Dead Island 2 Review

The original Dead Island was trapped in development hell, and the sequel found itself in the exact same boat. Dead Island 2 has had a notoriously rough development cycle, with the project changing hands between multiple developers and ultimately taking nine years from its initial announcement to actually hit store shelves. Dead Island fans are used to waiting extended periods of time for games in the series, but the question is if Dead Island 2 was worth the wait.
GAMERANT VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Dead Island 2 is set sometime after the events of the original Dead Island game, starring a mostly new cast of characters who find themselves stuck in a zombie-ridden Los Angeles. The playable characters in Dead Island 2 aren’t particularly important and while they have their own distinct backstories, they don’t have unique character arcs. Instead, the real story comes from the interactions players have with the other survivors in Los Angeles, as they all work together to try to get out alive.

Dead Island 2’s story isn’t particularly engaging, and the ending is extremely underwhelming, but there are still plenty of fun, surprising moments in the cutscenes. Fans of the original Dead Island will get a kick out of seeing Sam B again and some of the dialogue can be funny in a schlocky B-movie sort of way.

Players will experience Dead Island 2’s story as they complete the game’s 20+ main story quests and over 30 side quests. Players are able to progress the main story as they’d like or set it aside to focus on side content if they’d rather do that instead. There’s surprising variety with the objectives players are tasked to complete over the course of the main story, though the side quests often have them going back through previously-covered ground, making them far less engaging. Unfortunately, backtracking is far from Dead Island 2’s biggest problem.

There is some serious jank in Dead Island 2. In one incident, an attempted zombie…

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