Dead Island 2 Review: Back From The Dead
After a protracted and tumultuous development cycle, including an entire reworking of the project, Dead Island 2 is finally ready to devour us once again twelve years after the original’s release. Sporting the craftsmanship of Dambuster Studio in conjunction with publisher Deep Silver, Dead Island 2 has its blood-soaked dagger firmly planted in a mutated version of the pristine paradise of urban Los Angeles called Hell-A, forsaking the original’s treacherous island of Banoi in the process. Now It’s time to deep-fry shambling undead carcasses by hurling batteries into swimming pools, gleefully watching them as they frazzle and twitch uncontrollably. Can Dead Island 2 satisfy the salivating appetites of yearning Dead Island fans who’ve been waiting attentively for this long-awaited sequel, or is it naught but a floating cadaver?
Los Angeles has been overrun by the undead to such a hazardous extent that you and a band of survivors flee on a cargo plane aiming to escape the calamity. Unsurprisingly, the plane crashes, leaving you to your own devices as a feasting horde awaits to greet you, ready to dole out welcoming gestures in the form of biting chunks of flesh out of your face, all the while hissing like a gaggle of stray cats playing ferocious games of volleyball at a beach party. As you carve caverns of mutated claret en route to a brief measure of safety, you’re whisked away to suburban Los Angeles, holing up in a swanky hotel that’s suffering besiegement from unrelenting droves of undead that are successfully kept at bay by the occupants. Your fellow confinement dwellers are panicky, including a mother who doesn’t want you in her home because you’ve attracted the hordes and an insecure young woman with a flare for drama at unsuitable times.
The story merely provides context for why you need to survive and slaughter, vivisect and bludgeon measly smelly undead shufflers in serious need of the aerosol cans you pick up copiously on your travels. Sure, you don’t need a grand reason to survive, but Dead Island 2’s setup is run-of-the-mill, riddled with tired old cliches we’ve seen before, which notably include the quandaries involved with whether to kill infected humans about to turn, and paranoia about protecting the group against a newcomer. The basicness of the plot serves to highlight that you haven’t come here for a deep rollercoaster of a story, only that you’ve come for the wholesale dismemberment of the putrid undead.
Welcome To Your Slaycation
When you start Dead Island 2, you’re given one of six slayers to use throughout the story, each with their own attributes and specialties. The cover art star Jacob, for instance, is a cocksure wannabe Hollywood stuntman who dishes out as many throwaway quips as he does disposing of the rank and fodder, even if he is better known for his whale-like grunts when he ascends higher-up platforms. Jacob is augmented with bespoke damage boosts, including a stamina enhancement, enabling him to cause critical chaos, ensuring he keeps puffing along without slowing down for a brief window of time.
Other characters have varied but balanced attributes and perks as well, so none of them are weaker, though you will find a character who will suit your playstyle. For example, Ryan might be best suited for players who’d prefer to have their health bar topped up, as he regains health every time he fells a zombie, though his resilience is low, while Carla could be your favourite choice due to her resilience and toughness if you’re willing to forego her ability to inflict critical damage; then if you love stamina you’ll love Dani at the cost of her anemic ability to recover health, and if you crave agility, you will love Amy, but hate her lack of toughness.
Empowering skills and perks in Dead Island 2 is a card system that assigns innate skills to your deck that can be mixed and matched at your leisure as you unlock them by completing quests and side activities throughout the story. In general, card systems have trickled their way into triple-A games in the past, so they’re nothing new, but equipping and trying out new cards encourages you to diversify how you play, though an option to allow all buffs and perks at one time would’ve kicked a lot more ass.
The application of kicking that zombie keester is gratifying, if you can forgive the barrage of fiends shambling your way, each of which regularly requires repetitive chopping and slicing down of long red health bars using your melee weapons. Yes, it does sound like a grind, but thankfully Dead Island 2 gives you a broad spectrum of tools to amplify your enjoyment of eviscerating the undead.
