A bar from 2004's Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines has been recreated in breathtaking detail in Killing Floor 2 as a custom map.

In this five minute video, creator Synchaoz takes us on a peaceful tour of the entire set... and then they let us see it in action in its full bloody, gory glory, too. It's worth a peek if just for the music choice, to be honest—who doesn't love a Tears for Fears cover? (Edit: It's by Scandroid, apparently - thanks, KananTheViking!)

When questioned about how long it'd taken to perfect the level, creator Synchaoz said: "As a rough estimate I'd say around 130 hours or so, including play tests. I had some pre-built sections (like the vampire tomb and parts of the backstage room) from old map projects that were cancelled, which I was able to copy/paste and just do minor modifications on, which shaved off a handful hours of work."

"The Asylum, The Last Round and Vesuvius were considered to be added as side-areas," the creator added, "but due to time and logistics I decided to stick to The Confession and instead expand it according to my own vision."

In our Killing Floor 2 review, we awarded the shooter 81, stating: "If you want a perfect replica of Killing Floor, with its specific classes and balancing, Killing Floor 2 isn’t that. But it is a visual spectacle, and a challenging, fun co-op shooter with an active mapmaking community."

The Killing Floor 2 Halloween Horrors content pack, with a new map and achievements, a pair of new weapons, a new (actually returning) enemy and boss, limited-time Halloween themed unlockables, daily missions, and the Dosh Vault, is now live—and free—on Steam.

The new map, called Nightmare, features randomized rooms "themed after a different nightmare or phobia," which will challenge players to "conquer their fears and the attack Zeds simultaneously." Because nothing says "overcoming your fear of public speaking" like a desperate, gore-soaked last stand against onrushing hordes of screaming mutants, right? 

Actually, it might. Having your face chewed on really puts things in perspective. 

Anyway, the full Halloween Horrors patch notes are up on the Killing Floor 2 forums, but here's the quick rundown: 

• New Map – Nightmare lives up to its name, dropping players into random rooms representing a variety of nightmares and phobias and tasking players to holdout against waves of Zeds.
• New Weapons – Medics get up close and very personal with the Hemogoblin, which drills into Zeds, draining their blood leaving emaciated corpses in their wake. Demolitionists receive their own high-tech in the Seeker Six, a rocket launcher that brings the ability to lock on to enemies and fire up to six rockets simultaneously.
• New Enemies – King Fleshpound and the Quarter Pounds cannot be contained and have broken out of the Poundemonium weekly game mode! Both enemies have been rebalanced for their introduction into survival game mode and will appear in normal play.
• New Limited Time Items – Earn Halloween Treat Tickets by playing the game, or purchasing Premium tickets through the store, and exchange them in-game for themed cosmetic items.
• New Daily Missions and Dosh Vault System – Players will receive a random set of missions each day that can be completed to earn Vault Dosh. While it won’t be usable to purchase items during matches, players will receive free Vault Crates containing cosmetic items at various milestones as their Vault Dosh accumulates.
• New Crates – New Emote, Weapon Skin, and Cosmetic crates have been added to the drop pool.

Killing Floor 2: Halloween Horrors is live now, and as I mentioned, is free. Enjoy the trailer.

Killing Floor: Incursion is basically a VR version of the zombie splatterfest Killing Floor, although as we said in our preview, the actual gameplay is somewhat different. There's still plenty of killing—"Killing Floor: Incursion has some good killing," as Steven opined—but instead of "wave-based hordes that slowly wear you down," the action is interspersed with puzzles, object interactions, exploration, and trading. 

But it's always smart to play to your strengths, and that's what Tripwire Interactive is doing with its first content pack. The central element of the update will be a new game mode called Holdout, a "continuous onslaught of enemies for you (and a friend) to fend off, before succumbing to the horde." 

"After players complete a level in the campaign, that level will be opened up to be played in Holdout. Inside this level will be a single location that players are tasked with defending as long as possible," Tripwire explained. "Starting with a pistol and knife, players will need to scavenge for better weapons as time goes on. As players progress, the Zeds will start getting more aggressive and more challenging Zeds will enter the fray, including multiple bosses at once!" 

The studio said that the details aren't locked down yet, and that "everything is subject to change as we continue to iterate on the gameplay." A release date for Holdout hasn't been set, but it's expected to be ready later this year, and will be free for all Incursion owners. Tripwire said it will share more information about the mode as development progresses. 

