Almost reaching the heights of ultimate vaporware classic Duke Nukem Forever, Dead Island 2 has finally evolved into the rotting corpse it was expected to since its announcement in the distant year of 2014. Hints of the original concept seen in the prototype footage are few and far between, with playable vehicles scrapped, but there’s no shortage of putrid meat to bash, fry, and puncture in a myriad of ways, which is all that matters here. The cooperative mode also makes a comeback, pitting three players in the somewhat predictable narrative and ramping up the zombie numbers accordingly.
With AAA ambitions but occasionally flirting with shortcomings inherently tied to the very fitting B-movie genre, Dead Island 2 is a pleasant and brutal adventure that could do without a disconcerting array of bugs and glitches.
Escape From Hell-A
Dead Island 2 has a very cinematic approach to its storytelling, starting with the first cutscene that introduces the six playable characters, also known as slayers. This diverse bunch sees their fortunes turn in a matter of minutes, as a hopeful escape turns into a plane crash and a desperate run for survival from the zombie threat. It’s during this accident that we get to choose our protagonist, each one with a couple of innate skills (more on that later) and attributes.
Amy is an extremely agile and quick-witted Paralympic athlete, Dani is a punk girl excelling at stamina and part of a roller derby team, Jacob is a former stuntman and his main attribute is high health, Ryan is a buff exotic dancer on a mission to bring back his younger brother, Bruno is a hustler with top critical damage skills, and Carla is a confident motorcycle stunt rider. Their distinct personalities and dialogues may lure you in for a second or third run, but the campaign length is already sitting around a very adequate 20 hours, if you roam the land and find a few side quests, lost and found missions, and collectibles.
With no vehicles in sight, which may come as a disappointment for some, Dead Island 2 throws you into relatively small areas across devastated LA. From Beverly Hills to Venice Beach, Santa Monica and Hollywood Boulevard, among others, you will go from luxurious mansions to the depths of the most disgusting sewers in your attempt to flee the city. The early locations take a linear approach but gradually opens as you unlock gates and other shortcuts, and the game improves when you reach Venice Beach, a larger open area that leaves a promising but unfulfilled taste of what this game could have been if it featured a seamless open world. A map allowing you to fast travel to any region can be found in some locations, namely the few safe houses that you encounter.
Despite the small size, Hell-A is a true paradise for collectors and explorers. It’s easy to get sidetracked as you break into another store and search for loot, use a fuse to open a loot chamber, meet a few oddball characters, or find a trigger for often-engaging side-quests. Expect some of these to take a stab at the streamer and influencer culture of pushing for shock value, or to uncover the fate of a few missing persons as you track them down.
1001 Ways to Kill the Dead
Dead Island 2 packs a resourceful arsenal and gives you the means to unlock your full potential. From the speedy blades to the impactful pickaxe and the inevitable firearms, you can tailor your approach according to the type of zombies in front of you. The crunchy sounds massively contribute to the feel of connecting a hit, and the occasional slow-motion effect adds style, even more when you manage to grab a soda can even before it touches the ground.
Location damage plays a crucial role, as you aim for the leg to prevent their movement, a very important tactic against the runners as they lose balance and drop like flies, or slice the upper limbs to face an often funny but still not entirely harmless – pun intended – zombie.
These tactics won’t work with stronger foes, but a quick inspection of the surroundings may reveal water and fuel jerrycans or barrels that serve as a trigger for blazing fire, caustic, or shock pitfalls, adding that extra variety to combat. At times you may feel overwhelmed, but keep moving and you may just find enough time to collect your thoughts and health. Get those brains of yours working by luring the zombies in a line to make them hit each other and save on ammo and weapon durability.
Most weapons can be upgraded with mods and perks on a workbench if you have found some blueprints and have enough cash and parts to do so. The damage increase may be significant, but the mix and match is what may turn the tables, as you combine speed, bleeding, or an elemental perk. Every weapon has a durability stat and becomes unusable when it depletes, but you can fix them at any workbench.
At one point you will unlock Fury mode, a self-explanatory rage boost that turns you into a devastating machine for a few seconds. The importance of this cannot be overstated, coming handy essentially against bosses or other larger creatures.
