Killing Floor 3 is a 'gruesome graphical vision' in Unreal Engine 5

Someone's finally done it: they put the number three on a co-op zombie FPS.

Valve is of course allergic to the number, stopping at Left 4 Dead 2, and that series was spiritually continued by Turtle Rock with Back 4 Blood, whose name alludes to it being the fourth game in the co-op zombie FPS series, despite no third game existing. It started to feel like the number really was cursed, but Tripwire has now grounded us with the announcement of Killing Floor 3 at Gamescom. No tricks: just the third game in a series of good co-op zombie shooters.

It never went as mainstream as Left 4 Dead, but the Killing Floor series has deep PC roots. It started as an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod which Tripwire turned into a standalone game in 2009. In 2016, the developer released Killing Floor 2, which today sustains a modest but healthy base of players, some of whom play on bizarre modded servers the last time I checked. That's what you want to see in a long-running multiplayer PC game.

The Killing Floor 3 announcement trailer, embedded above, doesn't reveal much about the game, but Tripwire doesn't really have to spell it out: This will be another class-based shooter, where up to six players run around urban and rural arenas killing waves of zombies—mutant "zeds" in the fiction—and fighting grotesque bosses.

"The year is 2091, 70 years after the events in Killing Floor 2, and megacorp Horzine has produced the ultimate army: an obedient horde of bio-engineered monstrosities called Zeds," the studio said in a press release. "Now, the only thing standing between these infernal creations and the future of humanity is the rebel rogue group known as Nightfall."

One thing Killing Floor 2 particularly prided itself on was its gore, and based on the Gamescom teaser, Tripwire hasn't lost its passion for viscera. "Harnessing the power of Unreal Engine 5, Tripwire will build upon the legacy of the series, realizing its gruesome graphical vision," reads the press release.

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No release date has been announced for Killing Floor 3 yet, but it does have a Steam page which says it's "coming soon." Tripwire hasn't otherwise hinted about how far along it is, saying in the press release that Killing Floor 3 is "currently in development" for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.