Dead Island 2 major free download announced

When Dead Island 2 was finally released in 2023, I think it’s fair to say that it took many gamers by surprise with its fun gameplay loop and quality visuals.

I should add, it's not that we expected developer Dambuster Studios to crank out a poor game, but it was more so related to the developmental hell that Dead Island 2 had been lost in for nearly a decade. Dead Island 2 was revealed at E3 2014. Initially, it was intended to be released the following year. Obviously, that never came to be.

Check out the original Dead Island 2 announcement trailer below!

The first team to handle the project was Yager Development (Spec Ops: The Line) before it was passed onto Sumo Digital (LittleBigPlanet 3) in 2016 following a year-long hiatus as publisher Deep Silver searched for a new studio to take on the project, and finally, Dambuster Studios (Homefront: The Revolution) were handed the reigns to see Dead Island 2 through to its completion when it was released in April 2023. Proving to be a fair success, Dead Island 2 went on to sell one million copies in its first three days of launch.

In our review of Dead Island 2, we wrote, “It’s exactly the game many of you will have been waiting for, and is quite clearly one of the most technically impressive zombie killing romps on the market. But where the likes of Dying Light offers slick parkour and Resident Evil gives us smart survival horror gameplay, Dead Island 2 has nothing of substance to balance out the endless waves of flesh munchers.”

Now, nearly a year after its release, Dambuster Studios has deployed the latest patch for Dead Island 2. The full patch notes are as follows:

General

• Support for Epic Game Launcher Cloud Saves Implemented
• Fixed an issue with enemies occasionally teleporting from one side of cover objects (such as cars) to the other.
• Fixed a potential blocker on the first load after a player transfers from playing on PS4 to PS5.
• Fixed various issues related to side quest content accessibility misbehaving for some players dependent on the relationship between the coop content they play, their main game progress and when they pick up side-quests.
• Fixed an issue with the ‘Gore Horse’ achievement not unlocking correctly for some players.
• Fixed the ‘Kill-O-Watt Kick’ skill not triggering VFX in some coop circumstances.
• Fixed an issue causing counters to do much less damage for players using bare fists after death and respawn.
• Fixed various issues with correctly awarding achievements to coop players.
• Various minor UI, HUD & damage number fixes.
• Some minor audio issues fixed.
• Various minor coop issues fixed.

HAUS DLC

• Fixes to various locations in which carryable heads could get stuck in the environment.
• Fixed an issue where blocking while close to a wall could cause carryable heads to get stuck inside it.
• Fixed an issue in which players could get a carryable head stuck beneath the storage locker when changing their character's cosplay.
• Fixed an issue with being able to create a blocker in the “Found: Zahra” mission by killing a set of zombies before the correct objective was active.
• Fixed an issue where Haus progress on multiple slayers could cause a blocker due to not being able to collect the crossbow at the bottom of the well.
• Fixed various environment collision issues in Haus, some of which allowed players to get out of the world or become stuck.
• Fixed various cases where zombies could get stuck or were unable to traverse the environment correctly.
• Various rare visual issues with Haus cut-scenes were fixed (camera issues, missing character models, assets in incorrect states.)
• Improved some messaging around reasons players can’t enter DLC content.

Dead Island 2 is out now on PC, PlayStation and Xbox.