Dead Island was a great game back in 2011. I longed for a sequel and not long after the release it was announced Dead Island 2 was in the works. Eventually, things didn’t go as planned and Techland – the original developer – decided to focus on Dying Light instead. I figured out Dead Island 2 was never coming out and that was fine because I had Dying Light (and Dying Light 2) to satisfy my zombie-slaying needs. With Dambuster Studios taking over, the idea of a sequel was back on the table and 10 years after being announced we can finally try out this gorefest.
Welcome to Hell-A
Los Angeles – the city of Angels is now the city of flesh-eating zombies. You are one of a bunch of “slayers” you get to pick at the start of the game. These are larger-than-life badasses with a personality that’ll make you smile throughout the campaign. As your character, Dead Island 2 takes you through all the famous places in “Hell-A” and lets you meet up with exaggerated classic L.A. characters ranging from A to Z listers, washed-up musicians and a bunch more dodgy but fun characters. With these crazy encounters you’ll have a blast getting through the city were it not for the hoards of zombies in your way. Luckily as a slayer, you are no stranger to fighting off the ghoulish undead. As it happens, you even got bit by one and didn’t turn. This makes you essential to the survival of mankind because you could be the key to solving this crisis. Sadly you won’t meet any giraffes…
Smash everything to pieces
Dead Island 2 main purpose is to destroy zombies in a fun but gruesome way. The FLESH system implemented by the developers makes this feature bigger, better and especially bloodier than before. With a range of mostly melee weapons – guns are included in the game but only towards the 2nd part of the game – to choose from you can swing away at zombies with different effects. Where you hit the zombie will impact the way they look and even alter their behavior. Punching a zombie in the jaw can make the jaw dangle to the side of its skull. Slicing a leg of a zombie turns them into a crawler. Having trouble with zombies grabbing you and trying to eat you for early lunch… slice off their arms. There are a lot of ways to slice, bludgeon, poke, push, punch, … zombies with different effects making it the centerpiece of the game.
Just like the previous game, Dead Island 2 forces you to try out as many ways as possible to get rid of the undead hordes. Weapons will be found everywhere but each has a limited amount of usage as they eventually break. Some of the more uncommon weapons have the ability to upgrade and add mods turning them in a one of a kind weapon of mass zombie destruction. As your character levels, the enemies get tougher. Some of your weapons won’t hurt the zombies as they used to. You can choose to get new ones or match your current level through some workstations scattered around the areas. I get easily attached to a weapon so having the ability to get my favorite weapon up to the current level was a nice bonus.
Different slayers
As mentioned before, Dead Island 2 has a few different options as protagonists. Besides their personalities and funny one-liners, these come with their own perks. I picked Carla for my first playthrough because a feisty Latina looked like a good option to save the world. Her commentary on what happened during the game cracked me up. Her take on life oozed confidence and fearlessness. With a lot of other characters to choose from, Dead Island 2 offers some replayability. Although the game introduces a system with collectible cards to further tweak your character, I found this to not be as interesting as I first thought. The upgrade system offers new abilities and buffs throughout the game by gathering cool-looking playing cards. Choosing a limited amount from a deck should – in theory – offer you a customizable character. Sadly, I missed the impact of these cards on the way I played the game. There are a few buffs that mattered but for the most part, these only added minor boosts barely reflecting in the gameplay.
Hit it again
Dead Island 2 is meant to be fun and doesn’t – by all means – take itself seriously. It is meant to be this crazy comedy meets horror thing. Storywise this offers not so much but I don’t feel this game needs it. The slaying is what makes this game great. Although I find the new ways to butcher the different types of zombies and their Apex varients by far the most fun part of the game, it is also its worst part. After about 10 hours you’ll find yourself doing the same thing over and over again. With a bunch of ways to get rid of the undead, you keep investing in the game to simply fade out towards the latter part of the game. I like to compare it to a suspenseful horror movie with way too many jump scares. The first ones are great and get your blood pumping. After that, you just expect them and start to find them annoying. Dead Island 2 needed some extra game elements to keep it interesting in my opinion.
Conclusion
Dead Island 2 looks awesome. The blood splattering, the jaw-dangling, the cracking of bones hit by a tire iron, … everything looks and sounds awesome. The feeling you get slaughtering zombies is great but sadly fades out a bit too fast. You could be fine with Dead Island 2 just being a relentless zombie slaying endoavor, I longed for some much-needed variation.
