Cooperative horror FPS series Killing Floor will return for another monster mash (hopefully it'll be a graveyard smash) in Killing Floor 3, developers Tripwire Interactive announced today. Sadly they've said little about the game and shown even less but yup, once again you and your pals will get to fight through hordes of wacky bioengineered monsters. Honestly, science was a mistake. Isaac Downtown and his pal Harry Stottle owe us all an apology.
]]>Head on over to the Epic Games Store this week and you'll find two free games and a feeling of deja vu. The games are Ancient Enemy and Killing Floor 2, and it's the latter that triggered the memory trip for me - because it was also free on Epic this week two years ago. But hey, if you missed it, the zombie shooter still one of the best co-op games, so grab it while you can.
]]>The CEO of Tripwire Interactive has stepped down following a tweet supporting Texas's new anti-abortion law, remarks which caused one of the studios they work with to publicly announce they were cutting ties. With John Gibson vacating the chair, vice president Alan Wilson is stepping up as interim CEO. Tripwire made shark game Maneater as well as the Red Orchestra and Killing Floor shooter series, and have published games including Chivalry 2.
]]>Crikey, it's all gotten rather gruesome on the Epic Games store this week. Co-op slaughter-fest Killing Floor 2 makes its debut on the storefront today, heading up this week's free lineup alongside carceral break-out The Escapists 2 and lonely spacefarer Lifeless Planet. You know the drill - these three are free to grab 'til next Thursday, at which point they'll be replaced by fantasy dungeon-crawler Torchlight 2.
]]>Update: Tripwire's marketing folks tell us they muffed it, and the "extra-long Free Weekend on Steam" that was "starting later today" actually starts on Thursday at 6pm. Update your calendar.
Tripwire Interactive really, really want you to check out Killing Floor 2's new Back & Kickin' Brass update it seems, as they're letting players have a crack at the undead re-deadening co-op shooter for zero money on Steam until next Tuesday at 6pm UK time. The update brings a new game mode, some new weapons, and a new steampunk-inspired level to do violence at things inside of. Crank your mechanical eye-holes towards the trailer below:
]]>Co-op zombie splatterfest Killing Floor 2 does lovely seasonal events. Sometimes it's a weird steampunk airship adventure, sometimes Santa is battling the Krampus to the death. For this festive Seasons Beatings update - live now - Santa has been ousted from his north pole workshop by his demonic nemesis, and is returning for some cold vengeance. Old Saint Nick is also voiced by Gary Busey for some reason- no, I don't know why, ask Tripwire Interactive. Check out the nonsense, the new story-mission map, the bundle of new weaponry and the man himself in the video below.
]]>We're barely out of October and Killing Floor 2 is jumping the queue to get its next holiday sweater on. In a bit of oddball casting that somehow makes sense, Tripwire's monster-mashing co-op shooter is adding a grizzled, eyepatched Santa to its playable characters, voiced by the eternally boggle-eyed Gary Busey. Players can opt in to the game's beta branch later today to try the upcoming Season's Beatings event featuring a story-based romp through Santa's Workshop, a shopping mall map, three new weapons and Busey himself lurking in a video below.
]]>For all its gore-drenched mayhem, I'm starting to think that Tripwire's co-op FPS Killing Floor 2 might not be the most serious of games. Maybe it's the ridiculous steampunk hats and vengeful zombie clowns that gave it away? Either way, the game just launched its big summer event, and it's bringing a lot of chunky new (and entirely free) content to the game, including a steampunk airship map which plays host to an all-new game mode. Oh, and Claudia Black voices a playable character now. Y'know - her from Firefly.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>As you'd expect from a series about shooting monsters, mutants, and Einsteins, Killing Floor parties hard at Goth Christmas. The party starts today in Killing Floor 2 [official site] with the launch of its Halloween Horrors update, which adds a new map, extra weapons, and new(ish) enemy variants. And for people who enjoy dressing up, the update also brings Halloweenie cosmetic rewards and a way to receive extra pretties by completing daily and weekly tasks. The new map is some kind of clown nightmare with zones themed around different phobias, from spiders to... bad teeth? Have a look:
]]>Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they've been changed for better or worse.
Gaming’s greatest gun is still Doom’s double-barrelled shotgun. We have to all say that, right? For my money, though, slots two, three, four — all the way down to about 15 in the list of Top However Many Shootiest Guns in Videogames — belong to Killing Floor 2.
]]>Chop a zombie's head off with an axe, grab the skull and chuck it at one of his ghoulish friends, all using your own, real-life hands. That's the kind of thing you can do in Killing Floor: Incursion [official site], which is out now and brings combat based on the excellent Killing Floor games to virtual reality. It's exclusive to the Rift right now and requires the Oculus Touch to play, so there's a big barrier to entry, but if you're already kitted out then it could be a go-er.
