard from a few major fans of the first, I think there’s a good chance that the person who likes the third game is the same person who liked the first two games.

However, I’ve never played the first killing Floor game. As of the time of writing, I’ve played maybe ten or so hours of Killing Floor 2 and an hour of the VR game. The series has always felt hard getting into it for me because I felt like I missed the boat a little. By the time I got around to it in around 2021, it had already been out for half a decade, and I just hadn’t spent the time to really learn why people cared. Killing Floor 3 felt like an opportunity to me, one to feel like I was finally on the same playing field as many.

Here’s what happened when I played Killing Floor 3 for myself and whether or not I’ll continue playing.

First off, a few technical problems out of the gate. I imagine many of these will be solved over time but the day one version is likely to still have them.

First, on PS5, I noticed the odd stutter. This mostly happened in the central hub, but it wasn’t unique to there. I have a friend running it on a PC which far outclasses the system reqs and they reported to me that performance was a little inconsistent too. There doesn't appear to be in-game chat right now, or ways of finding servers, which makes multiplayer a little hollow.

You can't really make friends, unless you randomly match together, add one another, then find a way to get into a party chat of some kind on a different platform. Even if you click to matchmake, you can't force the game to find a multiplayer game, and sometimes it will just dump you in one by yourself. This serves a purpose, of course, it sets up a public match that others can join, but in the review period, it meant inconsistent multiplayer matching. I can't imagine this will stick around but there was a period where online servers went down so I can't speak to how strong that connection is just yet.

I'll continue to play after launch though. I felt it was important to say some of these things early on, to get that info out quickly but also so I can put them all in a box and say 'these are very likely to be fixed with time'.

One thing that hit me immediately upon booting up Killing Floor 3 is the way its microtransactions immediately prompt you to open your wallet. The Deluxe pass of the game, which comes with the most expensive edition, comes with the first four season passes. But I can’t say that’s much of a selling point given that first season pass kind of bored me.
I do feel for the problem here, as Tripwire can't push the boat out too much, for worry of suffering from the same tonal disconnect that plagues Call of Duty. As well as this there is a storefront that sells skins for classes, alongside sprays for weapons and trinkets. I know this makes me seem a bit 'old man yells at cloud' but paid games having extra ways to keep players spending money, especially when the storefront refreshes, a bit tasteless for the very first day the game is out. This is in no means a problem exclusive to Killing Floor 3, of course but that didn’t stop it leaving a bad taste in my mouth