It’s hard to believe that we’re actually, finally going to be able to play Dead Island 2. It’s been twelve years since the original game, and eight years since Dead Island 2’s original planned release date. It’s finally coming out though and I got to spend a few hours slicing and dicing zombies with an early build.
Set a few months after the original Dead Island, its sequel moves us from the island of Banoi to Los Angeles, amusingly nicknamed “HELL-A”. You play as one of six “slayers” who try to escape the recently infested Los Angeles only to have your plane crash, get yourself bitten to discover you are immune to the virus, and form up with a group to find some way past the military blockade. The game is definitely more lighthearted in tone than its sister series Dying Light, which, depending on the person, might work against it. Taking place in LA, its cast is full of *very* LA people who all show off their own brand of stereotypical LA obnoxiousness, which unfortunately extends to your player character as well. On top of that, conversations can come off as slightly detached at times as well when your character is clearly slinging out a quip unique to their character, but the NPC you’re talking to doesn’t react to it. This makes sense since recording six unique reactions for NPCs to the six unique jokes each of the characters might say would definitely be a bit of an undertaking but still, it makes many conversations come off a bit jilted.
Judging from the stats screen, my build of the game allowed me to play what seems like just about half the main content of Dead Island 2’s full game which was a decent amount of stuff to do in the few hours it took me to run through it. I got to run through a healthy amount of main story quests that brought me to a variety of areas, along with a handful of side-missions which were fine for the most part. The interesting thing about those however was the ability to have side characters head over to a mansion that serves as the main survivor group’s base of operations.
If you played either Dead Island or Dying Light, you’ll be very familiar with the gameplay loop in Dead Island 2. There are zombies to slice apart and you can slice them up better by looting for materials that’ll allow you to craft more powerful dealers of death like electrifying a pair of claws that look like they were stolen from Street Fighter’s Vega. Beating up on zombies in these games still feels good, even if they feel somewhat spongier in Dead Island 2. Something I immediately noticed is how much more aggressive the zombies feel in this game compared to previous games. They’re way more eager to run up in your face and repeatedly take swings at you if you let them. Keeping a finger on the dodge button is key to making it out of scraps alive, and the dodge feels a lot more intuitive than it did in Dying Light which is nice.
Visually, Dead Island 2 might have some of the most visceral gore technology I think I’ve ever seen in a game. Whip out a bladed weapon like a machete or kitchen knife and you’ll slice limbs clean off or leave gashes in a zombie’s torso. Use a more blunt object like a hammer or bat and you’ll start caving in parts of the body instead. Chunks of flesh are constantly coming off these zombies to the point where you can eventually peel all the flesh off to see the entire inner skeleton, organs and all. It’s all incredibly satisfying to see take place and makes it an easy indicator of how messed up a zombie is.
Returning from the original game, Dead Island 2 allows you to choose your starting character who all focus on a different playstyle from one another. New to the game is a “skill card” system where you’ll unlock new abilities in the form of cards that you can equip on your chosen character that’ll grant you anything from new moves like a dropkick, or perks like a damage boost when you make repeated attacks. As you unlock more cards you’ll be able to mix and match which ones you have, and the character you choose at the beginning not only determines their starting stats but also have cards unique to them. It’s a neat enough system, but compared to Dying Light 2’s skill tree it’s a very noticeable step down.
I’m going to be a bit upfront, exploring LA is honestly a massive disappointment compared to not only Dying Light’s map, but even the original Dead Island’s. LA is split into a variety of secluded zones you have to load into like a movie studio lot or suburban Beverly Hills, and these areas just aren’t very expansive. Worse yet, they feel even smaller when parts are blocked off with environmental junk meant to guide how you move through the areas which in turn makes what should be these wide outdoor areas feel more like cleverly disguised linear hallways instead. Additionally with how fresh Dying Light 2 still is, it’s hard to not look at that game and compare how much more fun it is to move around Dying Light’s world compared to Dead Island 2’s.
Which is unfortunately a thought that kept popping up in my head as I played Dead Island 2. Anytime I was moving around the various maps I would just be reminded how much better it was to explore Villedor than LA; despite Dying Light 2 featuring the most generic of all game protagonists with Aiden, him and the rest of the cast at least didn’t have me rolling my eyes on a near constant basis; and while there’s fun to be had smashing zombies here, it doesn’t feel as in-depth as it did in Dying Light 2. Ultimately, practically everything Dead Island 2 does, Dying Light 2 did better last year.
While my time with Dead Island 2 had some pockets of fun, a lot of it was punctuated with moments of “why does this exist?”. You could try to argue the comparisons to Dying Light 2 are unfair, but they’re there regardless. And maybe the full game will change my mind, but right now the “stripped back” nature of Dead Island 2 feels indicative of its troubled, and repeatedly restarted development cycle.