The combat looks intense, and you can shoot through the hordes on your own or with a friend in co-op. The Touch gameplay means you can slash your knives in whatever direction and angle you want, or chuck a shotgun to a friend so they can blow the head off a zombie that's getting too close. Plus, it looks bloody terrifying: the Killing Floor games weren't exactly scary but being in VR means there's no escape. Gulp.
]]>I still haven't spent more than a couple of hours with Killing Floor 2 [official site] but I'll be damned if I miss out on some of its sinister, sickening Summer Sideshow action. Tripwire make monsters that get under my skin - they'd probably use a rusty potato peeler - and I always enjoyed the cosmetic changes in the first game's seasonal events.
Well, they're back. The carnival themed Summer Sideshow begins tomorrow, kicking off a free week of Killing Floor 2, and it is a big ol' bag of seeping grotesqueries.
]]>New maps, new weapons, and a new "sub-mode" have arrived in Killing Floor 2 [official site] with today's free content update, The Descent. That weapon ↑ up there? Dual flaregun revolvers. While the co-op wave survival FPS officially left early access and launched in November -- read Wot Fraser Brown Thought -- developers Tripwire Interactive have kept on adding bits, as they did with the first game. Here, have a look at these new murdertoys:
]]>Killing Floor 2 [official site] is brought to us by the colour red, with the claustrophobic corridors and ruined streets of this multiplayer FPS painted in blood, viscera and the grisly remains of a thousand dead zombie mutants. It revels in gore and over-the-top, frenetic cartoon violence, encouraging the mayhem with an ear-pounding metal and industrial soundtrack. I feel like I should be rolling my eyes, but instead I’m shouting expletives at a mad, German mecha-scientist and whooping as another zombie explodes in a shower of guts and bone.
]]>Tripwire Interactive's Killing Floor 2 [official site] has ended its time on Steam Early Access period and launched in full. The co-op wave survival horror FPS sold over one million copies during early access alone. Now those players, and all new ones, get to play with the new Survivalist character class thanks to the launch update. Also, there's a lot of Zeds running around, but you probably knew that.
]]>Killing Floor bills itself as "survival horror" but it's not really. Don't get me wrong, it and its sequel Killing Floor 2 are great wave survival FPSs - with their onslaught of Zeds, waves of chainsaw-wielding monstrosities, and the positively formidable Patriarch - but jump scares and the blind panic levied by running out of ammo doesn't exactly constitute horror, does it?
Killing Floor: Incursion [official site], the "intense" co-op VR shooter announced this week by developers Tripwire, on the other hand, looks bloody terrifying! Take a peak below, I dare you.
]]>Killing Floor 2 [official site] is solid co-op fun, even in its unfinished Early Access state, but its mutant horrors are a little simple-minded. I'm glad to see developers Tripwire add a little more challenge and a bit of rivalry by pitting humans against (mutated) humans. Yesterday's 'Revenge of the Zeds' update added the 6v6 Versus Survival mode, where one team steps into the clammy flesh of mutants to murder the survivors.
]]>There are some things in life from which you can never go back. Like having all the player characters in Killing Floor be anime girls. No, really. I am not ashamed.
Killing Floor 2 [Official site] has just received an update, integrating Steam Workshop support, but it looks like their new microtransaction-based business model may interfere with my anime dream. Tripwire also announced a new 6v6 PvP mode that will see a team of players take control of the Zeds.
]]>Killing Floor 2 [official site] continues to roll on through Steam Early Access, and yesterday brought a hefty update that's mostly great and a wee bit divisive. Tripwire's co-op wave survival FPS now has a new class in the dual-wielding Gunslinger, a new final boss in the Patriarch returned from KF1, two new levels, new weapons, a new playable character, and oh, cosmetic items coming as drops, in TF2-style crates, or simply sold in a microtransaction store. Those seem pretty innocuous so far, really.
]]>Killing Floor 2 [official site] is currently making its way through Early Access and by all accounts is a pretty good co-op zombie blaster. Developers Tripwire are now planning to add microtransactions to the game, letting players buy in-game items using real money. The initial items will be cosmetic, bought directly or by paying for keys to unlock randomly dropped item crates, though there are plans to add weapons "with new gameplay" in future. These items will be available to everyone on a server if one person has paid to unlock them.
None of this is a surprise - Killing Floor 1 had paid DLC weapons and skins - except perhaps that the microtransactions are being added here before the rest of the game is finished.
