“Just awful” – Great co-op shooter hope is being torn apart shortly before release

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The new Killing Floor is supposed to be released in a month. But apparently there are massive problems in the current beta. Many players are dissatisfied.

With Killing Floor 3 , developer Tripwire Interactive wants to build on the great success of its time-honored zombie shooter series. Officially, we’re not even dealing with zombies here, but with so-called zeds – but in this kind of shooter, it doesn’t really matter what kind of brain-eating mutants we take on with our weapons.

The goals for the third part are ambitious. There should be more enemy types, more gore and new gadgets like a turret. You can also freely customize your weapons with 180 modifications. The release is planned for March 25.

A closed beta test phase for the shooter is currently underway. However, it seems that the community is not happy with it; criticism is pouring in from all sides on Reddit. Many testers report that Killing Floor 3 is in a shockingly poor state so close to release.

What are the criticisms?

The performance is reportedly breathtakingly unstable, reportsa user on Reddit. The frame rate fluctuates between 20 and 80. If you try to set the frame rate to 60 FPS, it leads to unsightly image stuttering. The regular loading times for compiling the shaders are also very long. The netcode is also not optimized, and there are frequent lags or still images.

The new weapon system also draws criticism The same user writes that none of the weapons have any kind of kick, no matter what modification you equip. The weapons often seem useless. However, this may also be due to the lack of hit feedback:

Enemies don’t react to anything, it feels like the game doesn’t react when you shoot. No staggering, no effect, the whole game feels lifeless.

Killing Floor 3 is just plain awful.
byu/cockNbone inkillingfloor

There is also criticism of the user interface: User xCAS9 and writes that the UI looks like the website of a church community from 2010

Absolute dog water – KF3 CBT Feedback
byu/xCAS9 inkillingfloor

Overall, the game currently looks very unfinished and glitch-ridden. With the release so close, many players suspect that the release version will hardly look much better. The developers would be steering into the abyss with their eyes wide open, according to the canon on Reddit.

A contradiction?

This is in stark contrast to our impression of the last gamescom demo of Killing Floor 3. Back then, the game made a very good first impression. Especially the weapons that are now being criticized felt powerful and satisfying back then. The splatter system worked; my colleague Kevin even wrote that the hit feedback left nothing to be desired.

At trade fairs and playable demos, journalists often only get to play a so-called vertical slice, a demo made especially for the occasion, which is not always representative of the rest of the game.

Developer Tripwire now has a little less than five weeks to fix the alleged issues. We’ll find out if that works by the end of March at the latest, when the shooter is released.