Killing Floor 3 is stretching its legs & upping its arsenal in wild ways

I have been thrilled to see more of Killing Floor 3 ever since Tripwire Interactive first announced it, and at long last, we’re within spitting distance of the initial release of the game in March. If that wasn’t enough, Tripwire even invited us to take part in a preview of the game before its recent closed beta. It was there that I saw a massive array of compelling reasons why this zombie wave survival shooter has a proper 3 next to it instead of just building on what Killing Floor 2 was doing. This is a whole new level of Zed-slaying chaos and it’s got me even more thrilled to see launch day.

A fresh coat of blood

For those who don’t know, Killing Floor’s typical style is that of a horde wave shooter with zombified creatures. Think Call of Duty Zombies, but with more RPG/progression elements, proper boss fights, and a whole lot more gore. Killing Floor 1 was legendary, and Killing Floor 2 was a lot more of what folks loved for nearly a decade worth of Tripwire support. So, after so many years, what made Killing Floor 3 viable? It was because Tripwire finally felt the technology had moved along far enough to allow for a truly generational step forward in the series.

And what a step forward it is. Killing Floor 3 was looking incredible in our early build. The operators, weapons, maps, monsters, and the carnage you can inflict on them were all polished to a sheen with the game making its move to Unreal Engine 5. That last part - the carnage - is especially gratifying. Killing Floor’s monsters have always had a system where the skin, muscle, and bone could sluice off their forms, and you could always blow them to bits with the dismemberment system, but now enemies can actually still fight you while missing a limb or other important appendage. It makes you have to double tap a bit more often, but it’s also just a great visual upgrade on top of the fact that all of our favorite creatures look burlier than ever, and you can destroy them in exciting new ways.

The weapons are cool looking, too. There’s a system built around them this time around that allows you to add attachments to them, and many of the attachments have visual representation on your guns. In essence, they add more personal taste to the game, allowing you to make a weapon truly into your own. I already felt like Killing Floor had some of the tastiest-feeling shotgun gameplay on the block, and now I can turn a boomstick into my favorite boomstick on a long enough timeline.

Keep on moving, keep on shooting

Of course, all of these fancy visuals wouldn’t mean squat if Killing Floor 3 didn’t improve upon Killing Floor 2’s gameplay as well. I’m here to tell you it does, in a variety of key points. You still pick a class of your choice, sort out its loadout and your level perks, and join up with your friends to survive a set amount of rounds and a boss fight (unless you’re playing Endless), but a number of important quality-of-life changes and improvements have made it in this time around.

The first and perhaps most important is the new movement system. In Killing Floor 3, players can mantle up and over objects that are eye level, do a quick dodge in any direction when they first tap the sprint button, and power slide by crouching while sprinting. This is a huge change for Killing Floor as it offers a massive amount of verticality and mobility that previous Killing Floor games just didn’t have. You can now feasibly jump out of the way of big attacks and avoid taking devastating damage. Even so, not every attack demands jumping backwards and some enemies will even punish you for dodging directly away from them with long-reaching attacks. It’s both a breath of fresh air for movement and a challenge to your reflexes to stay aware of your surroundings and move accordingly.

The other massive change is the weapons armory. As you play on a class (or any class’ weaponry for that matter since gear isn’t restricted to one class), you’ll unlock schematics for weapon parts. By getting materials from enemies and the environment, you can craft attachments for your favorite guns and really deck them out. There are around 150 attachments in the game, and they allow for things like giving you a faster reloading or larger clip, reducing recoil with a stock or compensator, or even changing the damage type of your gun with acid, frost, fire, and other types of ammo. Keep at a weapon long enough, and you can turn it into exactly what you want it to be, complete with a custom paint job and trinkets to show off your prowess with it.

The class Perks also return as Specialists to give you a wide variety of gameplay styles. Commando, Firebug, Engineer (the new Support class), Sharpshooter, Ninja (the new Berserker), and Medic. Notably missing are Gunslinger, Swat, Demolitions, and Survivalist, but that’s not to say they might not make it down the line. The devs just wanted to be sure that the launch day Specialist roster had all of the variety it needed to be fun and cater to different styles. There’s even a bit of cross pollination because the Engineer has a semi-auto grenade launcher as one of its weapons. Even then, the armory really helps to expand and fill the holes that those missing class perks might leave behind.

These improvements pair well with a variety of upgrades that make this an altogether more fun game to play. For one, enemies now have weak points, and they’re generally different based on the monster. For instance, a Scrake’s chainsaw arm can be damaged, exposing a bright glowing weak spot. If you attack it further, it will explode and stun the Scrake. Not only does this make it unable to rev the saw to attack you, but you can also run up and execute them with their own chainsaw if you’re fast enough. It’s as gloriously gory as you’d expect. As a bonus, enemies can also execute you if they get you down and your friends don’t pick you up fast enough and they are mean about it.

Another great change is that if you do die, other players can't pick up your weapons anymore. Tripwire told me this was a response to trolling and keeping other players’ weapons unfairly. Now, when you die, you’ll see an icon on the map that directs you towards where you got killed so you can grab your gear and get back in the fight. Nice little change alongside a wealth of other things that have this feeling like a proper sequel.

Pound for Fleshpound

I didn’t know what I expected when I came into Killing Floor 3. More of what I loved, I guess. But if that’s all it took, Tripwire could have given me more KF2 and I would have taken it happily. No, this is a proper fresh start on a new and polished foundation. The movement feels sharp and dynamic, the weapons and their customization feel like the best in Tripwire history with clearly plenty more to come, and the overall gameplay is as bloody and chaotic as I’ve ever seen. What’s most important is I can still take a shotgun and punch a hole in zombified creatures so hard that it turns them inside out, and that’s a warm feeling I’ll carry with me to release date.

This preview is based on an early PC version of the game offered by the publisher in a closed multiplayer session. Killing Floor 3 comes to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on March 25, 2025.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on BlueSky @JohnnyChugs.