]]>Whether you want to be a monster or murder them this weekend, video games have you covered. Evolve [official site] and Killing Floor 2 [official site] are both holding free trial weekends on Steam right now, giving you until 9pm UK time on Sunday to play the full versions of the first-person shooters. As is customary, both of the games are on sale too, if you turn out to want them for ever and ever and ever until entropy tears Steam apart particle by particle and we all become nothing.
]]>Two hundred miles of damp tunnels filled with skulls, bones, and secret cinemas sounds like a place you'd find me gaily rolling around clutching a bottle-sized glass of wine. And yet, whenever I've been in Paris, I've not visited its Catacombs. I know why: Deus Ex - its virtual Catacombs are such a chore that they've put me off the real deal. Maybe Killing Floor 2 [official site] can help me overcome that.
The monster-blasting FPS's latest Early Access update added two new maps, including one set in the Catacombs, along with two new classes, the Firebug and Demolitions. Also, that new gore tech they've been showing off.
]]>Demos for new physics technologies usually look like Bodyform commercials, with gentle blue water sloshing around and lots of smooth rippling fabric. That's how Nvidia have shown their new unified particle-based physics tech PhysX Flex so far - lots of rubbery water balloons flopping about and leaking blue wet. Pssh, it won't look like that in the games we actually play.
Killing Floor 2 [official site] will be the first Flex-using game to ship, and a new look at how it uses the tech is more how Bodyform ads should be: scattering gutfuls of fluids, globs, and guts.
]]>I'm reporting to you from Paris (that part is true) and can tell you that, as Killing Floor 2 [official site] predicts, civilization as I knew it is over. You may think that fighting monsters in the virtual streets of Paris in Tripwire's co-op wave survival FPS may help you prepare for this, now that it's out on Steam Early Access, but no, no it's worse than that. We may be beyond hope.
A bar here served me a Bloody Mary garnished with a glowstick. What fresh hell is this? What have we become? A pink glowstick in a Bloody Mary. Not even a good glowstick: one of the bracelet ones but without even the connector to wear it. I beg you: unleash the mutants to kill us all.
]]>It has been a decade since the original Killing Floor mod for Unreal Tournament, which was released in much-improved standalone form in 2009. It's one of those games that quickly turns some people off: the visuals were a bit shonky, it was essentially built on repetition, and the less said about the Dick van Dyke voice-acting the better. But for devotees, Killing Floor is one of those games that stealthily racks up several hundred hours on Steam and swiftly becomes a fixture among like-minded mates, a precision blastathon where the repetition is the whole point.
You got better; the game got deadlier. And Killing Floor 2 [official site] is as straightforward a reload as you're ever likely to see.
]]>As luck would have it, I'll be in Paris right when monstrous hordes are due to overrun the city. Tripwire Interactive have announced plans to release Killing Floor 2 [official site] onto Steam Early Access on April 21st, and I'll be on the look out for - wait is that a lady with blue cyberhair in that screenshot - for myself?
The original was a barrel of murderfun, and I'm quite keen to return for more first-person face-shooting. Especially as one of the sequel's big selling points is that faces (and other bodyparts) will explode in a squillion different gory ways.
]]>Look, it's the last day of term and we're allowed to bring in whatever we want. Pip's batting an avocado about, John's cradling what appears to be a small hairless cat with opposable thumbs, Graham and Adam are kicking some kind of spherical egg between themselves, and me, I've brought in a video to watch. It's about zombies and monsters and big guns and cool swords totally murdering zombies like schhhhing! in Killing Floor 2 and before you ask, yes, my mum did say it's fine if I watch it okay.
]]>Dear readers, until today I had thought that the screaming and chattering noises spiders make in movies and video games were entirely fictional. I had intended to post a Killing Floor 2 trailer which introduces a few of its mutants, including the arachnoid Crawler, and say something clever about the "shared unnatural sonic vocabulary" of popular media. But, curious about the origins of this, I read around a little (looked on Yahoo! Answers) and discovered the world is a terrible place.
Now I know that some spiders do actually hiss and rattle ('stridulate,' we say--know your enemy), I find this trailer for the co-op FPS abhorrent and oh god why have the hairs on my neck pricked up what's that feeling is there a spider on me you have to tell me I mean it.
]]>Killing Floor is a pleasantly solid co-op survival FPS, blessed with chunky-feeling guns and ridiculous English accents shouting daft Britishisms. It also cemented Tripwire Interactive as one of my favourite developers for banging it full of new monsters, levels, and special events for years after launch in a way that only Valve match nowadays. Now, delightfully, a sequel's coming. Imaginatively titled Killing Floor 2, it seems to have as its core new feature, er, buckets of gore.
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