Dead Island 2 Review

Was it worth the wait?

Watch the review here or…

Read it here!

Platform: PS4/5 Xbox1/X|S PC

Reviewed on: PC

Publisher: Deep Silver

Developer: Dambuster Studios

Release: April 21, 2023

Time Played: 12 hours

Genre: FPS Survival horror

ESRB: M

Back in 2014 we were first told about Dead Island 2 in the works, nine long years later and it’s finally arrived. Now you may have some questions like Was it worth the wait? Is it better than Dead Island or just the same? Well I’ve had the pleasure of putting a few hours into the game, you can check out the livestream if you’d like to see some game play, but first let’s check out the various mechanics and give this game a rating to place it on my bar.

Where it begins:

Dead Island 2 starts out a few days into a major Zombie outbreak in Las Angeles California with droves of people trying to evacuate while the undead chew through LA. The protagonist almost gets away on a plane, but it ends up back on the ground. After surviving the plane crash they have to fight their way through hordes of zombies in the hopes of finding a way to escape the newly dubbed Hell-A.

OK for the kiddos:

I’m pretty sure if you’ve seen any trailer for Dead Island 2 that would be enough to let you know this game is very graphic, and the language is unfit for the kids as well. A lot of blood and viscera throughout the entire game, some final attacks to take out zombies punch a literal hole through their entire skull. It’s disgustingly awesome, but best played with kids out of the room.

Gameplay:

At the start of the game you get to choose one of six playable characters, each with their own unique stats. You have to pick carefully because there is no changing after the game starts, but there is no saying you couldn’t start a whole new game I guess. I went with Amy, she can’t take many hits, but she’s the most agile of the crew and I like to move fast, so obviously that’s who I would want.

After getting out of the burning wreckage that was my plane I was attacked by a small group of zombies, a perfect opportunity for the game to give me a small tutorial on the basics of combat. Fast attacks that deal low damage and slow attacks that deal a lot of damage and take away from my stamina. After swinging my makeshift sword around for a while it’s almost at its limit. Before it breaks and becomes useless, I can throw it at an enemy for some decent damage and pick up another thing to attack with, like a metal pipe or burning piece of wood.

Later on there are crafting tables available, I could use those add mods to weapons giving them special effects like fire or electric attacks, and I could repair my weapons using cash, which was odd, I have no idea where the cash goes. After I found something I really liked, like a bad ass metal bo staff, I could keep it repaired and fight with it forever. Oh and as I leveled up, I could spend some cash to upgrade my weapons to match my level, so they never became useless trash taking up space. To make mods I had to collect different materials off of zombies or lying around everywhere, sometimes I would run into a merchant who would sell weapons, blueprints, and materials, but they only ever had like two of a material on hand, and for an absurd price.

There was an RPG aspect in Dead Island 2 in the fact that enemies and myself have a level effecting damage done and health. If an enemy was a few levels higher than me, there would be a skull next to it’s name so I had no idea what it’s actual level was. They hit hard, and take forever to kill. I fought one once. It took a long time, I was hanging by a thread the entire time not letting it touch me, one hit and I was a goner. After finally bringing the beast down, I got the same amount of experience points for taking out an enemy at my level… total bull crap. Definitely not worth the stress to fight something out of my league.

As I leveled up my character would unlock slots where I could equip special cards giving me an ability to fight with or a passive ability that would heal me after a specific action. There are a lot of cards, some are handed out when leveling up while others have to be found lying around, so keep your eyes open, there may be a super special card that could change your life hiding underneath a desk, and you don’t want to miss that.

So fighting zombies didn’t really yield a whole lot of experience, so the only way to keep up with the level of the story I was forced to take on some side quests when they came up. Dead Island 2 has a lot of different areas to play in, each with their own collectibles and quests, or missions, whatever you wanna call them. Anyway the side quests usually took me back to an area I’ve already been through with some tougher enemies. Some were shorter than others, but all of them usually gave a decent reward of experience, cash, and sometimes the blueprint for a new mod.

