Anybody familiar with video games past the casual observance and appreciation will likely be aware of the saga of Dead Island 2. A follow up to the popular tropical island survival horror zombie game Dead Island (as you may have guessed) it has waxed and waned in and out of the collective gamer consciousness for the better part of a decade.
First announced way back in 2014 with this now legendary E3 trailer, Dead Island 2 passed hands from developer to developer like an unwanted Christmas gift, and is now firmly under the guidance of Dambuster Studios and publisher Deep Silver, who have been busy behind the scenes since 2018 shaping it into an experience press were invited to play a couple of weeks ago.
Let’s start by taking a little look at what Dambuster has been working on with the brand new trailer for Dead Island 2.
In the heart of London’s Camden town, an American-style diner has been covered with biohazard tarps and bedecked with zombie dummies and lashings of fake blood. There are a few games journalists and some high-end gaming PCs dotted around, though they’re not really part of the aesthetic. The reason this is important, is because it really compounds the vibe Dead Island 2 is striving for; Americana at the end of the world.
The first-person RPG is set in Los Angeles, which has been put into total quarantine - facing the same worldwide zombie apocalypse as the first game - and will support multiplayer co-op for up to three people. The reason for picking LA, as the game’s lead narrative designer Ayesha Khan told us, is actually very simple. “The theme of the franchise is paradise gone to hell,” Khan explained. “Yes, of course, it was a tropical island [in the original] Dead Island. Other versions of paradise, however, are success, fame, Hollywood. In that way, it is kind of a goal and a paradise for most people.”
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It’s worth noting that this iteration of the game has been started completely from scratch by Dambuster, who are keen to separate their product from the game’s bumpy past. While the core ideas of the game seem to remain, this is very much an experience started in 2018 with the new developer. Dead Island 2 is confirmed to be in the same universe as its predecessor and takes place chronologically after it, but isn’t a direct sequel as such. “Story wise, it is very much its own thing,” says Khan. “You don’t have to have played the first one, but again, it’s in the same world. If you're into the lore, there's little threads of connection that you will absolutely have fun finding and putting together and there might be one or two familiar faces, so keep an eye out.”
So what about the new faces? The game will have six protagonists - known as Slayers - who you can choose from, each able to be built around your own playstyle. While actual info on who these people are is thin on the ground (with the exception of Jacob who we meet in the trailer above and another called Amy, who we play as in the demo) we do know that all of the characters are infected with the virus, and are able to summon their inner zombie to inflict massive amounts of damage to get out of a sticky situation. You see, these folk are referred to as thrivers, not survivors. They have come to flourish in the hellish wasteland, able to use their abilities to their advantage. Each character can have their skills fully re-customised on the fly so as not to pigeonhole the player, though we didn’t get to mess around with this premise during our time with the game.
Taking the reigns during a mission called Boardwalk Of The Dead (that should give you some indication as to how seriously Dead Island 2 takes itself) which picks up roughly half way through the campaign, it represented a beta build of the game which is meant to be pretty close to the final thing - currently playable from start to finish - if not totally polished and rounded.
The thing that struck me the most was how viscerally gory Dead Island 2 is. My first encounter with a zombie had me attack it with a wrench I found in my inventory which, after a few wet thuds to the face, saw the poor husk’s jaw hanging on by a thread. This is a story the game’s technical art director Dan Evans seemed totally unphased by. “It's gonna [be] hopefully the goriest game ever,” he proclaimed. Naturally, this prompted a conversation about how exactly they’re aiming to achieve this. “If you imagine a zombie pinata, it’s a little bit like that,” he laughs. “Because we've got, like, the insides of the zombies [done in a] more traditional approach - it's just broken down to lots and lots of pieces [and individual organs.] With the bones, they can break and really do different things. And then on top of that, you've got this layer of flesh and muscle and fat - all that’s going to accurately model how it reacts. The main thing that I wanted to get into the game was that it looks wet and floppy.” Well, quite.
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I have to say that from what I’ve seen, it’s a case of mission accomplished on that front. Enemies have things like locational burn damage - that’s different depending on if they’ve been electrocuted or burned with fire - as well as your standard limbs dropping off and intestines popping out. It is not for the faint of heart.
Weapons are found dotted around the game world and can be upgraded and crafted with scraps of metal and other enhancements to create more deadly instruments of zombicide. In my time I used a wrench, a sledgehammer (with a blowtorch attached to it) a katana, electrified bear claw knuckle dusters and an assault rifle. Truly, it looks like you’ll never be bored of ways to maim the unwitting zombie inhabitants of LA. There’s also plenty of defensive and offensive moves like being able to dodge, ground pound and dropkick to give you the edge in battle, and throwable weapons like molotov cocktails and even a blood-baited, timed explosive that draws groups of zombies together before turning them into red mist.
Really, the overall tone of Dead Island 2 comes down to three keywords: pulp, zombie, fun. As both Khan and Evans pointed out, that’s exactly what the game has been gunning for with its influences. “I went back and I looked at games like Doom 1 and Resident Evil 1 because they really defined, and were from the same era as, the films that I was looking at,” Evans explained. For my money, I got a very Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil 2 Remake vibe from the game’s revelry in its body horror but I suppose when you’re attempting a game this over the top, you have to aim high. “I like to think of Dead Island 2 as a love letter to classic Hollywood, B-movie horror,” Khan surmised of the game’s story. “If you were watching George Romero’s Day Of The Dead as a modern audience, you'd be like, ‘Wow, they really doubled down on the zombies here.’ That's kind of the vibe that we were going for.”
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Dead Island 2 will release 3 February 2023 on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Google Stadia and PC via the Epic Games Store.
Featured Image Credit: Deep Silver, Dambuster Studios