Dead Island 2 review: an RPG as mindless as its zombies

Dead Island 2This is a time-lost game. Its development was split among three studios over the past decade. Each one tried to produce a follow-up to 2011’s co-op Zombie Brawler. In the meantime, Dead Island’s original developer, Techland, has moved on to bigger and better things with its Dying Light series. The final result of this fraught process, delivered by Nottingham’s Dambuster Studios, can sometimes feel like an old friend.

Dead Island 2’s acerbic tone and dated systems summon a strange nostalgia for the silly, straightforward, but moreish first-person action games that dominated the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era. It’s a relic that is rough around the edges, but its linearity feels refreshing, and the gore-heavy combat offers constant, visceral spectacle. Most importantly, it’s not another checklist death march. If, like me, you’ve acquired a taste for brevity in recent years, you’ll be pleased to hear that you can finish this game in a reasonable amount of time.

You play as one of six ‘slayers’ who conveniently congregate on the last flight out of a quarantined Hell-A, Dambuster’s pulpy pastiche of Los Angeles. Alas, the infection spreads onboard, the plane crashes, and in the ensuing chaos, you discover that you’re immune. A movie star insufferable invites you into their McMansion to Beverly Hills for a regrouping session. As you navigate the City of Angels, you (hopefully), become part of a cure.

Image: Dambuster Studios/Deep Silver

Dani is a Cork-based rockabilly moher whose corny remarks kept me entertained throughout this predictable campaign. You can choose from a variety of slayers, each with their own unique abilities. However, the storyline is still similar no matter who you pick. Dani’s explosive melee attacks sold me, though, as they pair nicely with Dead Island 2’s most remarkable feature: its disgustingly intricate procedural gore system.

Repeated attacks break through skin, muscle, fat, and bone, making zombie bodies feel like flesh piñatas, with accidental dismemberments aplenty. As undeterred, zombies charge at you with their bloody skin and charred eyeballs hanging out. The sheer extravaganza in terms of anatomy is breathtaking. Dead Island 2Its most innovative feature is its compelling reason for playing. It would be nice if there were a more interesting game around which to build it.

This old-school first-person approach to melee combat is both slow and frustrating. It felt as if I overextended my attacks to compensate for the slow animations. My right-stick camera was becoming a constant source of frustration. This hurts when there’s so much joy to be had in finally landing a dropkick and punting a zombie’s head off of a garage door in slow-mo. It’s a shame that the slapstick controls are so clunky. Dead Island’s nimble and articulate attack system, with which you could get into a murderous flow and defend yourself adequately.

Image: Dambuster Studios/Deep Silver

A part of the issue is caused by the new skills card system that replaced the previous one. Dead Island’s skill trees. The top row of slots makes you choose between abilities like dodging or blocking (which seems ridiculous, for such foundational mechanics), and the rest offer insignificant stat buffs that you can’t really ascertain in combat. As a result, it’s difficult to specialize in any meaningful way. Co-op can be compared to concrete boots.

My favorite thing about Dead IslandThe ability to specialize in certain fields, such as Firearms and Sharp Weapons. This created memorable moments where you could leverage the skills you had developed to fill the gaps in your teammates’ respective skill sets. Dead Island 2’s lackluster skill system strips away the character-building appeal that the first game so expertly established. When the credits rolled, I felt aimless, and unsure how to improve my character beyond playing “zombie slots” with its randomized loot system.

There are some side quests in the digital Los Angeles districts that provide a fun alternative to the main missions. These involve racing between cutscenes. One had me defeating zombified World’s Strongest Man competitors in Venice Beach, while another sent me to Santa Monica pier’s saltiest dives in chase of a delusional food critic. Unfortunately, many side quests end with the focal NPC obnoxiously turning into a zombie, as there aren’t many verbs beyond ‘kill’ here.

But, if you can avoid the regular interruptions from its hulking, braindead brutes, you’ll find that Dead Island 2Does a lot in its linear, small spaces. I was surprised at the amount of environmental storytelling that took place. In the TV Station, a ‘breaking news’ ticker serves as an SOS, and at the movie studio, you fight through themed lots complete with costumed zombies and interactive traps. Hell-A’s playful items add to the strong feeling of place. The abandoned garages in Beverly Hills are littered with protein bars, light beers, and slogans that refer to American exceptionalism. A dilapidated hype house features neon streaming setups and an apology script that reads “CRY HERE FOR SYMPATHY.”

Image: Dambuster Studios/Deep Silver

The game’s writing is full of cynical jabs at this facetious future for humanity, but it’d be hard to call it good satire, as it doesn’t really imagine anything else. The rapid editing style and cutscene bugs can be distracting. Dead Island 2’s worst lines stick out, leading to some wooden reads and back-and-forth dialogue that often felt like it was stepping over itself. The game’s optional audio journals almost always feature some obnoxious denial of the apocalypse, which gets old quickly, as do the heavy-handed internet culture references, which arrive at a mile a minute. “Slam that like button like bae when their parents aren’t home,” says one quest-giver, as you kill zombies in gratuitous ways to make a viral video.

There’s an overwhelming fakeness and irony to Dead Island 2It can be a bit depressing to play it without having any sincerity or opposition. This is similar to feeling after you eat a lot of junk food. I had a partner who said that it seemed like I was playing the game on autopilot. Instead of engaging in the game’s systems meaningfully, I was mindlessly plowing through its hordes, searching for more complex narratives or complexity. Dead Island 2’s nostalgic charms can transport you back to a simpler time, but there’s often a reason why you don’t see old friends anymore.

Dead Island 2 The game will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC on April 21, as well Xbox One and Xbox Series X. Deep Silver provided a PS5 pre-release code for the game’s review. Vox Media is affiliated with other companies. Vox Media can earn affiliate commissions, but this does not affect editorial content. Find out more about affiliate links. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.