Dead Island: Riptide visits a new island with your favorite characters

Was your first vacation to Banoi not enough? Developer Techland seems to think so. The devs next chapter in the Dead Island franchise, Riptide, will bring you back to the tropics for more zombie-filled, blood-spattered family fun come 2013. I managed to get a viewing of a hands-off demo behind curtains at PAX and here’s what I saw.

While not officially a sequel, Dead Island: Riptide‘s story will take place almost immediately after the first game, with all the original cast of characters to play, plus one new unannounced one. Players will also be able to import their characters from a previous Dead Island save file, so all is well for players that are unwilling to let go of the hard-earned effort put into them.

Our demo took place in a jungle and was headed by survivors Purna and Logan, who somehow managed to find themselves stranded on another island filled with zombies – it’s not Banoi, but it seems to be pretty close to it. An escape route had been found in a nearby catacombs, however they were flooded and required the water to be pumped out first, the catch being that the pump was loud and would draw unwanted attention. Taking a boat over the catacombs, our demo’ers started grabbing pieces of wire fencing scattered about the area and put up walls around the catacombs entrances. Then they finally started the pump.

Here’s where we were introduced into a new aspect of Riptide: a defense mini-game where the survivors needed to hold out against several frantic waves of zombies while the pump did its thing. There were explosive canisters around to hurl and shoot, fences that needed constant replacing and several mounted turrets that could be used to fight off the oncoming horde. Among the regular zombie patrons, we were soon introduced to the Grenadier, a new zombie type that was fond of hurling explosives. The new zombie type certainly kept survivors on their toes as they tried to keep everything together. As the battle waged on, the weather gradually turned to rain from its previously sunny state – another new mechanism Riptide brings to the table is its dynamic weather system, helping to re-enforce the atmosphere of the survivor’s struggle.

The demo ended shortly after the sequence was complete, and all-in-all, this game is still Dead Island, through and through. Riptide hasn’t seen many major changes and certainly won’t change your mind on the series if you didn’t like it the first time. For those that did though, there’s much more zombie-killing action to be had next year.