Squad based games require team work, but sometimes it can get a bit too overwhelming in terms of what your team is meant to be doing. Killing Floor kept it simple when it was released back in 2009. You killed a wave of zeds, bought new items and prepared for the next wave until there were no more zeds to kill. It did this with a style that gamers took a shine to, a bit of B Movie grit, and it quickly became a cult hit.

 

In Killing Floor 2 the series finally makes the leap to console and does so successfully. It maintains its B Movie grit, whilst upping the campy fun of it all. The zeds remain a constant threat and look great on the PlayStation 4, especially when you instigate Zed Time after a successful kill. Zed Time is the slow motion that triggers upon an impressive kill that everyone experiences, regardless of where they’re standing. It may annoy you at first if you’ve not experienced Killing Floor before but it can instigate some great gore filled moments depending on where you’re standing when it kicks in. It can buy you valuable seconds to adjust your aim, especially in later waves, which can be ideal if you’re trying to guard a corridor whilst watching your back. Guarding corridors in Killing Floor games doesn’t just require watching for anything moving though. You can seal doors, as well as repair them if they’ve been broken, to slow down the approach of enemies. This can be vital at times, especially when your team is struggling to find time to heal themselves.

 

Healing can be done to yourself or to a team mate using a medkit gun. If you decide to play with a medic perk you can also get weapons that can heal team mates whilst damaging enemies, such as grenades. Although you can make it through to the end of a level without a Medic in your team they are definitely one of the more vital roles to make sure is filled by someone. As you progress through the game and level up your perks you’ll find it easier to adapt to a team depending on the perk load out at the beginning.

 

 

With a team of up to six you will have to make sure to have everyone’s backs. Leaving a player to go at it alone can mean instant death for them which could be a big mistake as the waves add up. After all, you want to make sure everyone has enough money to have all the equipment they could possibly need for the boss fight at the end. Although a simple button press can give money to others, it’s unlikely you’ll have enough to fully kit out an entire squad by yourself. Buying from the trader in between waves is straight forward, but it’s getting there that can be a problem. Especially when you weigh up whether it’s worth fixing that door now, rather than later, and leave yourself short on time. It can be easy to underestimate the distance to the trader thus leaving yourself extremely under equipped for the next wave or, even worse, the boss.

 

The bosses in the game, at the moment, seem to be one of two. Either it’s the Patriarch, an upgraded version of the boss that appeared in the first game, or Dr Hans Volter. Both have a move set you’ll learn to watch out for and other enemies won’t stop coming whilst you’re fighting them so you better not get too distracted. Although it can be random which boss appears in a level, the fact there’s only two at the moment means you’ll soon get a bit bored of them.

 

They take quite a bit of ammunition to defeat and you’ll spend large amounts of your time just running away from them. Unfortunately the battle towards the boss fight is far more interesting than the actual boss fight itself. You’ll still cheer when you grab victory when all looks lost, but they unfortunately put a dampener on the end of the level in the standard Survival mode.

 

 

Luckily in Versus Survival they offer a bit more variety, in part because they are controlled by another player. Versus Survival is a fun alternative to the standard game and playing as the zeds can lead to some amusing moments that won’t arise in the main game. Such as chasing a human player all around a map when they’re out of ammo and failing miserably when trying to hit them. It offers a familiar enough experience whilst also making it feel like something new, meaning it’s great if you’re wanting a break from Survival. It’s shorter than Survival, due to it only lasting four waves. Survival can last up to ten which tends to take around 40 minutes if not longer. It’s nice that the game allows you to change the amount of waves you play, especially for those that don’t have endless time to game. On top of the two modes in the game there’s also loot to unlock, the previously mentioned perks to level up and various characters to try out varying from a goth photographer to a Dutch DJ and everything in between.

 

They all have their own amusing voice lines, but there isn’t really any story to them outside of their bio and they don’t interact with each other that much. It’s a shame because the setting of mainland Europe and the various nationalities represented could lead to an interesting story. Instead it’s just set dressing for shooting things, which is still great fun, it just feels like a missed opportunity.

 

If you have a PC and still play the first game then Killing Floor 2 will probably be right up your street, BUT may not have enough to it to make you stop playing the original just yet. On PlayStation 4 it’s a great alternative to the usual first person shooter games. The community is made up of people that understand what the objective is and they do it well. It’s not without its flaws and there’s a few odd glitches that’ll hopefully be patched out, but it’s a brutal online game that will leave you wanting to play just one more round again and again.

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You can watch me play Killing Floor 2 below. There were a few issues with the game at the time of playing (namely the game crashing every time I played Versus) but it shows off how a level works.

 

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