After about eight hours of gameplay I opened up the ability to fast travel to areas I’d already been to, making it much easier to knock out missed side quests if I’d wanted. Walking by foot from Santa Monica to Bel Air would take way to long otherwise. If I already did it once during the story why should I have to do it again right? And the amount of zombies I’d have to fight through would just add to the trip.

There are only like two different basic zombies, walkers and runners, but they come in a whole lot of different flavors. Some are immune to shock damage, so if I whack them with a shocking knife nothing happens, and the usually explode shock around them. Sometimes their just covered in something spikey like barbed wire that cause me to bleed a little more when they attack. It’s important to know what kind of zombie your dealing with so you can react accordingly.

After basic zombies come the super tough and scary apex variants. There are quite a few to look out for, usually starting out as a boss fight. These things do not mess around. After their first appearance they start poking their ugly heads EVERYWHERE. Things can get pretty tough when regular zombies are hanging out with an apex variant to back them up, definitely keeps you on your toes.

Now, let’s talk about the weapons. There are a lot of different weapons to play with in Dead Island 2. Some slow with high damage and long reach, others fast with low damage and short reach. There are a lot of different things to pick up and start swinging. I played with quite a few I thought I liked, like these awesome claws that could punch a zombies face through the back of it’s skull. But they just didn’t quite put out enough and I ended up on the ground a lot. I finally found a bo staff and immediately fell in love. Running around an enemy swinging non-stop it just so dam satisfying I don’t want to use anything else. Except for maybe guns sometimes, there are guns available in the game with blueprints to craft ammo if needed. I didn’t use them a whole lot but it seemed like ammunition wasn’t a major issue. I don’t think you could find enough to fight only with guns, but why would you want to with all of the different whacking tools.

Adding to the arsenal of weapons are what we call curveballs. Rechargeable items with special aspects I could throw at my enemies. Like a jar full of old meat that would attract zombies to it so I could herd them into a trap, or even a pipe bomb for a simple explosion taking them out. Only two curveballs could be equipped at once, and after it was used there would be a short cooldown before a curveball could be used in that slot again. Speaking of traps, there is a lot in the environment to use in the never ending fight against the undead. Jerry cans are everywhere, full of water, gas, or caustic acid. All of which, when used properly, can set for an excellent trap whittling down a zombies health before I took my first swing.

I have to bring up some things I didn’t really get to try out, but seems pretty neat. They implemented Alexa into the game, allowing for someone to actually call out to nearby zombies, attracting them closer or activating abilities on command. And there is co-op. I don’t have anyone to play with but the idea of taking on a lot of zombies with a friend sounds like a lot of fun.

As of this review I am twelve hours into the game, I’m thinking a little over half way and fully intend on finishing it. So far it feels very similar to the first game, with better graphics and smoother game play, but it has been a long time since I played the first game so I could be way off. Anyway, let’s get these ratings underway. First let’s talk about visuals. The zombies look very good, it’s a very graphic game and it was well executed, we’re going with a four. Next up, story. I found the story a little cliché, ya know been there done that, and most of the characters were a little over the top, some of the jokes were alright but ultimately I want to give it a two. The game play was very good, a weapon wheel to swap weapons on the fly was easy to handle and movement was excellent. The only thing kind of odd were sometimes the sudden appearance or disappearance of zombies. Like they could suddenly appear in front of me stopping me from moving forward. It’s a four. I don’t plan on replaying the game, but with six different characters to play as, the replayability is pretty high giving it another four. It was a fun game to play, the beginning was a slow burn but after getting some decent weapons and levels it got a lot better so I’m going with three. Bringing the final score to 3.4 out of five earning it a home right there on the midshelf. It’s an excellent game if your into zombies, comical mayhem, and a lot of melee combat. I prefer Dying Light to this, Dead Island 2 wasn’t scary, there were some jump scares but they became repetitive and predictable. I would ultimately say wait for a sale on this one.