Don't look now, but right now might be the best time ever for multiplayer FPSes. I'm old enough to have experienced the [to the tune of Bryan Adams] 'FPSummer of Ninety-Nine' that gave us, egad, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, Team Fortress Classic, and the beginning of Counter-Strike. I think 2017 surpasses that.

In terms of depth, frequency of support, and contrasting kinds of multiplayer FPSes I can dig into, I don't think there's been a better moment for the PC gamer. The appropriate way to make this argument is with bullet points:

• An Arma mod on steroids is the most popular FPS on Steam. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is a story generator that balances intense firefights with goofing around. It's a 100-person free-for-all on a massive map that also respects your time. This week PUBG is running its first major tournament at Gamescom, with a $350,000 prize pool.  
• Even with PUBG alongside it, Arma 3—an intricate and often demanding sim—averages about 22,000 concurrent players daily. That's five times the playerbase it had at launch in 2013. 
• Blizzard's first FPS is colorful, competitive, and inclusive. But maybe most noteworthy is the tenacity and transparency with which Blizzard has iterated on Overwatch over time: it's been patched more than 120 times since launch, with seven seasonal events so far. 

• Investment money is pouring into Blizzard's Overwatch League, which will hopefully lay the groundwork for stable team rosters and great tournaments.
• Tribes isn't dead, it was just sleeping.
• Valve's support for CS:GO has been inconsistent, but the shooter has nevertheless cemented itself as an insanely deep competitive game. You could spend months working on your grenade technique alone. With its massive tournaments and a little help from online gambling, CS:GO has paved the way for all other FPS' esports scenes.
• Quake is back. Even with a free-to-play business model, rentable characters, and 'ultimate' abilities attached to each champion, Quake Champions bunnyhops and talks like a pure Quake game.
• One of the biggest game publishers in the world made a multiplayer-only, PC-first, tactical FPS and has supported it well for two years. Rainbow Six Siege has 2.3M daily players on all platforms.
• One decade after Halo 2, Destiny 2 is coming to PC. 

• Tripwire and Antimatter Games are quietly making some of the best FPSes on this list. Killing Floor 2, which just ran a great summer event, deserves some sort of blood-soaked Emmy for its gore system and gun animations. Rising Storm 2: Vietnam represents one of the best midpoints between authenticity and accessibility, continuing the series' ambitious focus on asymmetry.
• Battlefield 1, with easily the best infantry combat in the series, chugs along with paid expansions.
• March's Day of Infamy is a worthy successor to Day of Defeat, with great co-op to boot.
• Unreal Tournament is being remade as a unique collaboration between modders and Epic.
• Expect a major update to Team Fortress 2 when it turns 10 on October 10.
• Call of Duty: WWII is getting a beta on PC.
• 20 years after GoldenEye came out on Nintendo 64, the best version of it exists on PC and is maintained by a team of passionate fans. It's free.
• LawBreakers is rather good.
• Most of these games are funded by cosmetic microtransactions that don't affect gameplay, rather than expansions or map packs that would fragment the player base.
• The 144hz monitors you should play these games on are getting cheaper. 

I'm accepting counter-arguments in the comments. 

This week you'll probably want to keep some extra distance between you and the mobs of flesh that chase you around in Killing Floor 2. In KF2's final Weekly Outbreak event, "Boom," zeds explode when they die, hurting anyone or anything around them. Larger zeds explode like a miniature nuke, dealing even more splash damage.

Survive Boom on Suicidal difficulty and you'll earn the "Mind Blown" headgear, a stylish cosmetic that makes it look like mushroom clouds are coming out of your ears. 

This concludes Killing Floor 2's Weekly Outbreak events, which began in June at the start of the Summer Sideshow update.

The Humble Monthly Bundle for September is now available for purchase, once again offering over $100 in games for just $12. As is the way with these super-secret deals, all but one game in the package—Killing Floor 2—will remain hidden until the purchasing window has closed. 

It works like this: For $12 per month, you get one game immediately—in this case, Killing Floor 2—and the rest at the end of the month, when the next Humble Monthly goes live. It's subscription-based but you can cancel anytime, so you can grab the ones you like without being committed any further. And it's usually a really good deal, even without taking the bonus games into account—Killing Floor 2 normally goes for $30 on its own, for instance. 

