Killing Floor 2 Update: New Zed, Map, Multiperk Weapons

A new balance patch has come out for Killing Floor 2, and it’s awesome.

First things first, the Gorefiend is the newest addition to the Zed hordes, looking like a Gorefast but with two makeshift swords instead of one. He’s got this helicopter attack that’s scarily effective at shredding through a player’s HP, he’s immune to being bashed, and he’s probably the most effective glass cannon among the Zed hordes. At the moment, he only spawns on Hard, Suicidal, or Hell on Earth difficulty, which I don’t like. Every other Zed spawns on every difficulty, and I don’t think he counts as a reskin like the albino Crawlers and Alpha Clots because he’s got a completely original model, animations, and threat level. Still, as a unit I love him.

I also really love the new map! It’s a tropical island with an active volcano that erupts halfway through the session, filling portions with lava and changing where the players can hold out. This is the sort of dynamic map design I was talking about wanting more of, and the Far Cry-style aesthetics are just icing on the cake. Though a certain easter egg does cast the tropical paradise in a more sinister light:

But the biggest and most important change to Killing Floor 2 has to do with how weapons are classified. Tripwire has flagged a number of weapons as being multiperk, meaning that two or more classes can now use these weapons and still benefit from their perk skills and passive buffs. The full list is here, but in general the perks who revolve around a single weapon type (such as Support for shotguns) now treats all weapons of that type (such as the Medic shotgun or the Firebug Dragon’s Breath shotgun) as on-perk. This has resulted in some pretty amazing new opportunities for builds all around, as almost every class suddenly has more toys to play with. Medic weapons have now become pretty popular across the board, with the Medic rifle completely unseating the AK12 as the Commando secondary rifle of choice, and the Sharpshooter regained proficiency with all revolvers turning him somewhat more into his Killing Floor 1 build.

The Berzerker is especially happy with his new mace & shield weapon! Gif by lone0001.

Overall response is positive, as many players like me are just excited at the opportunity to add new playstyles into our favorite perk builds, but the Survivalist fans are less than thrilled because their perk is now even less relevant than it was before. The Survivalist perk has been in a sorry state since it entered the game, with most players only considering it for ‘battle medic’ builds, and in my opinion that is now the only valid way to play Survivalist due to retaining medic grenades and still healing better than off-perk medic weapons. Hopefully Tripwire just reworks Survivalist from the ground up, like they did with Demolitionist back in the day. But for the most part, this update is a stunning success and I’m excited to see what Tripwire comes up with next.