Well, don’t I have egg on my face. I was firmly in the ‘Dead Island 2 will never come out’ camp. A sequel, eleven and a half years in the making, to a mediocre zombie game? Yeah, that’s gonna get lost between the sofa cushions. Goes to show my powers of prediction. But now we’ve answered ‘will Dead Island 2 ever exist’, we must move onto the stickier question, ‘why does Dead Island 2 exist’?
Eleven and a bit years is a long time ago, after all. Well, there’s no doubting that Dead Island 2 is fun to play. Hitting shambling horrors with whatever weapon-shaped things are nearby is reliably entertaining. In terms of hitting things with sticks, this is about as refined as you can get. If that’s all you’re after, then you’re set. For me though, Dead Island 2‘s biggest issue relates to its long incubation period. In eleven years, Dead Island has undergone remarkably little evolution.
Rough Day At The Beach
Dead Island 2 opens up with, what else, a plane crash. Before it crashes down, you get to pick which survivor you want to roll with. It’s a pretty diverse cast and each person is better suited to different playstyles. I went with a toughness and strength focused lady named Carla, knowing that these games tend to focus on melee. Plus she’s straight up punching a dude in her profile and I’m all about that. After picking your hero, you get about five minutes before you’re expected to insert sharp things into the brains of your fellow, salivating passengers. I’d like to say at this point that the combat is excellent. Blows feel heavy, sound gruesome and zombies react appropriately.
Picking up a pipe and smashing it into the head of a rotten hotel porter, causing their eye to dislodge and fly across the screen, gives me feelings that should probably be disclosed to a therapist. It’s paired with an elemental system, which has three flavours: fire, shock and acid. I found acid quite disturbing the first time I was grappled by a rapidly dissolving zombie. At least shock just makes ’em jiggle for a while. There are also a range of skills you can swap in and out, using a card system. It’s pretty robust, though I got through the whole game by just timing my blocks and stoving in skulls with whatever I had to hand.
The other face of combat is the inventory and this is where Dead Island 2 gains and loses points. On the good side, adding mods to weapons to change up their attributes and elements is nice. As you progress, you get some unique ones too. I liked the one that made critical hits explode, even if it basically involved taping a rotten spine to my knife. On the bad side, the aggressive weapon degredation is very frustrating. Weapons break quickly, meaning you constantly have to cycle through them. They’re also rapidly made obsolete by levelling. I was initially impressed by the wide open areas until I realised they had to be huge so you can find all the knick-knacks you need to keep your weapons up to date. Constantly comparing gear scores is very repetitive.
Dead Not-An-Island 2
Combat is also the first sign that Dead Island 2′s head is stuck in the past. The zombie types on offer here are so formulaic that you can pretty much predict the next one that’s going roll out. We’ve got the standard shamblers, the speedy buggers, the muscle men, exploding jerks and the big lads that’ve eaten all the pies and are in desperate need of an antacid. Even the final boss can’t get away from this, being a recycled zombie type that showed up hours previously. I kept waiting for Dead Island 2 to play its unique trump card but it never came.
Dead Island 2‘s plot is much the same story as well. Carla, bless her, gets bit early on but wouldn’t you know it? She’s immune. She drifts around Bel-Air and Beverly Hills (which admittedly isn’t on an island), slicing up the affluent dead, before getting entangled with the military and a mysterious doctor. It treads the usual zombie story beats so reliably that you can practically sing along. It’s saved by the sense of humour that runs through it. It’s almost B Movie level. Carla herself was a delight, regularly cracking jokes and just generally being upbeat and funny. The humour is well written and, crucially, contextual. It doesn’t just sling in a bunch of unconnected memes and random references and call it a day. Take notes, Gearbox.
The other saviour is the graphics. Dead Island 2 is really pretty. I don’t normally give much time to realistic graphics but good Lord. I took my first few steps on to Venice Beach and saw the heat shimmers coming from the road and the rolling sea in the background and gave an audible gasp. There’s a lot of attention to detail like that. It also leans into the B Movie vibe by ramping up the gore. Blood and guts are everywhere and your blows will slice off zombie limbs and do visible damage to their faces. It’s disgusting, disturbing and really, really awesome. Soundtrack is top notch too. Production value is definitely on point here.
Undead, Re-Dead
The point I keep coming back to in my head is the formulaic feel throughout. It’s baffling, especially as a stronger game has already come from the original developers: Dying Light (and its sequel but I can’t talk for that one). That title does everything Dead Island 2 does and more. The parkour and the nighttime chases added something to the zombie smacking. Dead Island 2 doesn’t have that. It gives you zombies, tells you to hit the zombies and then sits back and folds its arms. After eleven-odd years, I kind of expected a bit more.
Still, there’s no denying that Dead Island 2 is fun. It looks great and it plays great but it does nothing to provoke; to remain in the mind. I compared it to B Movies earlier but in truth it’s sort of like the opposite. It’s like a big budget blockbuster. It’s very exciting and over-the-top but its strict adherence to formula in an already saturated genre means it slides right out of the brain. If you want to switch off the old noggin and knock about some brain munchers, then you won’t find many better places. Otherwise, Dead Island 2 is liable to get lost in the horde.
