Killing Floor: Incursion (PSVR) – zombies aren’t the most intelligent of enemies

PlayStation VR gets a new co-op shooter based on the popular first person shooter series, but does VR add or subtract from the experience?

Hades Nintendo Switch review – god of resurrection

No matter how many times it’s proven impractical with current technology, a fast action first person shooter remains the holy grail for virtual reality. There are already a lot of great games that fulfil that role to some degree – titles like RIGS, Battlezone, Resident Evil 7, and Raw Data – but there’s still nothing to compare to competitive shooters like Call Of Duty and Battlefield. But rather than filling that gap, Killing Floor: Incursion just makes it even more obvious why it’ll probably never happen with the current generation of hardware.



Killing Floor as a franchise has been around since 2005, starting life as an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod. It’s always billed itself as a ‘co-op survival horror’ and in practice comes across like a cross between Left 4 Dead, Gears Of War’s Horde mode, and Call Of Duty’s Zombies. All three of which, it should be noted, came out after the first Killing Floor.

Unfortunately for developer Tripwire, history is written by the winners and while the original may have been ahead of its time its mediocre execution has led to it and its sequel being largely ignored by the mainstream – especially on consoles. A VR version is still very welcome though, especially as this isn’t a retrofitted rehash but a brand new game (well, it was last year when it was originally released on PC) made for VR from the ground up.


Whether it came first or not Killing Floor really does feel like half a dozen different games put in a blender and then not blitzed for quite long enough to create a consistent flavour. Given the VR angle, the game that’s most likely to come to mind first is Resident Evil 7, which this resembles not just in the fact that you’re shooting zombies in the dark but in terms of a few of the settings too. The action in Incursion is much faster paced than Capcom’s game though, and while it’s easy to get startled by something running at you in the dark the horror doesn’t really get any deeper than that.

The four-hour story campaign is quite substantial for a VR release, with the game taking a similar approach to Doom VFR by making it clear you’re not actually fighting in the real world but, in this case, a computer simulation to help keep your brain going while your body is repaired from a previous zombie attack. Why VR games are so keen to hammer it home that you’re not really there, when the increased sense of immersion is the main appeal, we don’t know but there you go.

Unusually, a Move controller is required to play the game, presumably because the original PC version emphasised the teleportation method of movement. There is a free movement option but it’s not available in every situation, and even when it is teleporting tends to be easier to use. Although there’s an annoying attempting to simulate your character’s stamina, that reduces the distance you can move in quick succession and makes boss bottles more of a chore than they need be. (The Aim Controller is not supported at launch.)

Killing Floor: Incursion (PSVR) – better with a friend

Incursion’s gunplay is still solid enough to keep your interest for a few hours, but apart from the one-note enemies, whose only tactic is to run straight at you while making a spooky noise, the story campaign is very poorly paced. There are very few proper set pieces to break up the repetition and when you do get them, such as an excruciating sniper rifle section, they seem to go on forever.



Despite the repetition in enemies, locations, and the boring plot the story campaign is somewhat saved by the option of two-player co-op. Online play, at least at launch, has been rather spotty though, with lots of bugs and glitches and a general sense that the game’s going to break down at any point. It never quite does, but even on your own it’s unacceptably glitchy.

To be honest, we lost interest in the story campaign long before the end and found the Holdout survival mode to be the more enjoyable way to play the game. There’s more honesty to its bare bones approach, as you’re thrown into a level and literally told to hold out until you’ve mowed down each wave of monsters. And while the PlayStation VR version is otherwise largely the same as the PC it does have a timed exclusive Holdout map inspired by the movie Tron.

In theory Incursion seems like the perfect VR action game: a full story campaign, an extensive survival mode, and online co-op for both. In practice it’s all rather dull and awkward, and the novelty of playing it in VR disappears worryingly quickly. If you happen to have a friend with all the necessary hardware it’s a passable, if expensive, way to waste an afternoon. But all it really does is emphasise that traditional shooters don’t really work in VR.

Killing Floor: Incursion In Short: Another failed attempt to get a traditional first person shooter working in VR, although the online co-op option keeps the novelty going for longer than it should. Pros: The action is perfectly competent and the game can be genuinely scary in the first few hours, when you don’t know what’s coming next. Online co-op is welcome, especially in Holdout mode. Cons: The action and enemies are extremely simplistic and repetitive. Boring and poorly paced story campaign. Awkward controls and glitchy performance. Score: 5/10

Formats: PlayStation VR (reviewed) and PC

Price: £24.99

Publisher: Tripwire

Developer: Tripwire

Release Date: 1st May 2018

Age Rating: 18


Email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk, leave a comment below, and follow us on Twitter