The slaughtering of undead continues, the sequel to Dead Island is being released by Deep Silver. Techland is skipping the development of the sequel, and Yager Development will be in charge. The location is Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The development team has offered a prettier, way more brutal sequel. The question is that, a horrophobic gamer such as myself will do to this lovely sequel? Well try it of course!

Techland as previously mentioned, is not continuing the series, and decided to go and work on Dying Light, which will be published by Warner Bros. Games. So Deep Silver needed some time to look for a new dev team. Yager stepped up and let’s hope their knowledge is good as their promises. As they have loads of promises: three giant open world levels, four characters, redesigned weapon mechanics, better / Prettier graphics thanks to the Unreal Engine 4, and an atmosphere that we won’t forget quickly (if all goes according to plan.

I need your brain! Oh wait, not.

The Dead Island franchise was never a clever game so to speak. We never needed too much thinking to kill zombies, defend our NPC allies, or get to A to B. It seems this recipe will not be changed. However there will be three levels to explore, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and a third unnamed city as of yet. There will be four playable characters, two of which have been revealed: Ryan the strong but slow hitter, and Dan who’s quick on his feet, no need to worry there will be also two playable female characters.

In terms of weapons the selection has also been expanded: shredders, swords, knives, axes, rifles, and guns. Not enough? No problem, go to the nearest gas station to craft some flamethrowers to your weapons. Go to the electronic store to gather the necessary items, you won’t need cash. You’ll also have the ability to freeze enemies, though not much was revealed.

Everywhere I step, zombies rise!

During our story, we will encounter a lot of bad men and women, and sometimes we’ll need our coop friend, or if without them, our special ability. This is different for all of the characters. Ryan can punch so hard that the enemy flies away, meanwhile Dan has a super-fast horizontal attack that slices everything in half. There’s also the usual rage system in the sequel.

The continuous combos, and destruction will raise the meter and will help us defeat large hordes that surround us in time of need. There is no information about the new type of zombies. The basic type Walker can be killed easily, as it is a slow moving , generic zombie that is dangerous in hordes. The Thug is still in the game, and you’ll need a good weapon to kill it, or stun it to escape from him. Last but not least Suicider is still in, whose ability is to kamikaze when near us.

Multiplayer was also promised, at first four then eight players in Co-op or Competitive mode. Also for some reason the developers decided to switch around the hud elements of the game. We don’t know why as of yet, but hopefully it’s not the final design.

No worries, they’re dead.

I’m not really a horror fan. I would waste a few minutes whether to jump into a river to get a blue flower in Far Cry 3 that was guarded by crocodiles. Dead Island 2 is however really different. I have never seen such “light hearted” fun, and the trailer also tries to set the tone in. The other part is that the sequel does not take itself seriously, it just wants to turn your brain off. Yes zombies do get in your face, but they don’t try to scare you. You just get to kill them in a lot of fun way, hopefully Yager will be able to keep its promises, and by the second half of 2015 we’ll all be able to enjoy this game.

– Dazo911 –