But the extras aren't just pointless throwaways. The August monthly bundle offered Pillars of Eternity and NBA 2K17 up front, plus One Piece Burning Blood, Offworld Trading Company, War for the Overworld, Overcooked, Wuppo, Nongunz, Quiet City, and Kevin Eastman's Underwhere issues 1-4. That's not bad for 12 bucks. 

The September Humble Monthly Bundle will be available for purchase until September 1.

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. 

In the past month or two, Tripwire has been playing fast and loose with the size of its dismemberable heads and torsos over the course of its Weekly Outbreak events. This week's new mutator, Beefcake, embiggens zeds that score hits against you.

Tripwire tells me via email:

"Whenever Zeds damage a player they get bigger and gain more health. they also become more dangerous because their reach also increases. Be sure to kill Sirens and King Crawlers quickly because the siren scream will 'grow' any Zeds in her scream radius. The king crawler and Zeds that pass through the gas cloud will also 'grow.'"

Beat the event on Suicidal difficulty and you'll earn the Horzine Armor Precious, a golden suit that'll match the helmet featured in a different Outbreak last month. This is one of the last KF2 Weekly Outbreaks, which Tripwire creative director Bill Munk announced at the PC Gaming Show last month at E3. Here's next week's event, the final one of the summer:     

August 8—Boom - Zeds under pressure; may explode.

Maybe it was something they ate? Bad gas? Whatever it was, Zeds explode when killed in this outbreak.

First we had the return of inflated heads, then we had the uber-challenging Suicide-levelled "Poundemonium" Outbreak. Last week, we were treated to the absurdly graphic yet inherently playful Up, Up and Decay and now we have Zed Time. Killing Floor 2 sure is keeping us on our toes by way of its Weekly Outbreak schedule.

"In Zed Time the game is always in Zed Time," explains developer Tripwire Interactive. Unsure of what Killing Floor 2's Zed Time is? Let me point you in the direction of Wes' GIF-tastic gunslinging animations article. 

Tripwire continues: "The Zed Time in this mode is a little faster than normal. When there are only 5 Zeds left or during Trader Time the game goes out of Zed Time. We've also cranked up the spawn rate to super super-fast and Zed Time skills are disabled. This mode is cranked up so high that it would be impossible to beat in real-time! Good Luck!!"

And now onto some moving pictures: 

This is one of several time-limited challenges running until August, as Tripwire creative director Bill Munk announced at the PC Gaming Show last month at E3. Here's the remaining two upcoming events:  

August 1—Beefcake - Bigger they are, harder you fall.

In this outbreak, Zeds increase their health, size, and reach when they hit players or are affected by certain Zed abilities.              

August 8—Boom - Zeds under pressure; may explode.

Maybe it was something they ate? Bad gas? Whatever it was, Zeds explode when killed in this outbreak.      

Killing Floor 2's Zed Time is what I imagine it's like to get opera. Time slows to a crawl and your existence becomes pure sensation. You're crying, you don't know why you're crying, and then you're laughing, and you experience the spectrum of human emotion in an instant as your vision becomes nothing but light and an angel descends on golden wings and offers you a deeper understanding of the universe and your tiny-but-significant place in it. Zed Time is like that, but with guns and disgusting piles of flesh. 

Killing Floor 2 is a co-op game about shooting genetic freaks and watching their guts explode in beautiful, filthy slow motion. It's become dramatically more fun since its first Early Access release, thanks to a wide variety of character classes and weapons added over the past couple years. It's still a really straightforward and repetitive game—see mutants, shoot mutants—but with a secret weapon to keep that repetition entertaining. KF2's secret weapon is that its arsenal of guns is the best-realized in gaming: thanks to absurdly detailed high framerate animations and great tuning, most of its guns feel and look incredible with every single bullet leaving the barrel. And then there's Zed Time.

Zed Time is a fancy name for slow motion, but in KF2 it kicks off for everyone when some Cool Shit happens, like a perfect headshot or a grenade that separates seven charging zeds from their legs simultaneously. When you trigger Zed Time yourself it's hard not to immediately mutter a fuck yeah or an ohohoho as your screen explodes in viscera. Suddenly you're hearing the chug chug chug of every bullet as it fires and feeling the power of the gun in your hands as the action hammers back and forth and the barrel trembles from the force. 

