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Even if the most efficient weapon isn't necessarily tied to your favorite class, you still feel like an amateur chess player as you try to anticipate what your enemies have planned for the next wave. Once you've gotten familiar with the distribution of enemy types as the waves get progressively harder, it becomes all the more satisfying to adjust your customized loadout to suit the situation. Every perk is rewarding, especially since upgrades demand a substantial time investment, with new unlocks happening, on average, once an hour. For example, progress as a Field Medic can lead to greater resistance to toxic bile, while the Demolitionist can improve as a grenade supplier. The perks of each class-which are unlocked as you level up-befit their respective specialities. This also means your career path in Killing Floor 2 may veer from your original vision or plan. That means you can earn experience in both sniper rifle proficiency and healing during a single enemy wave, resulting in XP growth in at least two class categories. Progression in Killing Floor 2 is driven by a clever design that assigns classes to individual weapons rather than a set loadout. Win or lose, it's not unusual to end a session feeling a sense of accomplishment, as XP bars fill up when your performance is tallied across multiple classes. Surviving becomes all the more satisfying when you've completed a round with ammo to spare and enough funds to buy better weapons for subsequent battles. If you have the foresight and patience to save your more powerful rifle rounds, you're rewarded with an easier path to the boss who awaits you at the end of every session. For instance, a grenade is wasted on a grunt since a well-placed bullet to the head from a basic pistol will achieve the same result. How you manage your resources is partly dictated by the diverse mixture of zombies, dubbed "Zeds." It's ultimately pretty basic, but appreciated nonetheless.
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Trying to make every action count in Killing Floor 2 can be an engrossing experience, especially when it benefits your team's success and survival.Īlong with skill, progression efficiency also demands thoughtful resource management. It's about recognizing your character's particular strengths and applying them to undead-infested battles, whether that means serving as a proactive healer or exercising patience while you line up a zombie-stopping headshot. To gain levels efficiently, it's not enough to simply shoot or slice upon sight. Its long-term appeal hinges on its rewarding progression system, which advances your abilities based on your moment-to-moment accomplishments. Just because you can get away with instinctively killing anything that moves does not mean Killing Floor 2 is bereft of depth. Instead, you have to use your imagination to piece things together, which is a valid approach for a production that primarily focuses on the urgency of each oncoming wave of Zeds. It's a credit to the environmental art designers that the pervasive sights and scenes of ruin makes one wish for more exposition, to learn how the outbreak unfolded. At least Killing Floor 2's generic death-metal soundtrack matches this locale's hellish vibe. The only map that feels out of place is the Infernal Realm, a gothic underworld dungeon. Evacuation Zone is fortified with concrete barriers and barbed wire, while Burning Paris shows an iconic metropolis in ruins. Farmhouse, for instance, features an open field where you can see Zeds coming from every direction-the catch is that Zeds indeed come from every direction.Ī couple of distinctly European maps infer the spread of the outbreak. Whether you're fending for your life in a prison or a dilapidated lab, each layout presents tactical benefits and challenges. You're not tasked with defending a specific spot (only your team), which means the main skirmish will likely move around the map over time depending where the boss-grade Zeds come from. While Killing Floor 2's wave-based combat is conceptually reminiscent of Halo's Firefight and Gears of War's Horde modes, the flow of a match is more analogous to Battlefield or Call of Duty. And while its 12 maps are short on objectives and destinations, the drive to stay alive is enough to keep you invested in the action and immerses you in a deep character progression system, which makes your fight consistently enjoyable, especially if you play with teams you can rely on. Staying alive is simply a matter of fending off the undead using whatever weapons you have on hand while effectively managing the space around you. Yet what it delivers, it does well-namely, uncomplicated, arcade-style zombie shootouts. As a survival shooter with only two modes, Killing Floor 2 is naturally short on gameplay variety.
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