AestheticGamer1The announcement trailer for Dead Island that we covered yesterday has become an overnight internet sensation that is a current topic for much conversation. We are betting the folks over at Deep Silver and Techland are thrilled that the trailer has garnished such attention that a game that was just yesterday “long forgotten” is now a recognizable game title. The point of advertising anything is to get word out about it and interest, and the clever trailer they released has done both things.
But in the end, all the trailer really shows is all CG footage and doesn’t speak much about the game itself. Luckily, details about the game have come from IGN, Destructoid, and the game’s official website just released earlier today. We want to see if we can catch you all up to speed.
Dead Island was announced back in 2007, proposed as a sandbox zombie game on an island. However, we didn’t learn much about it past that as they went under a media blackout, which means they wouldn’t reveal anything about the game while it was in development until they decided it was the right time. They would not show anything about the game until it was almost completed and then stayed silent for 3-4 years. Every year they would state the game was still in development but we wouldn’t see or hear anything else about it during this time. That was, until yesterday when a trailer IGN was hyping to be an exclusive reveal turned out to be a trailer for Dead Island.
Dead Island is a first-person title, which I am a bit reluctant to call a shooter as the focus isn’t on shooting. What the developers officially call it is a “first-person zombie slasher action RPG,” which I will add seems to have a bigger focus on survival than action, and more focused on an air of seriousness than comedy like we see in the Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising franchises. I bring those two titles up since some elements of the game will undoubtedly bring parallels to these titles, but there is a difference between similarities and being a clone. Dead Island features the ability to play co-op and come in and drop out at anytime in gameplay, allowing up to four players to play together. The co-op is confirmed to be online-only, and when not playing with others you will be alone, not having to deal with any AI partners. To spice things up a little, there are four characters you are able to play as in Dead Island, each one having different traits and abilities. So far we’ve seen two characters and have the names of the two other characters, a Chinese woman named Xian Mei and a black rapper named Sam B. The other two characters are named Logan (male) and Purna (female). Each of them has different abilities and classes, the only class so far being confirmed being Assassin. You can choose any of these classes to play as, it is even confirmed online if each person for instance wanted to play as Sam B., all of them could. We know a bit about Xian’s abilities, according to her profile she is a the faster but more fragile character who learns abilities quickly though her strength and durability are lower, and seems to be intent on being an explorer and resourceful rather than a fighter.
Dead Island is said to be a mostly story-based experience, being inspired by a lot of zombie films, and they aim to create a story full of mystery and drama. The trailer did a good job pulling at heartstrings for many in it’s short running span; hopefully that will translate to what many games have a hard time doing, creating an emotional and interesting story for players. What we know of the story so far is that the game takes place on the fictional Banoi Island, starting off in a sort of tutorial area before they unleash you to the full island in the form of Royal Palms Resort. The four characters after a hard night of partying pass out only to awaken the next day to a nightmare as a zombie outbreak has rushed the island with the four characters being some of the last survivors on the island. For mysterious reasons they are immune to whatever is infecting the other residents. We don’t know much else of story beyond that initial premise, but they seemed focused on going a more serious and dramatic route than we see in many zombie games these days. Our heroes are not overbuff superheroes like Chris Redfield, they are not comedic in the events taking place like Frank West or Chuck Greene, or something like a family of wise-cracking survivors like in the Left 4 Dead series. This is more of the darker and serious form of story we see in zombie flicks, likely with social commentary and themes behind it’s story featuring a focus on emotional impact rather than a focus on zombies with some comedy value.
Going on with the talk about aiming to be more realistic, the game’s characters are not heroes or action stars and they all start off pretty weak. The game, while definitely having some action themes as the developers seem really proud of some of the gory ways you can kill zombies and the attention to body part dismemberment (giving an example, they speak of a certain type of darker joy watching a zombie flop around if you cut off it’s arms and legs), the game is still overall more focused on survival as weapons are to be scarce and players have to enhance their abilities. The game has some RPG elements, when you start off your stamina is low, you swing things wildly and without much direction, you can run only for short time and can’t attack well while dashing. There is more, but as you work your character more through the game you can enhance their skills with a skill tree to upgrade abilities, stamina, accuracy, receive new moves and abilities and more yet to be revealed. How players gain these and the exact abilities and such has not been revealed yet but it is promised we will receive word soon. Weapons also aim to be more realistic. In real life most people don’t have guns and ammo laying everywhere. As such, guns are rare and ammo is even rarer. The combat mostly will take place through melee, with items you find including fire axes, machetes, pipes, bats, shovels, brooms, and even things like tree branches and more to be revealed. Like Dead Rising, these weapons and items dull the more they are used until they eventually break. Certain places can repair them, and you might need it as weapons are made to be more scarce in this than plentiful. With this, you can’t just go in mindlessly swinging at enemies as it wastes up your stamina, which doubles as what allows you to run, meaning you can run less and as you use up more stamina your swings with your weapon become more sluggish and less affective until your character becomes too tired to swing or run at all until you catch your breath. Which in the height of a zombie swarm could be the worst possible timing if you’re not careful. Enemies themselves will be varied with about every type of Zombie you can imagine. You’ll have the slower and groaning zombies, the sprinting fast zombies, children, adults, and special zombies that are something like the special infected in Left 4 Dead though not too much is known about the variety.
The location itself, Banoi Island, seems to be an interesting one. Set off the coast of Australia, the tropical setting is not used too often in horror games. You can expect some of the variety of locations to include the expected beaches, resorts, jungles, and other such locations. Included are also big cities, spas, recreational huts, cliffs, volcanoes, caves, museums, and more. The game is open-world, meaning that players are able to go where they want in a non-linear fashion. The island theme makes a perfect setting for a more open-world game as the boundaries are realistic as well as sensible. The heroes are out to find a way off the island, while at the same time uncover just what is going on. While the game is open-world, it has also been confirmed some locations won’t be opened up until certain story events happen. Along with all the story quest, there also will be a wide variety of side quests players can take, though what these include haven’t been delved much into though it is said to be similar to Fallout.
The concept is all very interesting. Even if some may feel the zombie genre is waring thin as of late, even if it has produced quality recently (from the loved Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising franchises to movie and television hits recently like The Walking Dead and Zombieland and such) the idea of a possibly good zombie sandbox game is exciting for us. With that not many sandbox games allow 4-player co-op and that in itself is exciting. We’ll keep you informed as more information comes.
