Dead Island 2 is back from the dead

 Who woulda thunk?

In 2011, a video game called Dead Island was released to raised eyebrows, mostly due to the fact that the game sold itself on the strength of an initial CG reveal trailer that revolved around heartbreak, emotion turmoil and the tragedy indicative of a zombie apocalypse, only for the game to throw most of that away so that it could focus on the silly and inane style of zombie slaying that video games can't seem to shy away from. It wouldn't be until the Last of Us that we got a game that would live up to Dead Island's initial promise. None of which is to say that Dead Island 1 was a bad game, per se; it just wasn't really the game that many people were expecting it to be. When expectations were adjusted however; Dead Island turned out to be a perfectly fine and fun zombie game, that absolutely got stale before it's second half but which is otherwise a decent enough time.

I think that the focus on melee combat alongside a morbidly well realised gore system that allowed players to bash zombies in pretty modular and satisfying ways allowed for the game general flaws to be swept aside under the pure fun of just playing the thing. In fact, I'd say that Dead Island's zombies, with the ability to actually slice off chunks of flesh was pretty much the height of industry zombie gore design until Resident Evil 2 Remake came along with it's RE engine, that pretty much nailed locational damage down to the specifics. And the resort island setting certainly made for a very unique visual setting to slay monsters in, keeping the premise feeling fresh for about as long as the narrative could manage. However, the game never really got the sequel that so many thought it deserved. There was some quite lacklustre DLC content, a spiritual successor in Dying Light which bought the game closer to the scary and emotional-charged angle that the original was hinting at, but no real Dead Island 2.

That was until that teaser trailer from what feels like a whole generation ago, wherein we got a little look at a game much more in-line with what Dead Island represents; campey, gorey fun. I think that whole 'jogger going down Venice Beach' trailer slowly became more infamous than famous as it became the posterboy for games that never come out, however. Dead Island 2, this time it's in LA, crept out of industry show line-ups for years as the game underwent set-back after set-back, at least one total reboot of development, and enough team shakeups to make any sensible onlooker sceptical. Personally, I was starting to look at this game as modern day vapourware. A promise of something that would never really come into fruition, and certainly not in the way that fans were dreaming for. A disaster package waiting to drop on our heads. And you know what? I may be eating crow on this one.

Dead Island 2 is not only a real game that was shown off with a gameplay trailer this time around proving it's legitimacy, it actually looks pretty good. It's not an industry changer by any stretch of the imagination, and it hasn't made any grand promises as of the scope of what the game will offer, but in a way I can very much respect that restraint. Whereas Dying Light 2 tripped over itself to rave about the scope of adaptiveness within the game world, shifting to attune to your specific choices, only for the real game to fall, predictably, flat on that promise; Dead Island 2 wants you to kill zombies in horrific, brutal, and at times in a nearly DOOM-esque fashion. That is something that can be proved already from the gameplay we have, and it's a promise that the team seem capable of living up to in gusto. So much so that Geoff Keighley had the Gamescon version of the trailer censored. Which turned out to be a cheap gimmick just to funnel people into watching the uncut trailer on Youtube; there was literally nothing any more objectionable in the 'censored' clips.

What we seem to have is a deliciously violent celebration of all that Dead Island 1 got right rendered in a scale-up to modern standards that I certainly wasn't sure was possible after a development period this strangled. I mean this game looks good, although that is an easy bar to clear after the recent release of Saints Row. (Sheesh.) You have the reflections, high poly zombie models, great looking blood and gore effects, and a real sense of scale now that we have the city of angels to explore. Even though I think you have to squint mighty hard to call Los Angeles an Island. I guess it's part of an island, but only if you're willing to call a continent an Island and personally I'm not. Honestly, I'd feel more comfortable calling a zombie game set in Manhattan an island, because that would technically be true.

But I suppose we're all about capturing that lazy vibe of the sea-side resort bleached in sun and vacation vibes; for which I must say that Dead Island 2 is really holding up it's end of the bargain. The second half of Dead Island 1 took us into the city and then onwards to the jungle, both environments that weren't really what fans wanted and thus those parts of the game pretty roundly sucked. Dying Light went on to explore those environments and how to make them fun, leaving Dead Island 2 to lean further into the resort vibe from the first half. Of course, we'll no doubt have to explore the residentials in the Hollywood hills, and the busy streets of downtown, but being able to see the ocean at practically any point is going to soothe that claustrophobic spirit before it can rattle too hard.

Dead Island's biggest problem, in my opinion, was how stringently is appealed to it's RPG formula to the point where the game turned into a looter style title in it's later chapters. Yes, that means you'd have levelled weapons and gear that suddenly grew ineffective because these enemies were too powerful. You could save all your guns for the big dangerous moments, only to find out that they hardly did any damage whatsoever. When you have zombies as the chief enemy of your game, it kinda rubs raw having them become bullet sponges because of some arbitrary damage formula which decided not to work your way. Maybe the many years in development has given the developers time to effectively consider this, or maybe they'll just throw in another annoying overly RPG'd system. Who knows at this point.

If this game actually does come out and is as fun as the trailer says, then we might have to totally rewrite the fundamental rules about how vapourware functions in the modern age. The commonly understood pattern is: game is announced, game gets vanished, game resurfaces, game is bad. I'm not saying that Dead Island 2 is primed to break that pattern, but it certainly wants us to believe that is can and screw it, I wanna believe. We may not exactly be starved for zombie games but after Dying Light 2 kind of let me down a bit in the story department I welcome another approach to a big budget zombie hit because hey, there's just something special about zombie killing in video games, ain't there? Do I suspect that the game is going to slip over itself in it's attempt to differentiate itself from Dying Light? (Even after Dying Light 2 lost the mood of the original game) Yes I do... but what's hype with a dose of reality swinging over us like a guillotine?