Buy Dead Island 2

I'm not sure which fact makes me feel older — the original Dead Island coming out back in 2011 or it has been eight full years since the sequel was originally supposed to be released. Despite four different developers being attached to the title over what must amount to at least a decade of development, Dead Island 2 manages to bring a bit of fresh air to the incredibly well-trod genre of zombie-killing. It's like a time capsule that was buried back when this style of game could just be fun instead of serious.

Dead Island 2 is broken up into a multitude of areas that can be considered large "levels" that make the game feel like more of an open world, but each neighborhood or area is its own location that you can only move between at certain points. Of course, each area is filled with crafting items to find, unknown points of interest, and a whole bunch of undead. You start at the site of a plane crash near Los Angeles and make your way into Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, a fictional studio lot, Venice Beach, and an assortment of other major landmark areas found in the L.A. area.

I'll admit up front that overall, I'm rather tired of zombie games. A lot of that is due to how most modern examples relentlessly dwell on the bleakest and realistic responses to a zombie apocalypse. The original Dead Island took that whole concept and added a thin layer of humor and sunscreen, fighting zombies in an often-well-lit tropical paradise. The sequel takes that to a whole different level. The best comparison I can make to this end is to imagine a scenario where the only survivors of a zombie outbreak were all characters that wouldn't be out of place in a Saint's Row game.

Practically every character with a pulse is either not taking the swarms of undead terribly seriously, or they are taking it just seriously enough to be the narrative foil for the ones that are truly insane. Your player character cracks jokes and acts like they're an undead-slaying superhero. You'll trudge through the decadent mansion of a bunch of streamers that videoed their early days of the invasion before they died, except for one who is still all about those clicks and partners with you to get some choice footage. A "was-been" rocker wearing little more than a leather jacket and purple panties is wandering around and really wants some pizza.

The insistence on not taking things too seriously is such a fresh feeling when compared to modern games of the genre. It's not as though the game is purely a comedic one, and there certainly are more serious beats delivered via the plot or by environmental storytelling, but those moments aren't the focus. The plot is refreshingly wafer-thin as well; you wanted out of HELL-A (you guessed it; it's what the game calls L.A. now that it's infested with the undead), got on a plane, and then that plane crashed.

Of course, that glosses over some details, such as a major movie star ignored protocols and boarded the plane while infected, became a zombie, and caused panic on the plane. Of course, that naturally led to the plane being shot down with a surface-to-air missile, presumably to contain the outbreak. You survived that because of course you did, and now you're trying to find a new way out of the city along with your new movie star best friend (not the zombified one — a different one who also survived the crash) and a gaggle of some of those previously mentioned, mentally questionable folks.

One of the most insistent traits of Dead Island 2 is that it demands that it isn't taken too seriously. This is a game where you're whipping up weapons such as electrified rakes and spears with blowtorches. Heck, you can dropkick a zombie after jumping while standing still. It's not realistic, but realism takes a back seat to fun. Where other games featuring the undead will have you following a mission that dwells on the horrible impacts it has on the survivors, Dead Island 2 goes, "You know what? I want you to dropkick six zombies from the top of this roof."

The game isn't just a whole bunch of slapstick humor and goofiness, though. The combat system is one area that takes itself seriously, and while it has some neat features, it's a lot of expected stuff, too. Hitting a zombie in the head drops it more quickly, you have weak attacks and power attacks, and if you block at the right time, you can launch a counterattack. There are other nuances, such as dodging, blocking means losing some weapon durability, etc. It's straightforward, but there's more to it than simply spamming attacks until the dead stay dead.

There are four weapon types, including bulldozer, frenzy, headhunter and maiming. Bulldozer weapons deal with groups of zombies at a time. Frenzy weapons provide nothing but crits, assuming you land a few hits in rapid succession and keep landing them without being hit. Headhunter weapons inflict guaranteed critical damage to a zombie's head to drop them faster. Maiming weapons deal more damage to limbs, so targeted hits at big, strong zombies are ideal.

