Dead Island 2 review: Not much to chew on

Zombies have become a ubiquitous feature of the video game medium at this point, with every year seeing a brand-new high-profile title that's filled with the groaning undead as fodder for you to slice, smash, and shoot through. It's a classic enemy archetype for a reason, but the overexposure of zombies makes it hard to put an original spin on them.

This year's entry into the zombie canon is Dead Island 2, the long awaited-sequel to 2011's flawed hit, and while it makes some steps to improve upon the original, it's still an ultimately derivative experience that fails to capitalise on its own potential.

Welcome to HELL-A

Dead Island 2 ditches the island location in favour of the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, which has been quarantined after a zombie outbreak saw the entire city fall apart. Much like the original, you start by selecting your character from a list of survivors who are briefly introduced in a cutscene that sees them all gather on a plane to escape the city. Before long, the plane crashes, and you escape the wreckage while getting familiar with the controls and mechanics. 

I opted for Bruno, a tatted-up hype beast that resembles Lil Pump, but your choice doesn't make much of a difference beyond your starting stats and two passive skills. Fast-forward a bit, and you get bitten before learning your immune, and then hold up in the safehouse of an A-list actor, promising to help them escape the city in exchange for safety. It's the same type of set-up you'll have seen in tonnes of zombie-related media, but it works fine for these early hours, giving you just enough motivation to head into the wider city and start looking for a way to escape. 

The story does begin to fall apart as time goes on though, becoming more confusing as it tries to throw in some twists and turns in relation to the origins of the outbreak and people the like protagonist who has immunity. This leaves the final hours of the game feeling like a massive let-down that exceeds the game's grasp, with the final areas turning more linear and straightforward, and the ending opting for sequel bait instead of wrapping up the story satisfyingly. 

It also tries to play it less straight and serious this time around, giving off a more tongue-in-cheek vibe during its better moments, but to the game's detriment, it doesn't uphold this throughout. There are some standout moments of silliness that approach B-movie levels of irreverence and fun, but the game fails to nail down a consistent tone, leaving it in a weird limbo between the original game and something like Dead Rising. 

Swimming in the shallows

Dead Island 2 has the same action role-playing game structure of the first, with all the meta progression you'd expect such as levelling, a skill card system where you can equip passives and new abilities, and large amounts of loot. However, all the systems feel really surface level, and none of these aspects seems to coalesce into a greater whole. 

For example, the skill card system sees you equip different passive and active abilities as you unlock new slots throughout the game. They never allow for the type of deep customisation that lets you create unique classes and gameplay styles though, with it merely serving to slightly enhance the basic attacks and abilities you already have. This means as you level up, you never feel like an active agent that decides how to tackle the game and its challenges, just a passenger being led through a progression system.

There is a saving grace in the Autophage system that you unlock late on, allowing you to harness the zombie virus within you to enhance certain stats and abilities while trading off others. This is the only type of customisation that has some depth to it and facilitates any sense of role-playing, but it's ultimately one small feature in a larger pool of shallow RPG mechanics. 

You can carve out your own way of playing, but it mostly comes down to which weapon type you favour over the other. Luckily, there's a good variety of weapons to try out on zombie skulls here, ranging from standard knives, bats, and tools, to makeshift swords, guns, and throwable items. 

Re-fleshing combat

The actual combat of Dead Island 2 is where the game shines the most. For one, it feels more involved than the first game, giving you more tools in your arsenal to slay the hordes of undead and special infected you'll encounter. Aside from the attacks you can perform with whatever weapon you have equipped, there is a dodge and block system that lets you stagger zombies with a well-timed input, throwable items that you can quickly swap in and out, various kicks, and an environmental damage system that feels like it came straight from an immersive sim. 

Environmental damage is one of the better features of combat here, letting you combine electricity with puddles of water to damage entire groups of enemies or set fuel cans aflame to create roadblocks of fire that you can lead zombies into. This is one of the few systems where you are encouraged to play smart and not just get in the face of whatever undead comes at you. It's also consistently facilitated with the general map design and encounter design, giving you plenty of opportunities to use the environment to your advantage. 

Another way the combat has been improved over the original is the FLESH system, which is essentially a visual feedback tool that shows the effects of your weapons on zombies. Blunt weapons will smash bone and mangle limbs, while blades will tear off pieces of flesh and let you reduce a zombie to small pieces. Combined with the audio design, it makes for some of the most viscerally satisfying zombie combat I've seen in a game.

However, Dead Island 2 sadly suffers from the same issue as the original game, in that it introduces guns at some point, and the balance goes out the window. Combat is clearly designed with melee weapons in mind, and guns trivialise every encounter once you gain access to them. This could have been balanced by making ammo scarce, but bullets are cheap to buy and easy to make thanks to a surplus of resources, meaning it's unlikely that you'll ever run out. 

The Verdict

Dead Island 2 could have been the Return of the Living Dead of zombie video games, making for an irreverent, B-movie romp through an undead-filled LA, but it just ends up marginally better than the original game without ever approaching its full potential.

The improved combat is the game's main saving grace, but it isn't enough to redeem the shallow progression mechanics, inconsistent tone, and unfocused story.

2.5/5

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by publisher.