14 DAY TRIAL // Developer Tripwire Interactive has released the second video developer diary for Killing Floor 2, the upcoming sequel to the acclaimed first-person shooter.
The diary goes into a bit of detail regarding the shooter's gore system, probably the most complex in a video game yet. William Munk, Killing Floor 2's game director, states that the key pillars of the shooter were determined pretty early-on to be guns, blades and blood, which the team expanded upon as development progressed.
Blood is probably the most important thing in the game, and the extreme level of gore was what made the first installment in the series stand out from the crowd of first-person shooters.
"In a game where you're constantly killing stuff, it's really important that that's gratifying, and basically when you're doing that, that's the reward you get," the developers share.
This will be realized with over 90 different animations per creature, depending on the body part you hit, and it's all randomized, making for a much more natural style of movement and impact feedback.
Old-school roots
The developers state that their main source of inspiration was Soldier of Fortune, whose exciting gore system enabled players to blow chunks of enemies' heads or to stab people in the face, and the team decided to take that and step things up for the sequel.
They came up with the M.E.A.T. system, which stands for Massive Evisceration And Trauma, which is a dorky way to say that you can dismember zombies pretty much every way you deem fit.
The core feature of the system is the ability to blow things up, and to blow them into chunks, in unique ways, based on the point of impact. Players will get to see a lot more variety when it comes to the effects that their heavy-duty weapons have, thanks to the collection of different systems working together to enable the next-level gore.
Needlessly complicated – but fun – exploding zombies
The advanced dynamics that the engine permits will translate into impressive explosions, as there are 22 different spots on each and every creature model, spots that you can target in order to obtain different results, such as flying forearms, entrails and jaws.
As a reference for comparison, Killing Floor had a total of five assembly points, and it featured plenty of gnarly dismemberment, which means that things are about to go crazy in its much-awaited sequel.
Killing Floor was originally released as an Unreal Tournament mod that turned out to be so popular with Tripwire that the developer halted development on Red Orchestra 2, in order to work on creating a standalone version of the cooperative multiplayer shooter, which the company released in 2009.
Killing Floor 2 is built on Unreal Engine 3, and is scheduled for release on Windows PC and SteamOS, at a yet undisclosed date.
