KF2: Swap Zeds to Event Skins (Xmas, Halloween, Summer)

Killing Floor 2 swaps in festive Zed skins during seasonal events, but you do not have to wait for the calendar. The trick, described here in a bilingual Steam guide (Russian and English), is to rename and exchange two package files so the game loads the event version all the time. The author demonstrates it with the Christmas update.

What to know first

• Only skins change. Sounds and everything else stay the same.
• It works in multiplayer, but expect extra loading at first and occasional kicks on map change.
• Event updates may edit these files in the future, so repeat the steps after an event patch.
• An older Workshop item (linked from the guide, page 5 of its comments) describes a different method, but the author could not find the files it mentions in Documents; the folders there seem to have changed after a game update.

Steps (Xmas example)

1. Go to:

...\Steam\steamapps\common\killingfloor2\KFGame\BrewedPC\Packages\ZEDs

2. At the bottom of the folder you will find ZED_ARCH.upk. Cut it and paste it into the event folder you want, here Xmas (the others are Halloween and SummerSideshow; they all live inside ZEDs).
3. Open that event folder and take the single event file, named like XMAS_ZED_ARCH.upk (the name differs by event). Move it into the ZEDs folder, where you removed the other file from.
4. In ZEDs, rename XMAS_ZED_ARCH to ZED_ARCH. Go back into the event folder and rename the original ZED_ARCH to XMAS_ZED_ARCH.

In plain words: you swap the two files and swap their names. Do it in this order, and do not mix the files up.

Result

Start the game and the Zeds wear the event skins in normal matches. Here is a Zed in its event variant.

An event-skinned Zed after the file swap.

The same skin on another map.

Undo

Repeat the swap in reverse, or run "Verify Integrity of Game Files" in Steam to restore the originals. Related: event Zeds in single player.