Preview of Dead Island

There have been so many zombie fighting games that it’s hard to keep track. We have shot them, beaten them, sawed them, stabbed them, burned them, and exploded them in a variety of settings. Zombies big, small, fat, and thin, slow and quick as cockroaches. One might think that nothing can surprise us, experienced hunters of the living dead. However, Polish developers from Techland in their new game [Dead Island](/games?search=Dead Island) seem to have saved a few surprises.

Dead Paradise

An old rule has long been known: what scares the most is what you wouldn't expect, something that breaks your notions of the surrounding reality. After all, would the heroes be frightened encountering a zombie in a graveyard next to the necromancer's tower? They would only breathe a sigh of relief, because it's just a zombie, not something more serious. A bloody corpse quietly emerging from around the corner in an empty apartment, bathed in the deathly light of the moon through a broken window? That’s scarier, but in this scene, it is primarily the setting that frightens – you subconsciously expect something bad, some trickery. And the fact that this turned out to be just another zombie rather makes you feel joy. In the spirit of – "Phew, what a freak, what a fright!"

And here’s another picture. A tropical island, palm trees swaying gently in the breeze, waves lapping the shore with a soft rustle, sunbeds and umbrellas on the joyful sunlit beaches... spattered with blood. And throughout this shattered idyll, across the desecrated tropical paradise roam mangled human corpses, driven only by the thirst to consume someone. A wild and horrible scene, horrifying primarily because in such settings one could expect anything – terrorist attacks, pirates, even aliens. But not walking dead. Can you imagine? Great, because this situation awaits us in [Dead Island](/games?search=Dead Island).

Do you see the zombies? I can’t see them either. But they are there!

So, the setting of the game will be the fictional tropical island of Banoi, located near the coast of Papua New Guinea, a favorite vacation spot for many tourists. One beautiful (from the necromancers' perspective) and terrible (from everyone else's) night, the island's population was struck by an unknown virus that turned people into zombies. Now, the tourist paradise has turned into a branch of hell on earth.

Left 4 Life

Players take on the role of one of four survivors, desperately trying to escape the cursed island while preferably keeping their brains and all limbs intact. Each of the four heroes – a black rapper, a former athlete, a Chinese secretary, and an aboriginal security guard – has their own backstory and unique skills, which improve as you progress, meaning there will be RPG elements in the game. Experience for character development will also be given for stylish kills, such as headshots or dismemberment.

Beauty is a terrible force, especially when a pretty girl wields an axe...

Yes, there will be dismemberment of the dead in the game, as firearms are extremely rare on a tourist island, and you won't stockpile ammunition, so you'll have to use makeshift weapons. For example, an axe or a katana. In a pinch, you might even throw glasses from the bar counter or smash a zombie with a pipe fragment. The developers emphasize hand-to-hand combat, promising that not only can you pick up various objects as weapons, but you can also upgrade them – for example, electrifying the blade of a knife (frankly, I have a hard time imagining the process, but it will be all the more interesting to see the result). Two factors should make the extermination of the undead in close combat particularly effective: first, the whole game is played from a first-person perspective, and second, it uses a special graphical engine that models the structure of the head in detail. As shown in one of the trailers, the heads of local electronic dummies consist of skulls covered with a layer of muscle and skin, causing them to not just crack and break upon impact but to do so in a particularly realistic manner! We’ll live and see how it looks in the game.

And the eyes – so kind, so white...

The gameplay itself will represent attempts to escape from the island, fighting through hordes of the undead and possibly discovering what really happened there. Free gameplay is expected, not constrained by separate missions – we will have an entire tropical island at our virtually sole disposal. Just need to get rid of the uninvited guests...

A black rapper against a zombie-filled island. The brain-eaters are doomed to a terrible death by starvation.

Speaking of uninvited guests, that is, zombies. There will be, as you already guessed, many. Very many. And they will be diverse – ordinary humanoid zombies that simply run and hit, zombies in straight jackets that knock players down, large bubbly zombies that explode hilariously, fat zombies, pardon me, who vomit on players, as well as some boss zombies with unique abilities. I can’t say that the currently known set of opponents is particularly original, but the undead should handle their tasks well, and more is not required of them. Moreover, we were surely shown far from all representatives of the local bestiary.

The dead man takes a low start.

It is also known that players will be provided with a vehicle to traverse the expanses of Banoi. This clearly hints that the island is not very small and there will definitely be room to maneuver. Just crushing zombies should be fun – recalling the happy days of Carmageddon. However, strangely enough for the inhabitants of a tropical island, our heroes cannot swim. At least the zombies can’t swim either, so you can drown them – variety in killing methods is never a bad thing.

Swimming in the local waters is hazardous to your health.

In addition, the game features multiplayer for four players, although it is not yet clear if this will only be cooperative play or if they will introduce special missions without an open world. But the fact that you can also drive the aforementioned car in multiplayer gives hope primarily for cooperation. And cooperation on such a scale should certainly be very, very fun.

Unfortunately, the developers have not escaped the widespread trend of DLC – it is already known that it will feature new weapons and game modes. One can only hope that the game itself will still prove to be self-sufficient and one will not have to wait for a dozen micro-expansions to play it properly, as a full product and not a pitiful fragment.

To summarize, I can say the following: despite the second-hand nature of some elements of the gameplay, [Dead Island](/games?search=Dead Island) deserves the attention of players. After all, when else will you get the chance to slash zombies from a first-person perspective on a tropical island, and then also drive the remains of the living dead into the ground with the wheels of a vehicle? Unusual settings and a bloody, brutal gameplay - these are the main points that the developers emphasize. And who can say they are wrong?