When someone else triggers Zed Time, you might laugh because you're watching a set of legs and arms fly across your screen in slow motion, or because you just started reloading and have five seconds of no-shooting ahead of you. It's agonizing, but that five seconds is a great opportunity to admire detailed reloads that would otherwise go by in the blink of an eye. Like so:

All of Killing Floor 2's reloads are motion captured, which includes its faster "tactical" reloads like the one above. You unlock those faster reloads in a skill tree as you level up KF2's classes, and they're definitely cooler when you know some guy with expertise in 19th century pistols actually did that sick reload in mocap gear.

As I've been playing a ton of Killing Floor 2 lately, I've come to appreciate the little details of all of its weapons more and more. So I asked developer Tripwire to send over some special captures of its weapons firing at full speed and in Zed Time, without the background confusion of a bunch of exploding bodies distracting the eye. Let's look at some cool guns.

M14 EBR

Here's a really simple one to start with. There's nothing crazy going on here, but if you look closely you can actually see the barrel wobbling after it fires. That's the kind of detail you'd only pick up in Zed Time, and most games would never both to animate, because the entire firing animation would only be a few frames. 

9mm pistol

Another basic one, but damn that must be the best looking 9mm pistol in a game.

Kalashnikov AK-12

Okay, now we're talking. The animation on this gun is incredible. Watch the barrel. Watch the sight mounted on top. Watch the ejection port. So many tiny movements.

SCAR-H Assault Rifle reload

What happens if you try to reload a weapon but are already full on ammo? There's a unique animation for that, of course. Actually, there's more than one. 

M14 EBR Reload

Of course, sometimes you just want a regular old reload. But why remove the magazine by hand when you can knock it out with the new one?

Okay, let's look at some gibs

There's some amazing detail in those animations, and they make those guns feel good when you pull the trigger. But so do explosions and headshots. And KF2 does those incredibly well, too. Cue the opera.

Yes, that is, in fact, a map based on Peach's castle from Super Mario 64.

No, it's not usually this bloody. But now I'm imagining a Brutal Mario 64 mod where each Goomba is filled with five liters of blood.

An Evan Lahti special. Gibs + physics = magic.

See, it's not just the gun animations that are ridiculously detailed. Zed bodies gib depending on the type and directionality of an attack. In this case, that means a perfect knife slice from head to toe.

This is the kind of silliness Zed Time was born for.

Firing the gunslinger's dual pistols in Zed Time is SO SATISFYING.

And, finally, the best damn gun in Killing Floor 2: the double barrel. Quite possibly the only shotgun outside of Doom to earn the Super Shotgun name.

One of the things I like most about Killing Floor 2 is the way it mixes absurdity with graphic violence. This week's Weekly Outbreak—essentially a temporary mutator—goes all-in on gore and humor.

Earlier in the summer KF2 added a shrinking zeds, and now we continue to see Tripwire play with physics in "Up, Up and Decay," where shooting and slashing zeds will cause them to fill with air.

"As Zeds receive damage they inflate," Tripwire tells me via email. "After some time they start to deflate. Once they reach max inflate they turn into death balloons and rain down gibs. The idea is if you don't finish them off they go back to normal size and heal!"

Complete this challenge, and you'll earn the Hans Plushy Backpack item shown in the trailer above. This is one of several time-limited challenges running until August, as Tripwire creative director Bill Munk announced at the PC Gaming Show at E3. Here's the rest of the schedule:  

July 18 - Up, Up and Decay - Try to make ninety-nine Zed balloons.

Shooting Zeds in this outbreak will cause them to inflate like balloons, even to the point of floating away and popping!             

July 25 - Zed Time - All the Zed Time in the world.

Ever think that life is passing you by? Not in this outbreak! You'll be in Zed Time any time you're near a Zed.       

August 1 – Beefcake - Bigger they are, harder you fall.

In this outbreak, Zeds increase their health, size, and reach when they hit players or are affected by certain Zed abilities.              

August 8 – Boom - Zeds under pressure; may explode.

Maybe it was something they ate? Bad gas? Whatever it was, Zeds explode when killed in this outbreak.