The game is getting a lot of negativity and hate, and a grand majority of the negative reactions are coming from a flawed premise. This is a sequel. It's not (insert your favorite KF here) on a better engine. It's a whole brand new thing. New systems, new content, new gameplay. UT2k4 KF mod to KF1 was an objective improvement. KF2 had a lot of interesting and new choices that made it a very different game from KF1. KF3 stands out as stripping away aspects of the game that detracted from actively playing the game.

If the game doesn't "feel" good, then there's no answer. This game just might not be for you. It's graphically superior, with a fantastic sound design (except for the times that it breaks or bugs out), and my opinion is that the core gameplay mechanics feel like a fantastic upgrade over previous titles.

That being said, here are some rebuttals to common complaints:

Each character gets a secondary slot and two primary slots in their inventory. There are 6 secondary weapons and 24 primary weapons. All of them are customizable cosmetically and functionally, with the weapon mod system. Any character can use any weapon and get perk exp for their chosen character without worrying about accidentally leveling support just because they like shotguns. Unlike other games in the series, all of the weapons serve a purpose, and can be made viable through higher difficulties. Yes, I miss the feeling of finding a lever-action on the floor, but that's only because I miss being able to sell it at the end of the round. The guns in the game are actually usable.

It's not really gone, though. It's streamlined and replaced with more impactful options. Specific to the welder playstyle back in KF0-2, players would post up in a room with supports crouched next to a door spending the entirety of a round welding it, while everyone else took pot shots at whatever other doorways were left open. In KF3, any door you close is automatically a blockade at full strength without first having to be welded. That can further be augmented with armored door charges, which can then be repaired by a player by using a multitool. The idea of chokepoints and door camping is still alive, just requiring significantly less investment of the player's time, while also making trapped doors meaningful against bosses.

Good. In earlier titles, a significant amount of the time, the entire team would wipe except for one person on the team who was slippery and knowledgeable enough to outrun the enemies and infinitely heal themselves, taking a moment every 15-20 seconds to turn around and shoot a few times before continuing the marathon. And without any sort of revive mechanic, that meant the entire party got to sit there and watch while one person executed the game-winning strategy. The reward for waiting? Probably not having enough dosh to be viable for the rest of that game, and hoping the lone survivor either had enough money to spare for you to become viable, or that they're motivated and focused enough for a repeat performance. Being the marathon kiter came with quite a heady thrill, but it's not engaging in the idea of cooperative gameplay. You might as well be playing solo and streaming. KF3 still has that opportunity for people afflicted with main character syndrome (myself included), but reviving on the next round is also not nearly as debilitating. Dying in wave 2 no longer means being useless until the next game, and thanks to the "down/revive" mechanic, bringing your friends back into the fight becomes more frantic and engaging and rewarding.

The original Killing Floor mod for UT2k4 didn't even have perks at first. Those were introduced later, were unlockable by performing specific tasks, and didn't level up.
KF1 had 7 perks on release, and they were not ubiquitously useful. Leveling them was also quite a slog, requiring specific actions to be taken or damage with specific weapon types. The grind was so bad that the community started launching "24/7 leveling servers" so you could shorten the grind for any perk from multiple days to multiple hours. Leveling those perks resulted in incremental and passive increases to that perk's efficacy. There were no player choices about build.
KF2 had 4 perks on initial availability, eventually growing to the 10 available now. Leveling those perks required using the weapons specific to that perk, or performing perk-oriented actions (like medic->heal and support->welding). Those levels resulted in passive increases to the perk, similar to KF1 but less impactful, and also breakpoints every 5 levels to the max of 25 which allowed you to choose between two "skills" to change your build.
KF3 has 6 perks on release, and we'll likely see more through the life of the title. Each perk has a max level of 30, and can be leveled by just playing that perk. Weapon choice is no longer restricted to perk-specific, leading to small parties or solo players being able to fill multiple roles without sacrificing progress on the leveling curve. Each perk has 15 tiers of passive skill choices, with each tier containing 1-3 choices, and each of those choices can be further upgraded by spending proficiency points. Spending those proficiency points also gives you proficiency levels, affording you passive increases for each perk, as well.

There are six characters in the game right now, tied to the six perks, and each of them comes from a different country while still speaking English. UK, US, Argentina, Pakistan, Japan, Nigeria, and they all speak English (some/most of the time). That's just about the most British Empire thing they could have done.

