It’s hard not to explore each new room, as handcrafted scenarios hide in wait. The LA environments are beautifully rendered and the devs have clearly worked hard to add subtle details to each space. Visually, Dead Island 2 looks remarkable. As Jacob, I can weave and dodge a series of incoming attacks, recovering some health, before going on the counter-attack and enjoying increased damage with each subsequent hit I land. Some skill cards are better than others, though my favorites enhance the player’s dodge/block abilities.

shift that functions in much the same way as traditional perk and ability trees. There’s no deck-building or anything like that, it’s just a U.I. I landed on Jacob as my favorite, both for his dodging and British accent.ĭead Island 2’s skill tree takes the form of cards that players choose from. Second, how they sound, as some characters are voiced better than others. First, whether they Dodge or Block, as each character can only do one of these actions. While there are differences between them, it quickly became clear to me that there are only two things you really need to worry about when making your selection. There are six characters to choose from, all of which have their own strengths and weaknesses. And these are just the standard weapons, as the action only gets more entertaining when elemental damage is introduced. Sharpened blades cut through enemies just as brilliantly, causing blood to gush out. Weapons hit hard, with blunt instruments slamming into zombies and sending them flying. Powered by the “FLESH” system, combat is easily the best thing about Dead Island 2.

Thankfully, the foundation of the gameplay, an extremely satisfying combat system, helps give Dead Island 2 a huge boost. Missions are fairly basic in structure and players get to do a bunch of fetching. Dead Island 2’s characters are funny, but pretty stupid, as are the errands they task players with. Think more Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, than 28 Days Later or The Last of Us. This horror game leans more on comedy than on exploring the bonds of remaining humans.

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