Dead Island 2, after numerous delays, is finally approaching its release date on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. The dated zombie game can’t live up to its predecessors.
Dead Island 2 is a game lost in time. Over the course of a decade, its development has fallen to a trio of different studios, each attempting to shepherd a sequel to a moreish co-op zombie brawler from 2011. In the meantime, Dead Island’s original developer, Techland, has moved on to bigger and better things with its Dying Light series. The final result of this fraught process, delivered by Nottingham’s Dambuster Studios, can sometimes feel like an old friend.
Dead Island 2’s acerbic tone and dated systems summon a strange nostalgia for the silly, straightforward, but moreish first-person action games that dominated the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era. It’s a relic that is rough around the edges, but its linearity feels refreshing, and the gore-heavy combat offers constant, visceral spectacle. Most importantly, it’s not another checklist death march. If, like me, you’ve acquired a taste for brevity in recent years, you’ll be pleased to hear that you can finish this game in a reasonable amount of time.
You play as one of six ‘slayers’ who conveniently congregate on the last flight out of a quarantined Hell-A, Dambuster’s pulpy pastiche of Los Angeles. Alas, the infection spreads onboard, the plane crashes, and in the ensuing chaos, you discover that you’re immune. An insufferable movie star invites you to their McMansion in Beverly Hills to regroup, and you plot your way through the City of Angels to (hopefully) become part of the cure.
I picked Dani, a rockabilly mosher from Cork, Ireland whose cheesy quips kept me company throughout the predictable campaign. Each slayer has innate abilities and statistical differences, but you still follow the same story beats regardless of whom you choose. Dani’s explosive melee attacks sold me, though, as they pair nicely with Dead Island 2’s most remarkable feature: its disgustingly intricate procedural gore system.
Repeated attacks break through skin, muscle, fat, and bone, making zombie bodies feel like flesh piñatas, with accidental dismemberments aplenty. Eyeballs hang daintily out of sockets and jaws swing loose as undeterred zombies shamble toward you, their charred skin giving way to slimy blood. The sheer anatomical extravaganza of Dead Island 2 is a compelling reason to play, and its most forward-thinking feature.
