The original Dead Island from Techland had a somewhat difficult development, but became an odd success when it was finally released in 2011. Its often unintentionally funny coop was the secret sauce for that period of games when the cooperative titles were extremely popular. While its often mediocre quest and level design and simplistic and grindy action RPG/looter shooter mechanics were often excused. It also allowed for melee combat using the analogue sticks, had some systemic elements, ability to drive cars and its story, despite being boring, actually acknowledged all playable characters even if you were to play solo – something that Borderlands wasn’t doing yet. But despite me being somewhat positive about the game over a decade ago, I couldn’t even bother to finish its standalone expansion Riptide, let alone ever replay it.
Techland moved on to create a potentially more interesting franchise with Dying Light, but I didn’t like those either. All while Dead Island 2 went into development hell, switching developers and being remade from scratch several times. But it has been released last year and all of its previously announced DLCs are out as well, so I’ve decided to give it a go. To my surprise, it turned out to be quite entertaining, if you know what to expect.
