Killing Floor 3 arrives 10 years after Killing Floor 2’s initial early access launch. The second instalment significantly grew the game’s fan base considerably. Zeds became deads, the gore and gunplay were glorious, and the game’s unique humour, charm, and appeal made it a standout in a cluttered shooter market.
Killing Floor 3 is an extension of the round-based survival and horror offered by Killing Floor 2. You spawn, kill horrifying enemies, rack up cash, and buy new gear and resupplies. The spine of the series is intact, that is, until it’s ripped out by many of the shooter’s wonderful abominations, certain to give you nightmares.
The third main entry was hit with a notable delay back in March 2025. This allowed Tripwire to escape the conflict and iron out final flaws, harness feedback, and get as many consumers on the Killing Floor dance floor as possible. While KF3 has improved since beta, I feel this is a game that will get better, but its current state leaves a lot to be desired.
Killing Floor 3 Review
Killing Floor 3‘s premise is simple: Choose a Perk (a Specialist character with bespoke abilities), select your map, decide if you’re going Solo or co-op—with up to six people—earn ‘Dosh’, and survive multiple waves of Zeds that get harder until you reach the concluding phase where you face one of three bosses.
This is the gameplay loop. Your repeated visits encourage you to scour the areas for supplies so you can upgrade weapons, create custom loadouts, and earn points to unlock and upgrade abilities for your Perks. There isn’t a story, per se, with special ‘Assignments’ requiring you to press a button here and there to explain why we have Zeds, what’s happened, etc, but it has as much depth as a baby’s swimming pool.
Only hardened Killing Floor fans will benefit from this. Casuals want to know about the meat of the matter—and there’s plenty of it.
Virtual Violence is a Virtue
Let’s start with many positives. Killing Floor 3’s enemy designs have gone up a notch. They are horrible to look at. Their skin has unpleasant pigmentations, protrusions are thrusting out of every body part, and the crimson eyes are guaranteed to give you a thousand-yard stare in the early hours.
Tripwire has done an excellent job of making me feel uncomfortable and afraid to look behind me. The M.E.A.T. system (Massive Evisceration And Trauma) has taken matters to glorious gory heights. Chunks of viscera will explode off of Zeds and paint the walls and floors like a canvas. There’s more blood than in an abattoir, and while there aren’t too many weapons with variety, most of them are capable of pulverizing and dismembering Zeds.
The Mick Gordon style of fleshpounding and headbanging industrial metal music rings in your ears. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but even non-Metalheads would agree it’s badass to kill monsters with booming Shotguns while heavenly down-tuned riffs rip and tear up the audio waves.
I also really enjoyed the different ways you can manipulate Killing Floor 3’s maps to give you an edge. By equipping a Multi-Tool, you can activate Turrets to help you out, trigger Ziplines for a quick and easy out, arm environmental traps designed to clock up a high Zed count, and open up supply depots to give the team access to Armor refills. It gives you more options than Killing Floor 2, and feels like one of the areas where the developer has innovated.
Killing Zeds doesn’t get boring, and while the game scales down the enemy count per the size of the lobby, if you want to go Solo, I encourage you to team up with other players. People who were strangers to you mere minutes ago become instant war buddies you fight alongside for multiple matches in a row. Before long, you’ll be meeting up in real life for a few beers to talk about the time you took down three Impalers.
Lacking Style And Substance
Now to the bad. Killing Floor 3 probably needed another delay (or two). The power of the PS5 struggles to cope with sudden bouts of intense action. If a ton of enemies suddenly appear, explosions start happening, and the on-screen action becomes more intense than a game of Red Light, Green Light, the system can’t handle it. The performance tanks.
Frame-rate stutters and drops are frequent with more players. Even if it wasn’t for the performance, Killing Floor 3 feels unfinished and unpolished in other key areas. Enemies will spawn from vents and holes with awkward animations, and many are frozen in place once they die. The AI itself is decent, as Zeds can spawn from all directions and heights. Husks make great use of verticality in outdoor maps, whereas the relentless nature of a Fleshpound feels like a second-by-second fight for your life.
But so much of KF3 is underwhelming. Most maps are dull to look at and dark. There’s no iconic architecture or pleasing screensaver-esque Kodak moments like KF2’s Burning Paris. A gripe I had with KF2’s launch has resurfaced here too—a lack of bosses and variety. There are only three bosses at launch: Chimera, Impaler, and Queen Crawler.
I loved Killing Floor 2, but it gets boring facing the same bosses. KF3 repeats the formula, and they’re far less interesting this time around. There’s no satisfying feeling of seeing the boss being reduced to nothing—a boss tint changing from green to orange to red to signify they’re nearly defeated—and none of the new bosses are close to Hans Volter, for instance.
Killing Floor 3 Review Verdict: A Floor in Need of Extra Polish
Old-school KF fans might find Killing Floor 3 undercooked and divisive, and new-school players might struggle to see what the fuss is all about. Killing Floor 3 is a fun, survival-horror shooter that shreds with its killer soundtrack and replayability. It’s really fun—especially the first few hours—and infinitely more enjoyable with extra players. But the meat doesn’t feel as fresh as it once did, and I honestly believe more development time was required.
However, Tripwire has committed to the game’s long-term future with an exciting-looking roadmap. Killing Floor 3 isn’t a game you must go out of your way to buy right now, but it probably will be in the future.
3 / 5 – Good
You can let me know what you think of this review and Killing Floor 3 as a whole via the Insider Gaming forum. Whether you’re a first-time user or long-time fan, I want to know if you think Tripwire cooked or fumbled with KF3.
NOTE: A copy of Killing Floor 3 on PS5 was provided to Insider Gaming for the purposes of this review.
