Dead Island 2 is finally here after a long, painful, and never-ending development cycle. Originally announced in 2014 as a sequel to the 2011 title Dead Island, it’s ready for us to sink our teeth into.

Techland was originally penned to work on a follow-up to Dead Island but wanted to focus on their efforts in the form of Dying Light. Yager Development was put up to the task in 2012, being removed from the project in 2015 and replaced by Sumo Digital in 2016, who was then also removed from the project and replaced by Dambuster Studios (an internal studio of Deep Silver) to develop Dead Island 2. The third time’s a charm, aye?

Now, I can say I was not expecting much of this one if it saw the light of day. Having one of the most troubled development cycles of recent times doesn’t instill much faith in someone clambering for the final product. Continuously left in a mysterious place, not knowing if the game still existed at this point and even being tricked by Goat Simulator 3’s trailer shown off at The Game Awards that heavily parodied Dead Island 2’s original showing, only to bait and switch hopeful fans like me! It has certainly been a rollercoaster for people eagerly awaiting this sequel. That said, it’s come a long way since its original and exciting E3 Trailer in 2014. I didn’t need a Dead Island sequel to be a massive, genre-defining piece of eye candy that innovates within the gaming space, I just needed more of the zombie ass-kicking fun the original game allowed me to have. Dambuster Studios have given me just that.

An impressive-looking title that’s especially gorgeous during cutscenes

Welcome To Hell-A!

This time around our hopeful slayers find themselves quarantined within the city of Los Angeles due to a zombie outbreak, similar to the one that took place 10 years prior on the fictional island of Banoi. Players can choose how to tackle the zombie apocalypse but more importantly, who with. Choose between six different slayers boasting unique perks and attributes that allow you to tackle the hordes of the undead in whichever way you see fit. Jacob has a reckless disregard for self-preservation and lots of charm, leaving his comfortable stockbroker life in London to pursue a career as a Hollywood stuntman coming equipped with excellent peak health but lacking in resilience. Carla is a motorcycle stunt rider with plenty of resilience but an inability to take advantage of critical damage while Dani is a foul-mouthed roller-derby enthusiast with a twisted sense of humor but a hell of a lot of stamina. Pick wisely, as you cannot change your slayer once you begin.

The introduction to Los Angeles sets the tone perfectly and sees our slayers on board an evacuation flight that crash-lands within the city’s outskirts. Instantly met with the gorgeous pink skyline and impressive-looking fire as you try and escape the plane wreck, It isn’t long until you stumble into local celebrity Emma Jaunt who promises you refuge at her nearby residence if you can make it there alive. Arriving at Emma’s house in the hills felt reminiscent of Columbus and Tallahassee meeting Bill Murray in the Zombieland (2009) flick. Big grand doors lead to a lavish, spotless, and unnecessarily huge mansion that serves only as a brief moment of reprieve from the flesh-eating chaos unfolding outside. Aside from being a great introduction to Los Angeles, it also serves as a tutorial that will help you understand the basics of combat at the very least.

A stunning-looking game that demands a photo mode

Bel-Air Brawl!

Los Angeles is your playground, allowing you to tackle the hordes of the undead however you see fit. Utilizing the environment around you is key to keeping the upper hand, especially against some of the more formidable foes you’ll come across. Whether that be throwing a car battery into a swimming pool full of zombies or making the most of nearby fuel canisters and lining up the horde, it’s wise to keep an eye on your surroundings so that you always maintain an upper hand. Not only can you twist the environment into a weapon, but you will also have a wide variety of different melee weapons and firearms at the ready that you can make your own with different modifications found lying around Hell-A!

Coming up against the undead feels so satisfying. I had unmeasurable amounts of fun running around slaying zombies, sometimes forgetting about the quest I was following. I feel like this is in part because Dead Island 2 makes the world your weapon. Of course, you have environmental hazards like I previously mentioned but once you stumble across the Hollywood movie sets you’ll also be able to control certain studio effects. Releasing the lights from the top of a film set only to whack the power on and stare on as a horde of undead freaks fry is a great feeling. Effective attacks all depend on what type of zombie you end up having to deal with in each scenario, but they can be easily countered with the right tools. If you’re dealing with Runners, chop off their legs and render them helpless or if you’re up against a Crusher who slams the floor to render you unstable, take his arms off. Failing this, aim for the head, zombies HATE that.

