Brutal FPS Killing Floor 3 offers one last chance to play for free before launch

Tripwire Interactive certainly likes to keep its testers on their toes. It also seems to love doing things in threes. The Killing Floor 3 developer has announced that its third and final stress test will be dropping for a hot second, as the studio looks to gobble up as much data as possible for those final pre-launch fixes.

Killing Floor 3's road to launch has been a veritable slog. Its original pre-launch beta was disastrous. Complaints of a watered-down experience compared to its predecessor, and a ghastly UI, among other issues, led Tripwire to scrap the original Killing Floor 3 release date. After turning its attention inwards and whittling away at what many had hoped would be one of the year's best multiplayer games, Tripwire recently announced a fresh round of testing ahead of the now-revised launch date.

From what I've seen, the latest iteration of KF3 is much improved from February's beta, though gunplay in particular still doesn't quite pack the same punch as KF2's Zed-slaying arsenal. It's always worth remembering that these test builds typically aren't representative of the most recent version, and Tripwire has plenty of post-launch work in the pipeline to continue bringing the shooter up to snuff. As such, I'm reticent to completely write KF3 off before getting eyes on its final form.

If you don't get into the stress test, you'll still be able to watch along. Tripwire has torn up its NDA for this one, opening up the (killing) floor for content creators to livestream their gameplay. It's a bold strategy considering KF3's rocky reception so far, but it's important to give players the most holistic view of the state of the game as possible.

The Killing Floor 3 stress test is running for ten hours, from 9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 5pm BST on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. Head over to the KF3 Steam page and hit the 'Request Access' button for a chance to get involved, but be quick.

If you're chomping at the bit to get involved, check out the Killing Floor 3 system requirements to make sure your rig is up to par. If you're not about it, peep some more of the best co-op games you and your pals can jump into instead.

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