Dead Island 2 Hands-on and Q&A – Devs Comment on Game Length, HELL-A Setting, and Open World Boredom

wccftech.com:

I've played Dead Island 2. Granted, it wasn't the first time that happened since I was able to go hands-on with the original version of the game nearly ten years ago, at Gamescom 2014, when Yager Development was still the developer.

Not long after that, the first troubles started brewing. There was a delay from the Q2 2015 release window, and publisher Deep Silver later revealed to have parted ways with Yager. In March 2016, we learned that Sumo Digital had taken over the reins of the Dead Island 2 project. For the next three years or so, everything surrounding the game went quiet until Deep Silver announced yet another developer change, with Dambuster Studios (Homefront: The Revolution) brought on board.

At this point, fans and critics alike had all but despaired that this sequel would ever see the light of day. However, the game is at long last coming out in just five weeks, and I can confirm that it's real and also pretty good, although fairly conservative in what it tries to do.

Deep Silver allowed us to check out a few hours of the game from the very beginning when your chosen Slayer (out of a roster of six) crashlands back in quarantined LA, or HELL-A as more appropriately named by Dambuster, along with a group of people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.

It's not long after that the main character gets bitten by a newly turned zombie. Luckily, they quickly find out they're immune, making them invaluable to the rest of the survivors once they regroup at a movie star's mansion to figure out how to escape the nightmare.

Each Slayer has different starting attributes and a couple of exclusive innate skills. Ryan, the one I picked in my playthrough, has a lot of health and gets bonuses when blocking or knocking down