It’s often a queasy sight, but after a too-close-for-comfort encounter with that same skull, the tiny hit of adrenaline you get lets the rush take over, most of the time. Enemies can be dismembered with ease, and skulls can be completely crushed. Large gashes will be cut open and chunks of flesh will be ripped out, with sinewy insides being exposed in clear detail, wet organs spilling out. That can come with its own inherent frustration, but the feedback you get from making your own impactful, violent mark is so barbarically fulfilling that it, quite frankly, disturbs me.Įach fleshy zombie in Dead Island 2 becomes damaged in unique ways, depending on where and how you hit them, and the kind of weapon you used to do so. Dead Island 2 takes a mostly grounded approach to your player character’s ability, with most weapon swings feeling slow and deliberate to give you the sense of exertion. The path you walk in the name of helping fellow survivors, journeying to different parts of the city and exploring its cluttered nooks and crannies, will be a well-defined one, with a breadcrumb trail of body parts left in your wake.Īt first, it feels like the endless cycle of killing zombies will wear out its welcome sooner rather than later, but strangely, it never does. You can’t walk in any direction for more than 30 seconds without stumbling across an undead corpse in your way, just asking to be smacked with a hammer, or beheaded with a fire axe.

It also hones the focus on the environmental details, creating the sense of a world that’s truly become suddenly overrun and left as-is. But a focus on a being a ‘walkable’ game – where a jog is your fastest mode of movement, but everything still feels in reach – helps make the world of Dead Island 2 feel expansive without really being so.

Dead Island 2 is not an open-world game, but one of several discrete areas – some bright and expansive, some dark and claustrophobic, others a complex upper-class suburban labyrinth.

Dead island 2 full game