[3] In Killing Floor 2, taking place a month after the first game, the outbreak has spread beyond Europe,[2] causing governments to collapse and communication systems to fail.

Random weapons, ammo, and armor can be found by exploring the level, though players have a limited amount of weight they can carry.

Players gain monetary bonus for surviving a round, which they can use to buy and/or sell body armor, ammo, and weapons at a store, also known as the Trader.

A patch released in early 2016 included a dynamic difficulty option in which a computer-based "Game Controller" can alter the strength of subsequent waves, either making them easier or harder based on the players' performance.

[7] Players can also configure their playable character through a number of pre-made personas and options for various clothing and accessories, but these customizations are purely cosmetic with no impact on gameplay mechanics.

[8][9] Killing Floor 2 was developed by Tripwire Interactive, who began work following the release of their 2011 video game Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.

Tripwire president John Gibson stated Killing Floor 2 is the first time they had been able to develop a game with what he thought was a reasonable team size and budget.

The original Killing Floor was ported by ten people in a three-month period; by 2014 the studio had expanded to a team of fifty employees.

The developers considered using Unreal Engine 4 but decided against it as they didn't want to scrap their current work in progress and because of concerns that the game might not scale down to run on lower-end computers.

[10][13] This allowed them to record high frame rate weapon animations for additional detail and fidelity in Zed Time, a slow motion mechanic used in the series.

Art and creative directors, David Hensley and Bill Munk both cited Soldier of Fortune's GHOUL system as an inspiration for the M.E.A.T.

The melee combat has been revamped with the addition of a blocking mechanism; attack motions are now dictated by the player character's direction of movement.

[17] Tripwire are planning to implement support for Steam Workshop and release a software development kit to allow for extensive modding.

[20] In November 2015, Tripwire added a in-game store to allow players to purchase cosmetic items for their characters via microtransactions that otherwise had no effect on gameplay.

"[27] Following PC Gamer's coverage and reveal of Killing Floor 2, they announced subscribers to the US version of their magazine would receive an exclusive character skin in Issue #254.

[30][31] On July 31, 2014, Iceberg Interactive announced a partnership Tripwire to bring Killing Floor 2 to retail stores in Europe and other non-Steam digital platforms.

[35] The game's original soundtrack was released on the same day, under record label Solid State with songs from Living Sacrifice, Demon Hunter, and Impending Doom.

However, like the previous game, negative feedback from the reviewers considered that the lack of any real plot or aim for the players other than killing specimens, the small number of existing maps, and the repetitiveness of the gameplay reduced its replay value.