‘Dead Island 2’ is a Mindlessly Gory Slog Better Left in the Grave

After 10 years in development, Dead Island 2 is finally here. The zombie-themed action role-playing game underwent four studio changeovers before being dragged across the finish line by Dambuster Studios. With a development cycle about as long as vaporware legend Duke Nukem Forever, a title with a similarly troubled and chaotic history whose result was widely panned by critics, I went into this review wondering if this one would fare any better.

The story casts you as one of six playable characters, boarding the last evacuation plane out of Los Angeles to escape the undead apocalypse. Obviously, one of the infected manages to board the aircraft, and you narrowly escape death the collision only to be immediately attacked by zombies. In the foray, you are bitten, but instead of becoming one of the undead, you discover you are one of the few individuals immune to the disease.

As is the norm in modern game design, there are all sorts of quasi-RPG elements and skills for you to learn. Each of the six survivors has specialty and unique abilities to discover but, honestly, it’s all such a generic hodgepodge that I barely paid attention to the progression tree. There are some slightly more interesting capabilities available later in the game, but for the most part, you’re adding menial percentage increases to one skill or the other.

Even if your character is immune to infection, they can be ripped apart by the vicious hordes roaming the streets of “Hell-A.” The combat is the meat and potatoes of this game. Fortunately, it’s quite good. The FLESH system is introduced in Dead Island 2, allowing enemies to take visible damage across their bodies. If you hit a zombie in the head with a hammer, it will rip off a nasty strip of flesh or break its teeth. It’s not just a gory good time, but actually has an effect on gameplay. If you manage to slice a zombie’s leg enough times, you’ll hit (and eventually break) bone, limiting their mobility. Each enemy type has different weaknesses, and knowing where to attack can make a difficult fight easier.

There are also some unique environmental interactions that spice up combat. For instance, if you come across some zombies milling around in a swimming pool, heaving in a car battery will electrocute them all. Fire is a reliable ally, and enemies who are set ablaze suffer tick damage and can spread the fire to others. There’s even acid, which when mixed with zombie flesh produces a truly putrid and horrifying effect. Not only can you interact with these elements in the wild, but you can also upgrade and create weapons with them using the crafting system.

With a game this shallow, the way the weapons feel and impact the combat is a major factor that can make or break the experience. Creating a convincing sledgehammer in a video game requires a great deal of effort. You must feel the weight of the object, the momentum of the swing, and the impact of the blow. Dead Island 2 does a solid job of making melee combat satisfying, which is essential as it’s all you get for roughly the first five hours. Although California’s gun laws are fairly stringent, it seemed odd that you had to travel quite a way before obtaining a firearm in a zombie-infested hell scape.

Unfortunately, exploration is underwhelming given its importance to the game loop. There’s tons of reused assets and visuals, and you’ll quickly notice that the house you’re currently looting has the exact same structural layout as the one you raided an hour ago. It’s yet another recent game where unique mechanics or set pieces have been replaced by a constant hunt and peck for crafting items in bland, generic environments. This isn’t as noticeable when playing in co-op mode with friends to chat with, but it gets quickly stale in single-player mode.

While the basic premise of fighting through a zombie-infested Los Angeles could be intriguing, the execution falls short. Even though this is a zombie game, there is little to no tension or horror on display. Sure, there’s gore and viscera, but it’s all done in a cartoonish manner. The dialogue is packed with quippy nonsense that neither matches the chintzy style or manages to be clever enough to elevate it, amounting to little more than a conceptual cop-out that’s unfunny and unbalanced in both gameplay and tone. The developers have opted for broad zaniness over melding story, gameplay, and environments into a believable world. Dead Island 2’s hollow, lighthearted tone is dead on arrival and done better elsewhere. Original Dead Island creators, Techland, have already ditched this franchise to deliver the Dying Light series, which is essentially the same thing attempted here, but successful — with a larger open world, better and more fluid movement, and general sense of production value. 

Dead Island 2 is not bad per se. Aside from the gory implementation of the FLESH system, however, it does nothing new. It was originally scheduled for release in 2015, and it feels exactly like an eight-year-old title. If this were a budget release aiming for a pseudo-throwback vibe, it would be acceptable, but alas. Deep Silver is charging a full $70 (or $100 for the collector’s edition) premium for it, which is $10 more than what Capcom is asking for its infinitely better remake of Resident Evil 4.

If you’re looking for a game with a satisfying single-player experience, serviceable narrative, or any original ideas, I wouldn’t recommend spending your money here. But if you bring a friend or three along to play, Dead Island 2 is at its best when you’re mindlessly drop-kicking zombies into puddles of gore. At least you’ll be able to entertain yourselves together as lulls between crazy fights can be pretty boring otherwise.

Dead Island 2 launches on April 21 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox X|S.