Yeah, that's true. The title is better than any of the past playtests, but this probably should have been listed as early access until the remaining bugs are gone. Day-1 bugs like inability to complete daily or weekly mission requirements, zeds and players getting shoved through walls and floors, zeds flying off into space and making waves unclearable are pretty game-breaking. Performance bugs like FPS drop when too many cosmetic changes have occurred recently in the hub, models clipping into the floor and creating thousands of collision events a second and bringing peoples' rigs to their knees. Multiple possible game crashes that tank a run and ruin your progression. This is a legit complaint.

Excellent addition to the Tasharen library of titles.

For anyone who played Windward on launch and thought highly of it, I can recommend this title. The improvements to the performance and graphical fidelity alone are impressive, but the quality of life improvements are where the title really shines.

The developer is heavily involved with the community, and development is ongoing even after release. Expect plenty more content to come over the years.

EDIT: For anyone with complaints about difficulty scaling in single-player, snide remarks aside, the developer has already introduced world generation settings to change difficulty from global scaling to distance scaling, allowing the single-player experience to feel gradual and impactful. (Still think you should be playing multiplayer, though...)

the game starts extremely cozy, with fun and interesting puzzle designs. at first, i was bothered that the puzzles weren't traditional jigsaw shapes, but i got over that qualm pretty quickly.

as you progress through the story, your inability (playing as Wilmot) to meaningfully answer the other characters in the game with any dialogue options other than "give me my puzzle" was mildly stressful - the characters have a decent level of development, and not being able to interact with them felt rude

and, for truly crazy people, the game mode unlocked after beating the game is a REAL challenge.

Let me be succinct: This game is a LOT of fun, when it works. The devs are working on fixing it, and eventually it'll just be "This game is a LOT of fun"

Depending on your hardware and location, players will have varying degrees of success in launching the game, and playing coop. I don't have any of the issues being discussed, but others do. That being said, it's obvious what kind of game this will be, and I think it will be worth the time and money once it's fully stabilized.

where to begin?

first: set aside your first impressions. this is not a weird Chinese app factory cash grab, this actually is a real title with real people behind it. take it from someone who regularly "gets got," this is a real game.

i first played an early alpha build of this title a year or two ago, with friends. at that time, the game itself had some interesting ideas, but was definitely unpolished.

now, in the title's public early access, there is more than enough content in place to warrant dropping $30. this indie studio team is hard at work continuing development, with major updates, and their community engagement is fantastic.

the visuals are fairly cartoonish, and entertaining. animations and rigging, while sometimes funny to look at, are responsive and make sense. the most recent update also drastically improved framerates in situations where you've built a monstrous shop structure.

the audio design is superb. everything you can interact with makes a sound that's not only appropriate, but satisfying. the full soundtrack is modeled around a central motif that makes up the theme song (which reminds me a lot of a classic 90s kid saturday morning cartoon theme). significant amounts of voice acting, as well! while that's a work in progress, most of the core storyline is voiced.

gameplay is where things really go off the charts. you start with the assumption that the game is about shopkeeping, but quickly realize that's only 20% of the core gameplay loop. it's an open world survival crafter, with exploration and questing elements, and a shop management central feature. if i were to compare the game to anything, it would be a mix of Recettear and Zelda:BotW/TotK.

i think the best endorsement i could make of the game is that it is built to inspire a semblance of that childlike wonder you'd experience as a young gamer, not knowing what comes next, and being pleasantly surprised at every turn. and in this endeavor, i think they have succeeded.

This is a title hand-tailored for people with specific interests:
- Difficulty
- Puzzle-solving
- Physical programming
- (extremely) Retro audio and visuals
- Computer science history
- Zachtronics fans

Huge nostalgia moment, playing this title. Reminded me of my early childhood, trading shareware with my nextdoor neighbor, and playing on my dad's C64.

I have a lot to say about this game, but I'm not sure how much I can share without spoiling some of the puzzles. Suffice it to say: I played through the entire thing over the course of 8 days and was never bored. The "final" stage took me nearly three days to solve!

If you're looking at this page, and going so far as to look at the reviews, then you should probably pull the trigger. Every level you complete will fill you with big brain pride!

Can't even begin to describe it. It's an incredible experience. Unfortunately, given the incredible amount of twists and turns, any reasonable review would involve spoiling the entire game.

Play it!