It’s been a long, long time coming, but Dead Island 2 is real and finally here, just nine years after it was first announced. We’ve been hacking and slashing our way through the streets, alleys, mansions and movie lots of its hellish LA to see how it holds up to its now long-dead predecessor.
Dead Island 2
We’ve had a pretty great time messing up some zombies in Hell-A. Dead Island 2 doesn’t shoot for the stars, and therefore ends up neither overpromising nor under-delivering, so if you liked the first game you’re pretty certain to have a fun time here.
Pros
- Really detailed zombie killing
- Loads of weapons to try
- Large levels with routes to find
- Many secrets to uncover
Cons
- Story is tiresome
- No changing characters allowed
- Can be a little repetitive
That’s no island
Dead Island used its name to convey everything you needed to know, namely that it was about zombies on an island. That’s no longer the case for its sequel, leading to an amusing misnomer of a title.
Instead, we’re in Los Angeles shortly after it’s become overrun by the living dead – so feel free to decide that the titular island is a metaphor or whatever you prefer.
The game opens with a motley crew managing to get aboard the last evacuation flight out of the city, before everything hits the fan and a crash brings them down to earth.
We select from six playable characters, all with strengths and weaknesses, before waking up post-crash and quickly discovering (gorily) that we’re immune to zombie bites.
Once you select a character there’s no changing that choice without starting afresh, which is a bit of a shame, although you can customise your loadout with skills collected throughout the game.
Deep Silver
Pretty soon we’re helping an assortment of survivors to get by in the Hollywood hills, hopping between mansions in an attempt to find help before venturing further into the city as leads present themselves.
The game’s storytelling is all pretty ho-hum stuff, presented knowingly but also with just enough of an insistence on exposition that you may find yourself skipping some tiresome dialogue.
We don’t really come to a game like Dead Island 2 demanding emotional storytelling, though, so it’s no major issue that what’s on offer is indeed a bit wooden.
Hack and slash
Most of the time, though, the story gets out of your way, and instead simply points you in a direction – setting you off to explore ravaged neighbourhoods, mansions, hotels, studio backlots and more.
Along the way you’ll obviously come across a whole range of shambling, running, crawling and smashing zombies, all of which you’ll take on primarily with melee weapons.
These weapons range from unadorned lead pipes all the way to tricked-out elemental slicers, depending on how you build and repair them at workstations using looted items.
Even in just the opening hours of the game, we were able to create a tire iron that zapped crowds all at once, and some knuckle dusters that had us punching bigger targets at the speed of sound.
The melee system is very fun, letting you broadly target areas on zombies’ bodies using your reticle, and with dodge and block mechanics that are really important for your survival.
It’s perhaps a little imprecise at times but, on the whole, we had a great time getting through crowds of enemies, and it’s enjoyable how different this feels with different weapons on hand.
While finding a favourite tool is rewarding, the best moments always tend to come when a weapon breaks at a crucial moment, leaving you scrambling to use a less powerful option to scrape through a chaotic fight.
Deep Silver
Dead Island 2’s levels are also littered with small side objectives you can choose to complete, from simple challenges like getting around some buzzing electricity to loot a side room, all the way to bigger options and full sidequests.
An early example of these had us rescue an ageing film star from his mansion, protecting him on his slow stairlift, while another saw us performing bespoke kills under the camera lens of an aspiring influencer at a Hype House-style man-cave of a complex.
Again, the script in both cases might not have been genre defining, but the frame narratives are fun enough to make these side quests worth completing.
Gory details
If there are many downsides to a game being delayed for as long as Dead Island 2 has been over the years, it’s the risk that it surfaces using frankly outdated tech.
That doesn’t seem to be a worry here – we previewed the game on Xbox Series X and have now reviewed it on PlayStation 5, and the game looks perfectly at home on current-gen hardware.
Whacking the in-game FOV up a bunch is an early step that makes it feel more fluid and playable, but Dead Island 2’s LA is nice and saturated in colour, with night-time sections that are as dark as you’d like and much creepier.
Its sun-soaked outdoor areas are characteristic and feel accurate to the various neighbourhoods they’re aping, but it’s the zombies that are the star of the show.
Or, rather, it’s how they come apart – many a zombie game has crowed about its dismemberment tech before, but Dead Island 2 might just set a new high-water mark.
Slashing and bashing zombies results in procedural, noticeable damage to their corpses that at various points had us pretty revolted – but in an impressive way. Limbs can be hacked off, torsos bashed in, heads decapitated and all manner of other nasty outcomes.
We’re not thrilled with how it reflects on us, but the reality is that this makes for a fun sort of sub-game as you fight – seeing how you can play with the system to make for even gorier kills reminds us of Sniper Elite 5‘s similarly indulgent meaty kills.
Deep Silver
We’re not sure there are many moments from Dead Island 2 that we’ll remember in a few years’ time, nothing seared into our mind thanks to stunning visual effects or designs, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a competent technical showing like this.
Verdict
Dead Island 2 is exactly what it says on the tin, which is quite an accomplishment given its long years in development and at least one total reboot during that time.
It’s a fun and gory take on a fairly straightforward genre that will feel like a welcome throwback to anyone who enjoyed pounding their way through the first game’s hordes of undead.
Don’t come expecting story innovation and don’t complain if it all gets a little samey after a dozen hours, but for those looking for some dumb bloody fun, this is a great option.