KILL KNIGHT is a wave-based, twin stick shooter with a demonic edge

While browsing demos for Steam Next Fest, PlaySide’s KILL KNIGHT stood out easily. It wasn’t just because of the cool all-caps title, either. The harsh reds and blacks of its title font and key art, the haunted VHS tape visual style, and frantic-looking twin stick shooter action all come together with a nasty aesthetic edge. In a post-Vampire Survivors world a game like this definitely benefits from a striking look, and KILL KNIGHT has that in spades. It’s also an interesting take on the genre, with unlocks gated behind tough and specific challenges.

KILL KNIGHT’s mechanics utilize the Gears of War-style active reload mechanic. You have a small arsenal of weapons, but when you reload your primary the reward you get for a timely button press changes based on the button. If you use normal reload, your primary shot can get a bonus or briefly change properties. Other buttons will help you fill other meters or secondary ammunition easier, opening up other aspects of gameplay or helping you stay on the path for a specific challenge.

At its core, you’re looking at a fairly standard wave shooter. You’re at the mercy of an onslaught of bug-like enemies, with occasional mini-bosses or specialized enemies popping in to mess with your flow. There are different ways to deal with these enemies, but again, the challenge you’ve got your mind set on will dictate the optimal answer. If you’re trying to keep an extended kill streak alive for example, you can’t simply focus your firepower on the beefier mini-boss. Instead, you’ll have to dance around them and keep grunts in your sights, making the encounter more disruptive than before.

Other challenges include breaking enemy armor or picking up healing items, which require a special weapon that has to be charged by specific means. This once again radically changes your approach to combat, by forcing you to focus on a totally different variable. It’s an intriguing system that makes seeking unlocks require more brain power than, say, Vampire Survivors’ more “reward for playing along” approach. It adds flavor to the experience beyond simply making your way through some time limit or number of waves.

All that said, as I was playing the demo I could only go so far, and only see so much. The challenges stood out from what was available, but I only had access to a few. There were also other levels I couldn’t select, which I imagine could impact my focus during an individual run further. I also didn’t have a good sense of a bigger picture or ultimate goal, if there is one! It definitely seemed like there was a lot more to KILL KNIGHT beyond what I could see, and I’d love to get my hands on more and form a more clear idea of what the bigger picture is.

And if it isn’t that different, I’m still on board with the idea of having a steep list of challenges governing my approach for each run, rather than simply jumping in only worried about making it to the end alive.

KILL KNIGHT is set to launch sometime in 2024 for PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. A code for the PC demo was provided by the publisher for this preview.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.