For weaker zombies, you'll often do enough damage trying to hit their arms or legs with a maiming weapon that they're close to death. You can also do the same with any weapon; maiming adds bonus damage to limbs and makes it easier. When you're taking on big zombies, it's nice to use the correct weapon to cripple them before landing a bunch of shots with a headhunter weapon, staggering them, and going to town with a frenzy weapon while they're dazed.

I mentioned counterattacks earlier, and they're overpowered. If you time a block just right, you'll get to push a button and initiate a canned series of attacks that is based on your weapon. With a rake, you might bash in their face and cause their eyes to dangle out of their sockets. With a machete, you might bury it halfway into their head before pulling it free. Each attack does damage, so if the zombie has enough health after a couple of hits, they break free, but by then, you've done a real number on them. If they can get killed by the attacks, the last hit is a special execution move, and there's no way to come back from it.

There are a couple of problems with the powerful counterattacks. A big one is that since they require less weapon durability, you cannot get hit while you are doing one. You can get some health back from it, so you want to do them as often as possible. Each weapon only has one set of counterattacks. Counter five zombies in a row with a spear, and each one is going to start with a strike or two and end with jamming the spear through their head and under the chin.

There are a multitude of weapons in Dead Island 2, and early on, you only get improvised weapons that have low durability and damage, but you quickly find weapons of "uncommon" or greater quality that you can modify. Every weapon comes with a fixed perk that increases one of its stats. You can add a perk that will increase one or two stats while reducing others, such as trading durability for attack speed. Finally, once you have found their blueprints, you can add mods to a weapon to basically add electric damage, fire damage, etc.

This matters because you can use fire damage on zombies and as an easy way to light the gasoline that you just poured on the ground before luring zombies to it. You can use electric damage to stun zombies after enough hits, but it too can light a pool of petrol on fire. There's rarely a downside to adding a mod to a weapon. Even if you use a fire spear on a flame zombie, they won't take the extra fire damage but you are still stabbing them with a spear.

You can bend environmental hazards to your advantage. You can hardly go a few dozen feet without finding standing water, burst water or gas pipes, live wires, etc. If the hazard isn't what you'd like, you can craft it by hand, as you will often have cans filled with water or gas that you can pour. Lure a bunch of zombies into a flaming pool of gas … and chuck that gas can into the flames for an explosive flourish.

As you progress, you also unlock infinite "curveballs," but they each have their own cooldown. Jars of meat can lure groups of zombies into your devious traps. Things like chem bombs can be used to soak zombies (making them more susceptible to electric damage) or put out fires in the environment. Since they have cooldowns, you can use them freely without worrying about running out, which is incredibly freeing given how often games of this type make you craft or buy items like this.

Much like you did in the original Dead Island, you will eventually stumble across firearms and ammo, and similarly, the game loses a lot of its charm once you do. Making your way through HELL-A is fun when you're armed with caffeine and garden tools. It becomes a sub-par, run-of-the-mill shooter when you're able to drop zombies at range. Ammo is rarely scarce, and there's no downside to using firearms, except perhaps in the fact that they are simply less fun.

You also get "cards" as you gain levels and complete certain missions, which let you change your gameplay in subtle ways via the Skill Deck. Ability cards give you new abilities, but even the dropkick one can be modified to change its characteristics, such as potentially stunning nearby enemies after landing one. Meanwhile, Survivor and Slayer cards augment your play style, such as gaining more health after landing a counterattack or gaining perks after blocking a few hits in succession. The cards let you customize your character based on your play style, and you can change them up among your available cards at any time.

Dead Island 2 surely went through a few levels of development hell, so anyone following its path would reasonably suspect that the game might have issues. I can't say that it does anything exceptionally well, but it has enough life in it to avoid major stumbles. For better or worse, it is a by-the-numbers zombie basher that doesn't do anything terribly distinct. Its humor makes it compelling and fun, and it's at its best whenever it relies on that strength.

Score: 8.1/10

Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, 32 GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti