Killing Floor 2 Disappoints Again

Tripwire has announced that its upcoming content pack will include a crates and keys system completely lifted from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, a move that is becoming increasingly popular with similar models now existing within Payday 2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2. As you play you’ll receive cosmetics (that you can sell on the Steam Community Market) and crates (that you can open by buying keys). Said cosmetics come in six shades of rarity (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Exceptional, Master Crafted, and Precious) and while they’re currently cosmetic-only, Tripwire says:

“In the future we may be adding weapons with new gameplay for sale, but this will appear in the “Shared Content” area on the server. This means that, if any player on the server has a weapon (like the Chivalry Zweihander now), then every player on the server will be able to use it.” 

Payday fans will be quite familiar with the ensuing whirlwind of rage ripping through the various online communities, fueled by the game’s stagnant existence as a barebones beta (Tripwire has managed a single content patch in the last eight months) and the developers apparently have decided that artstyle-destroying cash grabs are more important than making the actual game. Already the Steam page of KF2 is completely flooded with negative reviews, from new accounts to veterans changing their thumbs-up.

It truly baffles me. What was Tripwire expecting to happen by posting this in the aftermath of Overkill’s death spiral? Are they not seeing what’s happening to Payday 2? Releasing a similar microtransaction system less than 24 hours after Overkill attempted in vain to apologize for the never–ending cavalcade of bad press that theirs spawned seems like such an obviously suicidal decision that I’m frankly baffled they didn’t see this coming. Sure, theirs isn’t as bad as Overkill’s; at least Tripwire’s is currently cosmetic only (though that hint that we can look forward to Zweihander-style barriers is disheartening to say the least), but considering the hundreds of dollars of DLC in the first game, it’s unlikely they’re going to stop here.

Ultimately it’s just disappointing. But then I was already disappointed in Killing Floor 2.