Finally, we have the skill deck, or how to customize your zombie-slaying build in a myriad of ways. Divided in four categories – Abilities, Survivor, Slayer, and Numen – and with various slots for specific attacks, health, and autophage (pretty much another tiered boost to some abilities), there is plenty of room to explore, with some cards being character-exclusive.
Glitch Like a Zombie
Hell-A looks very good, postcard-worthy in many spots and it can be a lot of fun to explore the interiors of each house or store – in other words, loot everything in sight and break every piece of glass. A few occasional missions require you to use your wits to find a specific location or item, in a welcome break from combat and spoon-fed questing, only giving you an indication of the area where the objective lies.
However, not everything is glorious in these lands, as you get to dive deep into the sewers and metro tunnels for what felt like the worst parts of the adventure. Stretching for a bit longer than I would like it, some of these are accompanied by recurrent valve pressure puzzles which aren’t entirely clear, but also not fun at all.
Still, the worst part of Dead Island 2 is how this strange land is riddled with supernatural glitches on top of the zombie plague. You’ll frequently see undead corpses flickering, limbs merging with the ground, still twitching, or zombies half-buried in walls, getting stuck inside kitchen cabinets, heads sticking out of solid wood crates, and a lot more. Daily objects also try to steal the spotlight, as fans merge with the ground and glitch like crazy, or one of my favorites, jerrycans with eternal water supply but that water is flowing upwards, going against every law of physics.
Another irksome issue stems from the way the saves work. Instead of spawning you in a checkpoint fairly close to your demise and restoring your previous state (ammo, durability, health kits…), you have these weird mixed savepoints where a health kit is gone even if you died one second after using it, the weapon wear and tear stays true to when you died, and so on. Most of the time you’re unsure about your progress, as some indicators are restored (doors shut, zombies restored) but others not (items didn’t respawn).
This is most disconcerting when in “kill’em all” missions, as you respawn to face weapon degradation, ammo lost, and the zombies keep on coming, leaving you wondering how many of the dozens of previously maimed bodies were brought back to life – so to speak. You can’t even save your position to different slots, there’s only one for each slayer and it’s automatic – you can pick a different slot to try other characters from the start, but that’s it.
Zombieland: Triple Tap
You can tackle the narrative alone or join two other players in your quest, with the number of zombies escalating accordingly. Dambuster Studios didn’t want to go for more than three simultaneous players as they deemed this the magic number for all the mayhem to work properly, and there are some important constraints to how this cooperative mode works.
The co-op mode will unlock when you reach Emma’s mansion, something that should take you under one hour. Sadly, there’s no cross-play, which means that you can’t connect with players from other platforms, but there’s cross-gen – PS5 players can play with PS4 owners, for example, and the same is the same for Xbox consoles.
In all logic, you can’t get ahead of your current story mission. You may join a game with a friend who is yet to reach your mission, but you’ll never be matched with someone who is ahead of you in the campaign. In case you help someone who is doing a mission you already tackled, your return to solo mode places you where you were before, so no harm done.
Doom and Gloom
The conception of Dead Island 2 was literally hell, with various studios failing to overcome the challenge. But it’s finally here after nearly a decade, and it’s a worthy pulp adventure filled with humor, guts and perhaps some glory. Oddly enough, it could be a better experience if given some more time to iron out the very evident bugs and glitches, but that may take the game back into another negative spiral of delays and hesitation.
With a consistent and crunchy limb damage system, some great sightseeing to catch, and more secret side-quests than you can shake your damaging electrocutor pike at, Dead Island 2 is absolutely worth the ride, despite its flaws – that zombie sticking out of the kitchen sink? That’s not part of the terror ride, you can be certain about that.
Score: 8/10
Pros:
- Solid limb damage system
- Six different playable characters
- Tons of side-quests and secrets
- Interesting cooperative mode
- Works great when the areas are open-ended
Cons:
- Several bugs and glitches that are impossible to ignore
- Weird save point mechanic
- Could have been much more if truly open world
Dead Island 2 review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.