When the first teaser trailer for Dead Island 2 came out, everyone was hyped for it. That is until it took them almost nine years to get the game out. Now the question is, is the game worth the almost decade-long wait? Here is what critics have to say about Dead Island 2, including their reviews and scores of the game.
Dead Island 2 Review Scores: 75-76 on Metacritic
Dead Island 2 is the sequel to the titular Dead Island which came out back in 2011. It will be coming out on April 21, 2023, and is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and PC.
Metacritic aggregated reviews for all the platforms the game is available in. As of this article, there are a total of 115 reviews for the game, with 75 of those reviews scoring the game as positive, and 40 giving it a mixed review. The PlayStation version of the game has the most reviews at 67, with the Xbox Series X version receiving 28, and the PC version getting the last 20.
Brendan Lowry from Windows Central gave the game a score of 90. He said that the game was “everything a Dead Island Fan could ask for.” In particular, he praised the game’s “addicting combat mechanics, excellent character and gear progression systems, hilariously satirical writing, and goretastic presentation”. He did comment however that the game’s random zombie spawns were weird, that the puzzles could use more variety, and that the game had a few performance issues. Overall, however, he said that “this long-awaited sequel has proven it was worth the wait.”
Finger Guns’ Greg Hicks also gave the game a score of 90. He said that the game was “all about killing in style.” He particularly praised the ” beautifully rendered wastelands of HELL-A”, as well as its “equally visceral limb destruction system”. With “endless fun to be had”, either “solo or with friends/strangers”, the game’s developers have “rewritten how to enjoy oneself in the face of Armageddon.”.
Richard Dobson from The Xbox Hub gave the game a score of 90 as well. He said the game “might be the most fun end-of-days yet.” He praised the game’s “dark humour, gratuitous violence and sandbox-esque playground of LA”, as well as how the game allows you to “come up with some beautiful and brutal zombie kills.”
Gaming Trend’s Abdul Saad gave the game a score of 85. He said that Dead Island 2 “succeeded in providing a fun and unique zombie slaying experience that will leave players highly satisfied.” However, he said that the game was “not without its flaws.” Neil Bolt also gave the game a score of 85. He described the game as ” a game that takes great joy in the simple act of smashing, splatting, and slicing the undead into meaty chunks”.
VG247’s Kelsey Raynor gave the game a score of 80. They said that the game was “every bit the head-stomping blast that it promised to be.” If players are hoping for “mindless chaos and exceptional entertainment across the grindhouse slaughterhouse that is HELL-A”, then this game is for you. They mentioned, however, that there are “a few creases that Dambuster ought to iron out over the coming weeks.” They also hoped and expected more accessibility options for players, quoting the game’s lack of color-blind options, contrast changing, and more.
Patrick Dane also gave the game a score of 80 on his review for Dexerto. He said that the game “feels crafted with so much love, that if you give yourself over to its shambling grasp, you might be surprised to hear a beating heart inside its exposed ribcage.” However, they also mentioned that the game’s “groans can be loud”, saying that the game had “technical and execution faults” that were “hard to ignore.”
On their review for Softpedia, Cosmin Vasile gave the game a score of 75, calling the game a “poster boy of mindless fun.” He described it as “a gore fest that does not take itself seriously or the topic of zombie apocalypse”, and is “mainly a relaxing stroll down the sunny streets of Beverly Hills littered with undead corpses”. However, he also said that the game had “no ambition to revolutionize the genre or to be memorable”, and was like a game “you will probably forget soon after.” He also mentioned that he hopes the developers make good their promise of a Day 0 patch, as the game right now is “playable, but a very messy experience”.
Danielle Rose in her review for PCGamesN gave the game a score of 70. She said that there’s “a lot of fun to be had slaying zombies on the streets and beaches of HELL-A”. She did mention, however, that if “that first bite doesn’t infect you, you might find… that your experience gets stronger as you play”, further saying that “the zombie game is a gory delight, but one bite won’t give you the taste for flesh as the fun takes a while to set in”
Hardcore Gamer’s Chris Shive scored the game a 70, as he called it “a gory adventure that offers up plenty of mindless mayhem for zombie slayers.” He described the game’s setting as “a great playground to dismember and destroy the walking dead in every conceivable way the game presents”, thanks to how “the beautiful, sunny environments provide a stark contrast to the reanimated rotting carcasses.”. However, he said that during the game’s final hours, “the repetitive nature of the quests turn them into chores”. He, however, said that “unremarkable story and repetitive gameplay aside, what Dead Island 2 does well it does very well, and despite these shortcomings, killing thousands of zombies with everything the game puts at the player’s disposal can still be a great time.”
Keith Stuart from The Guardian gave the game a score of 60. He said that the game will “amuse you for days with its stylish vision of zombified LA.” However, he also brought up that the game is ” limited in scope, and with skill systems that feel shallow and impersonal it won’t hang around long enough to achieve superstardom”. He described Dead Island 2 as “one of 2014’s best zombie beat-’em-ups”, then followed it up by saying “It’s just a pity we’re in 2023”
Pc Gamer’s Lewis Parker gave the game a score of 55, calling it a “crash corpse in designing a game with no backbone”. Although he admitted he had fun with the game’s visceral gameplay at first, it eventually became competitive. His biggest qualms were with the game’s “dull design choices, repetitive combat, and a painfully weak story”. The game’s only saving grace, according to him, was it’s performance on PC.
GGRecon gave Dead Island 2 a score of 50 in its review by Tarran Stockton. He said that the game “could have been the Return of the Living Dead of zombie video games, making for an irreverent, B-movie romp through an undead-filled LA”. However, the game “just ends up marginally better than the original game without ever approaching its full potential”. For him, the game’s main saving grace is its improved combat. Sadly, it “isn’t enough to redeem the shallow progression mechanics, inconsistent tone, and unfocused story”
Oliver Brandt of Sports Illustrated’s GLHF also gave the game a score of 50 in his review. He stated that “after a decade of troubled development, Dead Island 2 fails to offer anything new or substantive”. From its “middling melee combat” to its “nonsensical story and awkward dialogue choices”, it made playing the game “a slog”, going as far as to say that ” even at its very best, it fails to rise above being merely inoffensive”. Although the game is pretty, he noted that it’s ” not enough to save it from being a dull experience from start to finish.”
Is Dead Island 2 Worth it?
At its current state, Dead Island 2 might not be worth it, especially at full price. Although the game is very pretty, has an upgraded combat system, and has a lot of gore fun, the various issues the plague the game will definitely take the fun you’re having out of it. Of course, this is still the base game, with the developers promising DLCs and expansions in the future, as well as a Day 0 patch hoping to fix some issues. However, if you’re not really a fan of the series, or someone who kept up with the game’s almost decade-long development, you might want to get your dose of zombie-killing satisfaction in some other game. Either that, or wait for this game to go on sale.
That’s it for our Dead Island 2 reviews and scores.
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