Curveballs are secondary throwables and become a great help when trying to thin out a large horde. Curveballs consist of weapons like Military Grenades, Molotov Cocktails, Pipe Bombs, and Meat Bait among others. Mixing these with environmental hazards becomes a great help. Chuck some Meat Bait into an electrified puddle or a Molotov Cocktail at a puddle of fuel as zombies approach. Curveballs are rechargeable so you don’t have to worry about hunting around for ammunition or crafting them, once you find them they are yours. It just boils down to a matter of timing to get the best possible use out of them. You’ll feel silly wasting a Pipe Bomb on a single zombie, only to turn the corner and run into a horde.

Exploring Los Angeles during the night looks amazing thanks to the lighting

Melee combat is again the main focus but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a time and a place for firearms. Slayers will fair best keeping three or four of their favorite weapons maxed out and fully repaired as much as possible, whilst scrapping or selling everything else. Keep a couple of well-powered firearms in your arsenal as I found these work great for larger enemies and bosses. It’s worthwhile to play around with the game’s skill-card system, as these offer buffs to your preferred playstyle. They come in four categories; Abilities, Survivor, Slayer, and Numen. Overall I find the card system offers an endless amount of creativity, being able to change cards whenever you please. Some cards give damage boosts as a reward for a well-timed block or dodge while others allow the player to emit an Area of Effect attack upon using a med kit.

If you’re someone who loves drop-kicking an unsuspecting zombie, there’s a card for that and you can mix and match between different categories. So you’ll equip the Drop Kick card in one of your five ability slots and then the survivor category will contain a card that ignites zombies with a successful drop-kick. There’s a lot here to play around with and it’s quite simple to wrap your head around, which is always welcome.

Autophage adds yet another layer to the card system and equipping a certain amount of these will put you into one of three Autophage tiers that all come with significant perks but proceed with caution, as each tier also has some serious setbacks. It’s down to you to work out if the pros outweigh the cons and work well with your playstyle. For instance, slaying zombies in tier one will give you a boost to your attack speed but comes with reduced peak health whereas tier three stops all health regeneration and significantly reduces the amount of health replenished from recovery items but allows the player a longer duration in Fury Mode and slaying also increases Fury! Fill up your Fury meter as you run around LA slaying zombies and eventually, you’ll be able to enter Fury Mode which sends you into a flesh-eating rampage allowing you to tear hordes down in a matter of seconds and comes in handy for dealing large amounts of damage against larger enemies.

A Voltaic Screamer mid-attack

You will have to be prepared to deal with a variety of unique zombies and have the correct tools on hand to deal with them quickly. Common zombies consist of a variety of different Runners, Walkers and Shamblers. You might stumble upon a running zombie equipped with a food delivery bag containing recovery items, or a shambling zombie that is covered head to toe in riot gear, requiring a different approach to dispose of as these guys are immune to attack until you can make them exposed. It’s always to the player’s advantage to quickly figure out what type of common zombie they’re about to deal with, as some come strapped with grenades or certain outfits that make them immune to a specific attack; it’s useless throwing Caustix-X bombs at a hazmat zombie, for instance.

Common zombies aren’t the only threat and this is where the Apex Variants cause some real trouble. Crushers pound the ground causing you to be stunned and also come with an inferno variant. Bursters do exactly that and are harmless if you can manage to maintain distance from them. Slobbers can fire puke around causing melting damage and the variants can fire sticky blobs that explode when players get near or shoot out napalm puke. The real trouble comes in the form of screamers, as these fine flesh-munching ladies emit a powerful scream that can force the player backward and alert other nearby zombies to your presence. I found the butchers the most challenging to deal with during my time in Hell-A, as they are super agile and hard to land an attack on and when you finally manage to start dealing damage, he can sprint away and start chowing down on a corpse to regenerate his health. Last but not least we have the Mutators who like to blend in with Walkers or Shamblers, only to erupt and evolve into a massive tank-like enemy. Whilst not necessarily hard to avoid, he takes a lot to put down and adds to the pressure in tense situations.

