Dead Island 2 Review (Tamaster)
Sum-Up
In-depth analysis further down.
Want to know more about the franchise? Here is my Dead Island 1 review.
If you’re looking for some screenshots click here to view all the ones I took for this game.
🟩 Pros
🟥 Cons
• Visual fidelity and level of detail in each location are exceptional; along the impressive gore system and quality effects, immersion is assured.
• Superb combat feeling: the weight behind each hit, slash, kick and explosion is realistic and satisfying.
• Solid weapon variety, with most of them having unique movesets and distinct handling. Plus, a good amount of unique ones.
• Side-content is mostly worth doing (even if it’s often boring): it awards unique perks, weapons and items.
• Tremendous amount of collectibles, diaries and optional documents for those interested in deep-diving into the lore.
• Exploration feels unrewarding: most named or hidden containers drop generic weapons you can regularly buy, craft or drop from enemies.
• Excessive power-creep in late-game: you will steamroll everything more often than not. Or you can use the DLC-exclusive “masochist” card that turns everything into a massive bullet sponge.
• The majority of side quests, with rare exceptions, are repetitive slogs - in particular, hint-based treasure hunts are ugly chores with brain-rot logic.
• Open-world feels formulaic; most areas are blocked by quests, main progression and other events. You’re often limited in where you can actually go.
• The overall atmosphere, feel and mood of the setting are too cringeworthy and light-hearted.
🟨 Bugs & Issues
🔧 Specs
• Specific achievements may not unlock correctly for clients of a co-op game.
• Excessive enemy respawn rate: areas will refill -literally- 30 seconds after turning around.
• Map markers can’t be seen by co-op partners.
• i9 13980HX
• 64GB RAM DDR5
• RTX 4090
• NvME SSD
• 3840x2160
Content & Replay Value:
With another player in co-op, it took around 45 hours to complete Dead Island 2 (DI2), taking considerable extra time to explore, clear optional content and DLCs. Without DLCs, it would take around 35 hours. The entire content is linear: there’s no reason to replay. No NG+.
Is it worth buying?
Yes, on a heavy sale. The price of 60€ is in line with AAA expectations, however given its age, content amount and overall good but not excellent quality, I’d recommend waiting for a discount. Don’t buy the DLCs - they are garbage.
Verdict: Decent
Rating Chart Here
Hard-carried by exciting, gore-filled combat and exceptional weapon feel, Dead Island 2 is a good pick for zombie-slaying fun - despite the many problems that drag it down.
In-Depth
Writing & Worldbuilding
Writing-wise, the main story is on fair levels: it doesn’t have the grip or appeal of other zombie-themed titles - say, Days Gone to pick one, but it’s not complete crap either - a couple turnarounds are even decent. Certainly, it’s dragged down by the raw amount of cringe, unrealistic dialogues and situations most characters will find themselves in overall; it’s Dead Island, not Dead Rising… right? The first chapter had a much-darker theme, more mature side / main characters, and felt more plausible. Lore-wise, some of the documents and recordings being quite interesting; a genuinely-good diversion from the slaughter.
The level of detail in each location, be it a centerpiece or just a side-area for some obscure quest, is excellent. It shows that the devs put great effort in making them shine. Looking around you can truly realize the minute attention to detail put into them by the designers. Overall, the demolished cityscape, plentiful gore and zombie presence give out a good apocalyptic feel, but it’s still way too sunny and colorful. For whatever dumb reason, no human enemies will ever be encountered, as opposed to DI1 - as if humanity would suddenly become fraternal during an apocalypse. Yeah, right.
Exploration & Secrets
This on-paper open-world proves highly formulaic and guided in its evolution. As opposed to titles where you’re able to explore freely from the get-go, in DI2 you’ll be highly “on tracks” for most of your playtime: oh, you wanted to explore that place? Locked by a quest! Only to then be open by sheer magic even if nothing really changed except your quest log. It feels artificial and frustrating, especially when you have to clear all the zombies again. Fast travel is only available from fixed points, an archaic design choice that bloats gameplay, by forcing you to backtrack quite a lot to and from locations that don’t have any.
You’ll find many containers with a variety of components, weapons, and the occasional blueprint. Some of them are on your way, but others are instead off the beaten path, or even in secret areas. They all get marked on your map if you get close enough to them, like everything else, however to open them you’ll need consumable items (Fuses) or to find specific keys. Finding them is a chore as often there’s no hint whatsoever… only to then open these ‘unique’ containers to get randomized weapons you can get anywhere else. This is a waste of time, unrewarding and just stupid design. Maps, in the form of tourist flyers, don’t always seem adequate in conveying the layout of a location.
Combat System & Character Progression
The crown jewel of DI2 is, without doubt, its combat system, which evolves threefold with melee weapons, guns and a vast array of active skills and consumables. You’ll be able to employ both makeshift and real weapons to dismember, pummel, crush, burn and deflagrate the undead. The gore and physics systems at play here are second to none, surpassing even both Dying Light games in this regard. It’s supremely satisfying to see the weight of a two-handed hammer stagger even large enemies, swords cleave bodies in half, and explosions shred zombies into piles of gore.
A fairly deep, but intuitive system, based on parries, dodges, stamina management and elemental weaknesses / immunities further widens the approaches at your disposal, by using the plentiful hazards (fire, electricity, acid…) to your advantage. In that regard, there’s an excessive amount of hazard surfaces, especially later on, which make melee engagements quite frustrating. Not that it matters if you lose anyway, since there’s no death penalty whatsoever - not even for money. Cash you’ll need to buy materials, blueprints, consumables and even arms from the numerous traders, other than repairing weapons and equalizing them to your current level - all of which is fairly expensive, so that would have been a good penalty for death. Guess casuals would have cried too hard! It’s sad that bosses are, save for the final one, just reskins or recolors of normal enemies.
Your character can be equipped with cards, which grant active and passive abilities that define your playstyle better, and allow you to specialize to an extent. There isn’t a deeper ARPG-like progression, or any skill tree, so don’t expect too much depth. These cards are often obtained from exploration or side-quests. This and gear level / modifications, obtained in the same way, are the only two forms of progression, other than your base level which will scale most enemies and also their drops, color-coded by rarity.