With the release of Dead Island 2, there are a lot of things to be felt. The game has been in development for nearly a decade, and naturally, expectations were high. While the original holds a special place in many players’ hearts there have been a lot of time and zombie games come and gone. The question on my mind going into Deep Silver’s new title was, is Dead Island 2 is worth the wait, or if the sequel simmered too long in the pressure cooker.
You know, the sequel. Although it’s not the second game in the franchise, technically. There was Escape Dead Island, a third-person action-adventure game; Dead Island: Epidemic, a MOBA which couldn’t get its feet off the ground, Dead Island: Survivors, a mobile game which feels like an early, rougher Minecraft Legends and Dead Island: Retro Revenge, a 16-bit beat-em-up that got lumped into the Definitive Collection.
When I think about Dead Island, it can be tough for me to clearly visualize. The game came out in 2011, while I was still in middle school and things were were almost inconceivably different than they are now. We photographed a black hole, Tom Brady retired twice and there have been 12 new Call of Duty games (not even including remakes). I would be remiss not to also mention the outbreak of a very real pandemic.
Dead Island 2 has taken its time strolling through what was likely an absolutely torturous development hell, but emerged from the flames a well-refined, brutally gruesome successor to an already-excellent contribution to the zombie genre of games.
An added benefit of having such a long time in the development process is that the graphics received a much needed upgrade. The Dead Island Definitive Collection remastered the first game and its DLC, Riptide, but these were still only the best upgrades that could be given without rebuilding Techland’s proprietary Chrome Engine.
Dead Island 2 is built on Unreal Engine 4, and like every time I see a game in Unreal, it feels exactly that. The comparison between the way this game looks and how games looked a decade ago is remarkable, with textures being full of depth and detail as opposed to looking like wallpaper. Not only that, but the same piles of sludge don’t get reused in every other room that you walk into.
Dead Island 2’s story motivates you to play it without dragging you along with no rhyme or reason, and it’s self-aware in a way that manages to stay charming without becoming grating. The characters and side characters are all absolutely absurd, in a way that evokes the first Dead Island flawlessly. The humor is dark while still being light-hearted, and many of the characters leave you wondering just how they made it so far.
Dead Island 2 doesn’t just act scary and play like a horror game, it builds a horrifying landscape and then cracks jokes at it. You walk into a room that makes your stomach turn with gore, but your character quips about the smell, and that takes away a lot of the edge that would make the game scary. Luckily, it doesn’t need to be. Dead Island 2 plays like a standard, first-person zombie game, but it doesn’t try too hard to be anything more than that. There isn’t some complex reason behind why the zombie outbreak started, but it doesn’t seem like anyone actually cares unless they’re actively being attacked. Life seems to just keep moving in Hell-A, and you’ve got to do the same.
You are always fighting in Dead Island 2. Whether you’re exploring through some houses or hustling down the street, you’re sure to almost always encounter a zombie willing to scrap. A benefit of having the semi-open world is that you don’t always have to take the time to fight every single zombie, but you can just run on by if you just want to get to your objective. When you do decide to take on a fight however, the game gives you plenty of ways to get the job done.
You can shoot em, slash em, throw things at em or just plain punch em. Dead Island 2 wants you to kill zombies, unlike the titles that encourage stealth to slide right by the fight. Not only is bashing zombies satisfying in the context of the story in-game, but it feels so good getting to do it again after all these years.
Dead Island 2 is also one of those games that cycles back and forth between humbling you and letting you feel like a machine made only for mayhem. You’ll be faced with an enemy that might take you down a few times, but once you slay them once, you can slay them again and again. All this just before the game hits you with another enemy that makes you reconsider how to play the game, and it’s a comfortable back and forth.
Dead Island 2 had some decently large shoes to fill before its release. Not as large as if Half Life 3 were to get a release trailer, but still pretty big. Dead Island set the tone for what a lot of zombie games could be. Survivors no longer had to hide within the graffiti-strewn walls of Left 4 Dead’s safehouses, but were free to run, slay and play in the sunlight. Dead Island 2 followed in the first game’s footsteps and brought something special to the table.
While not being the most unique zombie title to hit the market, Dead Island 2 managed to hit most of the targets that it was aiming for. The combat system got a rework that allows for in-depth customization reminiscent of the first game, with even more options to set zombies up for disaster. I was glad to see that it not only added plenty of variety to the game, but it didn’t get to a point of being too much to handle. Usually I’m preferential to a skill tree as opposed to subbing skill cards in and out, but the cards made me really focus on the particular build I was playing at any given moment.
The story is just as wild and and scattered as I was expecting it to be, and I mean that in the best way. With characters that drive the plot in fun and engaging ways, all it takes to really enjoy Dead Island 2’s plot is to suspend your disbelief and loosen your sense of humor. The multiplayer allows for the same cooperative chaos that was featured in the first game, with a phenomenal cast of voice actors supporting the action. All of the survivors are a treat to play as and around, with dialogue that fits perfectly into the world.
It’s too soon after release to tell for sure just how the game will fare in the long run, but so far the future of Dead Island seems like it’s going to depend on how creative Deep Silver can get post-launch. Opinions so far seem to be generally positive, with an emphasis on the lack of real creativity out of the gameplay, especially late in the game.
All in all, Dead Island 2 serves as an excellent successor to the initial game, both spiritually and physically. If you played the first Dead Island, the sequel will certainly not disappoint, and there will definitely be notes of nostalgia from getting back into zombie slaying. The story, gameplay and environment all make you feel like you’re in the same outbreak as on Banoi without feeling like a forced extension onto the original story.
For a long time when I thought of Dead Island, I thought only of the song Who Do You Voodoo, rapped by Josef “J7” Lord. After a few years passed, I couldn’t see past the dark veil of development hell that made me doubt the very existence of the game, but now that it’s real, I’ll gladly be taking my zombie army on a parade through the streets of Hell-A. Who do you voodoo, bitch?
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