Getting one of the bigger cons out of the way.

This is a Gacha, and its gacha system is not great or that friendly.
You can 100% run this F2P or with minimal spending, but that will test your response to FOMO and your ability to save for specific banners (either Meta or for what appeals to you)
And the accelerated schedule does make it more difficult with the Con above.

Now that being said, I can recommend this game if you like Rougelite training and building up teams, there is RNG but that would be the case for this genre in general.
From my time engaging with the community, I've learned quite a bit on the history of the IRL horses, owners, jockeys, etc. And they all do positively add to my experience.
The characters (Uma and NPC's) are pretty endearing and for the most part well-written. All the stories do relate to the IRL horse and team, with some added flair and a bit of the alternate universe sort of ideals that come from taking the legacy and/or the infamy to a more whimsical world.

Getting a more Meta Deck for the standard career playthroughs is not absolutely necessary, and getting 3/5 is good enough for lite-competitive play, and those meta cards do have proper staying power, so that is a plus in the genre.
Daily play on the game does run longer than many other gachas just due to a career playthrough being anywhere from 15-25 minutes. So if missing out on dailies is an issue to your motivation to play, this could be a deciding factor.

Can wholeheartedly say that this game is not close to being in a finished state. There are too many cons compared to the good that the new installment has brought.

The main issue that pretty much stops me from recommending the game is the lobby/multiplayer/matchmaking aspect.
Matchmaking is abysmal, there is no redeeming quality to it.
- The process from launching the game to starting matchmaking takes a lot of time having to select multiplayer -> load into main hub -> run to console and input match configs/settings -> run to vtol & wait 10 seconds.
- The Matchmaking itself is in a sorry state - Matchmaking can take up to half an hour on week one, and was attempted with crossplay on and off. (Crossplay option is bugged and you will still get matched with console players)
- Using Matchmaking can put you into in progress matches, sometimes right before the boss wave, so say goodbye to doing any missions if you were queued for 5-10 minutes for a specific map.
- Cancelling a matchmaking queue is insanely annoying. You can't just back out to the main hub. You have to go to the escape menu and exit to title and go through the menuing/running to queue back up.

My gameplay review is a bit more limited just due to the matchmaking issues.
- Being limited to just 4 weapons per class for 6 classes feels like its so much more limited even compared to base KF1 and KF2.
- Being able to do cusomizations via loadout attachments is an interesting an positive feeling, though having to farm materials has been uncomfortably annoying due to the above matchmaking issues and not starting with materials to work with.
- Dosh economy feels much more convoulted, having the most kills and damage does not always net you the most dosh, as some are able to somehow double or triple dosh earned with single digit kills.
- Limited to 2 grenades and their high cost makes it a headscratcher. Forcing higher levels just to get to a max of 4 is a weird decision and feels like a forced progression to have what was baseline in previous installments.
- Wave counts are down to 5 with no way to change that. Waves now are more endurance based feeling. - Will need more time with the game if matchmaking decides it wants to work
- Healing syringe is limited, and self heal only. Feels like an absolute brain-dead change with not being able to heal teammates now unless you specifically select the medic perk and use their weapons.
- Movement, primarily vaulting is very jarring - It forces your camera to go back to a default horizontal position, so if you were looking down or up, it forces you to look straight ahead

UI and the menuing feels very clunky
- Changing perks has to be done at one of the few stations in the main hub, and changing perks respawns you back at the spawn area, forcing you to walk back to the main hub lobby again to check perk upgrades and set up for matchmaking.
- No text chat, you straight up don't have a voice unless you use voice chat
- Scoreboard during missions take you out of the game, it is a fullscreen menu, and you lose control of your character. So you have to be in a safe spot to check it.
- Muting players has to be done on the escape menu, the scoreboard is non-interactable despite it taking away character control

Finally perks are tied to characters still, thought they were doing away with that. Can't burn the countryside as Foster in this installment

8/12/25 edit: Its still terrible, matchmaking is still hit or miss and requires you to exit to main menu to refresh crossplay setting (turning it off/on and back), then load back into multiplayer hub world to see if it allows you to find a match.
Gotten to level 15 Commando and the perk system just feels underwhelming.

The random upgrade bonus on the weapon parts are convoluted and pretty much forces you to do some gacha equipment style rolling to get the effect that you want.

Lately the performance for the game has tanked harder despite no changes to settings, alt tabbing causes the game to stutter, and fps is even less stable during high intensity situations and during zed time. (I have been running above recommended specs at Med-High settings)

Matches seem to be quite laggy, with zeds doing damage to you despite dying mid attack animation, and occasionally getting grabbed by already limp clots that force a melee animation despite already being decapitated and falling to the ground. Other players seem to moonwalk all the time and have their animations not represent what they are actually doing (Throwing gernade while shooting, having a tool equipped while shooting, etc.)

The attacks of the zeds feel off all the time, their damage comes a second after the attack animation would hit you (fleshpound long attack will hit despite getting blown to bits mid attack, gorefiends still hitting despite getting flung 20ft into the sky)

Still no text chat, the command wheel is very clunky to use, pings are delayed so pinging an enemy might only ping the wall behind them or enemy behind them.
All chat commands only show text on the top right that is hard to read during the heat of the moment. Requesting dosh does not always make it obvious who is requesting, cannot rely on voicelines when you have multiples of the same character/perk. It should show the dosh icon near them but it doesn't work half the time.
Without text comms there is no coordination, and voice comms are staticy.

In higher difficulties, ammo/dosh is constantly in short supply due to both the insane tankiness of larger zeds like skrake and husk (and the bullet spread of automatic guns). It is also exacerbated by the inherit lag/delay causing some hitbox issues with critical hit locations.
Unlike the prior KF1 and KF2, you must be higher level and farm gun componets/attatchments to even have a reliable way to beat higher difficulties, and there are only 3 instead of the prevous 5 and 4.

Normal is easy, and hard is essentially suicidal with how much more damage they do and how much more numerous and tanky the zeds become. And unlike previous games, a medic is absolutely required due to the syringe cap and being unable to heal teammates outside of late level perk skills or specific weapon attachment bonus skills.


Overall still cannot recommend, feels like a very early Early access game, but even the bones/foundation of the game feels flawed. Having the full store and battlepasses despite having so many flaws and not addressing the issues stated and given during the beta just makes this sour for a lot of older KF players.

Sit back, relax, and fish while someone rickrolls you with their guitar

Man I miss this so much