After almost a decade in the works, Dead Island 2, now developed by Dambuster Studios, is right around the corner. The long-awaited follow-up to 2011’s Dead Island has been put through the wringer, bouncing between multiple development studios since 2014 before going radio silent until it was re-announced at GamesCom 2022. With the game's April 21 release date on the horizon, Game Rant received a hands-on preview of Dead Island 2, and so far, it’s looking good.
Dead Island 2 takes place in a gorgeous recreation of Los Angeles, California, affectionately referred to by the developers as “Hell-A.” Here, movie sets, mansions, and luxury cars litter the streets; however, what was once a place of affluence and larger-than-life personalities has been totally destroyed by the zombie apocalypse. One of the things that made the original Dead Island so appealing was its vacation-gone-awry premise, uniquely juxtaposing the living dead with palm trees and sandy shores in a time when zombie games were content with grey color palettes and gruff characters. Dead Island 2 is following in the footsteps of its predecessor and is happy to smear blood and bones across a once beautiful tourist destination.
From the second the preview started until our five hours were done, Dead Island 2 showed a true appreciation for its Los Angeles setting. It was enough to entice players to breathe in the world between bouts of zombie killing and explore some of LA’s sights. This preview took us through Bel-Air and Beverly Hills, and also gave us a small glimpse at the Hollywood movie lots. Dambuster Studios clearly went to great lengths to painstakingly craft each location and also use this setting to tell a story. Zombie brides and grooms eating faces just a short walk from their wedding venue and sun-soaked zombies still dressed in their jogging or beach apparel were just a few of the many scenarios in this preview that got us thinking about what this place was like before it all came crashing down.
Dead Island 2 is taking its beautiful environment and asking players to use it to wreak havoc on the undead. Creativity and planning are dutifully rewarded in this game for those who are clever. Breaking a fire hydrant and having a few walkers step into its water stream only to be met with a car battery to the face and subsequently fried to a crisp is all good fun if players go looking for it. However, players really do have to go looking for it.
Throughout this preview, it felt like Dead Island 2 wasn't making a great argument for why players should use the environment to kill zombies over the tried and true method of simply bashing their heads in with a baseball bat. That is unless players really do want to see a zombie Rube Goldberg machine or are worked into a scenario where exploding a barrel to kill a horde is the obvious choice. There are always nudges to get players to use the environment, but doing so never feels as satisfyingly emergent as it should, and part of that is because killing zombies the old-fashioned way feels so good. Hopefully, as the game goes on, it makes a stronger argument for its environmental traps.
Where Dead Island 2 feels best so far is in its combat. This preview briskly ran through its opening sequence, and zombies were getting beaten to a pulp in no time. Weapons are aplenty in Dead Island 2, and they range from nimble swords that can slice and dice a zombie to heavy and visceral bludgeoning weapons like sledgehammers that can actually snap a zombie’s arm in two. So far, there were not many scenarios where fighting a zombie felt off, and it becomes all the more fun when players throw these weapons and hear an indulgent thunk as metal meets flesh.
However, what is truly tying Dead Island 2’s combat together is the game’s unique gore system. It's incredibly gruesome but in a good way. Dead Island 2 uses a procedural gore engine, named the FLESH system, that dynamically bloodies and breaks a zombie’s character model as players hack or bludgeon away at them. Skin gets cut and bleeds realistically, and bones get fractured and exposed depending on where players hit. It’s a truly intense experience punching a zombie’s face in and watching what was once a face now only be a hole—or hitting a zombie’s leg with a hammer and watching the bone snap in two.
The FLESH system is more than just gore for gore’s sake. When faced with a mean bodybuilder zombie, fresh out of Venice Beach and armed with a nasty right hook, chopping that right arm off is the best way to ensure they stop being a threat. Dead Island 2 features a ton of zombie types, and seeing how each weapon influences and interacts with the game's FLESH system and exploits each zombie's weakness has been a joy to discover. It’s also partially why the environmental traps have failed to be so engaging. Shocking a zombie with a well-laid trap isn’t as fun as chopping them limb from limb.
At the forefront of our preview was Dead Island 2’s cast of eccentric characters. This preview had all six main protagonists available, and we elected to play as Carla, a quippy and smart-mouthed bruiser with the ability to thrive under hordes of zombies. We also spent some time as Jacob, a more level-headed and cool brawler who works best at dishing out quick damage. Both characters were interesting enough to make us want to rediscover story beats as each of them, and they both had unique personalities and dialogue that felt more than simple character reskins. Gameplay-wise is where these characters started to diverge.
Character building and progression in Dead Island 2 comes down to stacking skill cards inside modular “Card Skill” decks. There is a base “Abilities” deck that holds skills like dodging and blocking, along with decks titled “Survivor,” “Slayer,” and an illusive “Numen” deck. Each protagonist has unique skills - or cards - that slot into these decks that players can freely swap in and out as they unlock more cards. For example, if players don’t feel like they get much use out of dodging, they can swap out that ability for a stat-boosting War Cry. There are more cards than slots in each deck, so players have to think carefully about which skills work best for the character they are building.
It's an interesting system that shows promise but was only getting started when the preview ended. All six characters have character-specific cards tailored to that character’s personality and play style, like how Jacob gets stackable damage the more he attacks in quick succession or how Carla gets a flat damage boost when surrounded by zombies. How these character-specific traits evolve, build, and compound is exciting to think about, but for now, there is little to go on. If endgame builds are wildly different from one another and can significantly vary in play style, then Dead Island 2 will be in good shape.
On the more technical side, Dead Island 2 is graphically stunning. Lighting, in particular, looks fantastic and has been carefully designed and artistically well-executed across every corner of LA visible in this preview. Even though Dambuster’s Dead Island 2 lacks any form of ray tracing, the interiors on display still managed to look incredibly photorealistic. This certainly feels like one of those end-of-service games that prove how far Unreal Engine 4 and last-gen consoles can be pushed when developers master their toolsets.
Overall, Dead Island 2 was a fun time, but it did seem to be falling into some tropes of the zombie genre that are getting tiresome at this point. Soaking in the world and its painstakingly crafted environments is continually undermined by a constant spewing of loot, weapons, crafting materials, and general “stuff.” Some of it is immediately useful, while some of it feels like players are taking on zombie apocalypse custodial duties. All of it, however, works to keep the player’s head down and mashing the grab button, ultimately killing the pace of the game. Dead Island 2 also has a workbench and weapon upgrade system featuring weapon levels and stat boosts, which are commonplace for the genre, but the game doesn’t seem to be doing anything special with these concepts yet.
At one point in the preview, we met a retired movie star named Curtis. Curtis was a lovely and charismatic older man that was taking shots at zombies from the rooftop of his Beverly Hills estate. We eagerly joined him at the ground level to help finish off the swarms of the undead surrounding his home. Curtis eventually says to the main character, “don’t think so much, let ‘em have it,” which is really at the core of what Dead Island 2 is all about. Letting go and enjoying the catharsis that comes from bashing zombie heads in is when the game feels best, but it also needs to do a little more than that.
So far, Dead Island 2 is shaping up to be an incredibly fun, gory, and beautiful game. The FLESH system, in particular, is a real highlight of the whole experience, and its character-building elements have a lot of potential. However, the game still has to prove that it can take its core concepts and evolve them into something that feels fresh and exciting. The foundation is there for something that can stand out among a decade’s worth of zombie hack-and-slash games released in the wake of Dead Island’s absence; now, it just needs to build on it.
Dead Island 2 launches April 21, 2023, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Game Rant was provided a PC code for the purposes of this preview.