Melee weapons are in abundance, either found lying in random spots on the ground, or they can be grabbed from the dead carcasses of zombies along with money, health pickups, and crafting materials. Naturally, some instruments are more visceral at cleaving and puncturing zombie innards than others. Swords, cleavers, and machetes are great for gruesome decapitations, while lead pipes, crowbars, and rakes are weaker and are meant primarily for a bish-bash-bosh style of play.
An arsenal of firearms is introduced to you partway through Dead Island 2’s story, changing things up refreshingly just when you were sick of getting intimately acquainted with the undead because all you had on you was a stabby knife to defend yourself. When assault rifles, uzis, magnums, and hunting rifles become available, it’s hard to want to go back to weaker weapons that make you way more vulnerable. Picking off zombies at long distance is way more exacting and addicting than it should be.
If conventional means of quelling the numbers isn’t for you, there are usually a few jerry cans loaded with oil you can utilize to your advantage by either putting out fires or setting devious traps of the electrical and fire variety. You will happen across batteries, too, all you need is a source of liquid, and your dreams of a rotting flesh barbecue can come true. The expensive abodes of Bel-Air aren’t solely about imbuing you with real-life envy, but they also contain swimming pools-anyone fancy deep-fried zombie entrails for lunch?
No matter what tool you intend to use to lay waste to the hordes, Dead Island 2 gives you the ability to fix and add modifiers to your weapons via the workbench. For example, some weapons can be adorned with explosive enhancements, flames, or the ability to fry your infected foes, enticing you to find the best modifications for your preferred meat-whacking implement. In addition, Dead Island 2 allows you to grab blueprints for mods that you can locate on workbenches across the map-kinda like Dead Rising 2’s blueprints, but without the ability to turn melee meat mashers into ferocious Frankenstein fusions.
Let’s face it, dishing out cold knuckle sandwiches with one undead straggler is not a great look, not when a throng of his mutated buddies show up for din-dins on your supple body. Weapons constantly break in Dead Island 2, so keep an eye on each weapon’s health gauge, and remember you can swap out weapons at a locker and store ones you don’t want to use. If all else fails and all your weapons have broken, and ammo has dried up, just punch and kick until one becomes available.
Say Salutations To These Mutations
Much like the infected themselves, Dead Island 2 isn’t without several nagging blemishes of its own-particularly when it comes to pacing. Many missions in Dead Island 2 encourage you to perform rudimentary tasks like searching for keys, circuit breakers, batteries, and keycards—items you will be hunting for continuously along the way—so you better love open-world game tropes like these, or you’ll grunt and groan like the zombies themselves before long.
On the subject of zombies, Dead Island 2 wants you to contend with them to an obsessive degree. Many objectives force you to clear out hordes of the undead before you can make progress, which not only diminishes enthusiasm to continue onwards, but outright stops you from experimenting and playing the game how you want to. This plants you in a situation where you will need to repel encroaching zombies. However, when they overwhelm you, you will no doubt find yourself sprinting around the area, desperately searching and clinching for any soft drink or nutritious snack bar you can. Yes, it’s thrilling, but not in a fair or empowering way. Worse still, you can’t just run away from encounters as you can when you aren’t embarking on a mission assignment; you’ve got to stay, clean the blighters out, then you can move on, until the game decides to barricade you from making progress again–which it undoubtedly will.
Tonally, Dead Island 2 is stuck between a quasi-Dead Rising funkish humour and a B-movie survival story. Terrible jokes and dialogue are frequent, much of it coming across like verbose drivel, like a lawn mower that won’t shut up after you give it a mighty kick. Suffices it to say Dead Island 2 is at its best when you are given weapons and a load of zombies to maim and pillage, not when your ears are cowering in dread at the next cringey line of dialogue.
