Killing Floor 2 (Xbox One) Review - Great gory action, but it gets old fast.

By Sam Coles:

The Zombie genre is something I have grown rather tiresome over the years due to the over saturation, however there are few that have grabbed my attention such as the excellent Dying Light came out back in 2015. Killing Floor 2 is a fun multiplayer cooperative shooter with hordes of the undead that want nothing more than to tear you to pieces, it is fun…. For a few minutes, does it make it a bad game? No, but there is only so much you can do in this game, let’s get into it.

Killing Floor 2 doesn’t bother with a story as this is a purely multiplayer focused game, so there is no introduction scene just the main menu where you get stuck in. Honestly it doesn’t bother me that this game does not have an in-depth story as it gives you a basic context, here is a gun and there are some zombies kill them all. It reminds of a lot of games from the late 80’s and early 90’s with simple contexts where the gameplay and challenge was important rather than the narrative.

Killing Floor 2 is a first person shooter where you team up with other players to take on the undead, where you go through each wave which gets progressively harder and you then fight a boss character. Each level has 10 waves and you may think that is not very long, you would be right if you were to play it on lower difficulties but if you play it on hard each wave becomes a longer endeavour with the amount of zombies the game throws at you. 

After each wave you have a certain amount of time to buy more weapons, ammo and amour, these weapons are your standard rifles, pistols and shotguns however you have access to melee weapons which are great and satisfying to use. Most of the weapons are great to use with impactful satisfaction, especially the shotguns that shake the screen with every trigger pull, or my favourite is to go full John Woo and duel weld Desert Eagles and go nuts.

The presentation is okay, nothing mind blowing but the game runs at 60 frames per second for the most part, it does drop when things get really busy. I can understand why they dialled back the visuals because the gore looks fantastic with body parts flying everywhere when you unload your clip into the undead horde, or when they explode with a well-placed shot with your shotgun. The gore on display is fantastic, it is like Left 4 Dead but times 10, this is why the frame has a habit of slowing down when there are tons of enemies on screen and blood and body parts starting flying all over the place. As well as the over top gore Killing Floor 2 has an awesome soundtrack with heavy metal that gets you in the mood to shoot everything that gets in your way.

The only issue I have with this game is that, it can get boring really quickly, especially when you play by yourself as all it is horde based zombie gameplay, I know there are people who can play this sort thing for hours but I can’t I like variety in my games. However if you have a group of friends you can have hours of fun with the tense situations you’ll be thrown into, as this game can be unforgiving sometimes.

Killing Floor 2 is a fun diversion for a few hours, however it starts to stagnate and get a bit boring due to the repetitive nature of the horde based gameplay. Although if you grab a group of friends it is a blast to play and it can also get rather tense. If you can convince some of your friends to pick this game up I would say go out and buy it, but if you’re looking for a good solo experience you won’t find it here.