Dead Island 2: Day 1 Edition For PS5

Like an Orange County socialite, Dead Island 2’s great looks and seemingly ideal first impression belies a striking lack of imagination. On one hand, Dambuster Studios has delivered a charming and hilarious apocalyptic sequel to the 2011 original that’s littered with great one-liners and dismembered body parts in equal measure. But aside from its balls-to-the-wall silliness and considerable comedy chops, there just isn’t much to it that hasn’t been done better in a dozen other zombie-filled games since the original Dead Island came out more than a decade ago, including and especially Dying Light 1 and Dying Light 2 (which, notably, were made by Techland, the studio that created Dead Island). But even though it lacks originality, Dead Island 2 still competently executes on its over-the-top, LA-based zombie parody and injects some much-needed botox into a series that’s been languishing for far too long. Making Hollywood’s red carpets even redder by applying generous helpings of gore was laugh-out-loud funny and time generally well-spent.

This is a lighthearted first-person action game where committing unspeakable acts of violence against the zombie hordes of “Hell-A” is the most mundane thing about it. After choosing one of six virus-resistant playable characters aboard a failed plane evacuation, you’re thrown gore-first into the ridiculous streets of Southern California where absolutely no one seems to be taking the apocalypse seriously. Alone or with up to two co-op pals you’ll drop-kick and disembowel your way through a cattle call of the undead over the course of this 30-hour adventure, during which you’ll meet a bevy of larger-than-life quest-givers that include a drug-addled rockstar and a geriatric former movie star who gets his fashion tips from Hugh Hefner.

Like a cheesy B-movie, the story makes so little effort to produce anything approaching coherence that the attempt itself may in fact be sarcastic, and that fits in quite nicely with the absurdist tone of an adventure where some zombies have hives of aggressive bees stuck in their torsos. What few twists and turns exist in this familiar apocalyptic tale aren’t terribly surprising or interesting, and that highlights one of the many ways Dead Island 2 feels like a game I’ve played several times before.
The good news is, although it lacks storytelling substance, that meandering odyssey at least has some very funny writing and memorable characters throughout, and the fact that both are completely unhinged works to Dead Island 2’s advantage. One chapter had me searching for a squeamish assistant on the set of a horror movie featuring a giant, acid-spitting mechanical spider, while a sidequest had me slaying zombies in creative ways for the benefit of a social media influencer looking to boost her clout. The numerous ways in which the developers expertly poke fun at the stereotypical vanity and vapidness of the Los Angeles setting is reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto 5’s Los Santos in the best kind of way.

Many of the steady stream of laughs comes out of your chosen protagonist, who mocks most everything and everyone around them. For example, the character I played as the most, Jacob, repeatedly questioned the motives of a zombie clown who stalked a kid-friendly carnival in a section that had me cackling uncontrollably. One downer, though, is that a lot of the fantastic dialogue is stepped on by NPCs who use the same dialogue no matter which character you’re playing as. All too often, this means they’re oblivious to the hilarious thing your character said and just moving on with whatever they wanted to tell you. Other than that, though, great writing is helped along by high-quality voice performances as you recklessly charge your way through whatever preposterous hijinks before you, and that’s hands-down the best part of Dead Island 2.
If you’ve ever braved a virtual zombie apocalypse before, then you’ll be quite familiar with the combat formula that this cheeky iteration sticks quite close to. You start with basic melee weapons like baseball bats and hammers before crafting more elaborate tools of destruction like an electric katana or the demon lovechild of a sledgehammer and a flamethrower, and eventually guns, too. But while the more eccentric melee options have interesting designs, in practice they don’t feel much different than their unmodded peers, aside from applying various status effects, so they aren’t as exciting as they look. The melee creations at your disposal are also far less original and crazy than the kinds of bonkers weapons we got to play with in the Dead Rising series – you definitely won’t be seeing any umbrella lasers or sledgehammers with grenades duct taped to them, for example.