Hazmat Zombies lurk down in the Metro Station

Hollywood Boulevard is Beautiful!

There are ten different locations to visit throughout your playthrough. See the fairground at Santa Monica Pier, go window shopping around Hollywood Boulevard, or end up traipsing through sewage in the Brentwood Sewer. Plenty of collectibles to find and challenges to complete along the way, all nicely kept track of within the player menu. Completing challenges gives a permanent boost to player stats so it’s handy to complete certain ones if it’s going to benefit your playstyle. The Fast Travel menu lets you quickly get around LA and handily displays how many quests are available in a specific area, so you don’t have to spend ages hunting around trying to figure out where things are and can get right back into the action!

Dead Island 2’s lack of a photo mode is a huge disservice to an otherwise beautiful representation of Los Angeles. Countless screenshot opportunities became a burden having to trawl through the UI settings, scrolling down the list, and individually turning off each option so that I could grab some UI-free screenshots. Turning my heads-up display back on after each photo-op only meant having to repeat this painstaking process every time single time. That said, it remains a treat to the eyeballs and the character models are insanely realistic.

Dead Island 2 took me around fifteen hours to complete playing as Jacob and I haven’t experimented with any other slayers at the time of writing. Diving straight back into the end-game allows you to travel around and mop up side quests and any challenges you want, giving you an open zombie-slaying sandbox to play with. Another neat little touch is the ability to choose between day or night when travelling to another location on the map but the time of day doesn’t affect the gameplay the way it does in the Dying Light games.

Character models look excellent

Whilst I wouldn’t be completely happy with a silent protagonist, Dead Island 2 serves up the opposite and had me listen to Jacob talking to himself a fair amount as he ran around slaying zombies. Hearing him shout “Hello, is anybody home?” as he enters a building just seems annoying and odd when you’re in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Thankfully the dialogue isn’t on Atomic Heart levels of annoyance and I can only imagine is much better suited to when playing co-op, which I haven’t had a chance to try.

(This blog post has all the information you need regarding co-op play in Dead Island 2)

With that said, Jacob did have me laughing a few times too: “There’s always a fucking nonce at the fairground” Jacob proclaims as he bumps into a clown zombie!

Lastly, you can also control Dead Island 2 with Alex Game Control. This would seemingly allow the player to shout to a nearby zombie, luring him into a trap or something of that nature. Whilst it seems a cool addition and I’m always happy for more options, it’s not something I felt compelled to try and it doesn’t hinder the experience whatsoever by playing without it.

One of ten stunning locations

You Are Now Leaving Hell-A

Overall, Dambuster Studios have done a great job getting Dead Island 2 over the finishing line. If you trust my judgment and are on the fence about picking this one up, I say go for it. If you’re like me and you’ve just been clambering for some more Dead Island then Dead Island 2 will finally satisfy that itch. The combat is the standout aspect and where the game shines, alongside its multi-layered card system and an array of weapons and modifications it will be easy to be entertained for hours. Myself putting in around 20+ hours in single-player alone, I can’t wait for this one to launch so I can dive into co-op with some friends! Packed with 24 main missions, 33 side quests, and 15 lost & found quests there’s plenty to see and do in Los Angeles.

If you power through just the main missions you can probably complete this in 6-8 hours but if you’re like me and end up tinkering with different playstyles and the like, trying to see and do everything then you can easily lose yourself in Los Angeles and sink 20+ hours into this effortlessly. I only suffered one bug during my playthrough but other than that, Dead Island 2’s performance is flawless.

Whilst not fully open-world you have ten different locations to explore with plenty of side quests! Quirky characters with some great voice acting and a twisted sense of humour, it’s a stunning adventure through Los Angeles.

Dead Island 2 is more Dead Island, visually stunning and heaps of fun. I’ll see you in Hell-A.

Dead Island 2 on my setup (@BERSERKER_THiiS on Twitter)