Playing alone in Dead Island 2 can make you feel overwhelmed sporadically throughout the story. If it’s not shoving you into a room full of zombies like a bully ramming you into a gang of thugs, it’s dropping you into hulking boss battles, and save for a few useful health and weapon pickups it leaves you to fend for yourself until you figure out how to overcome the brutish beasts. If you play Dead Island 2, do so on co-op, as an additional pair of hands can prove very useful. Not to mention, the whole game is far more engaging this way because you feel like the odds are tilted in your favour—especially if you and your buddy are overpowered.
The Freaks Come Out At Night…And Day
Enemy types and boss battles aren’t particularly memorable, but they will test your evasiveness and durability considerably from time to time. Basic fodder can be overcome easily with a few whacks, but they shouldn’t be sneezed at in groups lest you add to their already ghastly hygiene. The more significant threats come in the form of screamers who send out large leery blasts, bloaters who spew toxic bile at you, swift and dangerous fiends adorned with circular wrist blades, and a lumbering type who spews deadly bile your way that can quickly sap your health. As is Dead Island 2’s rambunctious idiosyncrasy, you will be given plenty of these types of enemies during your playthroughs, usually without an iota of spectacle to coincide with them, save for occasional encounters accompanied by catchy tunes that will compel you to slay almighty juggernauts and waves of increasingly difficult hordes. At least a portly zombified wedding bride in a reception hall early in the game is freakishly memorable if nothing else- it’s too bad inspired ideas like these run dry rapidly.
A Looker Or A Puker?
Dead Island 2 is a nice-looking post-apocalyptic open-world game, though it certainly doesn’t look the best. The way characters look at you in cutscenes is eerie, but at least their ogling eyes can distract you enough from the ham-fisted dialogue. Locales like Bel-Air and Beverly Hills are picturesque like their real-life counterparts, though sewers and slums are boggy; yes they’re meant to be that way, but they’re so unoriginal they reek even more than they otherwise should.
Performance-wise, Dead Island 2 maintains 60 frames per second with occasional slowdowns and odd bugs that can stick a player into the scenery or the AI will unrealistically float about and hover. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about how it runs, but it is stable and without major flaws. Co-op performance is similar; it works well without any significant hiccups besides the minor scenery-related bugs.
The soundtrack contains a myriad of upbeat selections that should get you in the mood for chopping zombies until they drop, but they too complement the game’s inexact identity. The music has some style with its rock and punk-rock hits, but there’s not a lot that elevates the mood or elevates the sense of grandeur, particularly in boss fights. The workbench music is pleasant, sending reminders of Rockstar’s Bully with its catchiness. The same can be said for the loading tune.
Conclusion
The prolonged gestation period of Dead Island 2 has finally ended with a familiar sequel, eschewing the unpredictable and uncomfortable pastures of Banoi for a monstrous version of Los Angeles. Dead Island 2 will be a pleasing romp for fans of the original with its cavalcade of chaos-causing weaponry, its adrenaline-packed wars with the undead, and its cool new modifications and traps to keep the zombie slaying fresh. Before long, though, it becomes apparent how Dead Island 2 suffers from some frustrating design problems, like trapping you inside an area until you’ve cleared all undead, as well as coercing you to perform one of a small handful of utterly tedious tasks like tracking down keys to open doors and transformers to open/close gates.
Tedium is at a premium in Dead Island 2, but miraculously it has enough exuberance within its limb-carving gameplay to avoid falling into the damning pit of mediocrity. There’s plenty here to savour, both in solo and co-operative play too, so you aren’t without things to do. And the modifications, card system, and special skills of each playable character all go far in Dead Island 2’s favour. Yes, it can be a slog, and yes, it does outstay its welcome, but it can also be pretty badass, too. So if you can forgive a litany of eye-rolling modern triple-A videogame trappings, Dead Island 2 can be a zombie-squelching good time.
Final Verdict: 3/5
Available on: PS5 (reviewed), PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC; Publisher: Deep Silver; Developer: Dambuster Studios; Players: 4; Released: April 21st 2023; ESRB: M for Mature; MSRP: $69.99
Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Dead Island 2 provided by the publisher.
