Hands-on: We played the first five hours of Dead Island 2, then spoke to developer Dambuster about why it thinks the game's 'development hell' reputation has actually worked out well.
Or, rather, to start it. Some 11 years after development first started, Dead Island 2 is finally out on April 21, and after playing through the game’s first five hours we sat down with Dambuster to find out exactly how much of Yager and Sumo’s work was left when it took over. Not a lot, it turns out.
Much like its predecessor, a lot of Dead Island 2’s gameplay involves managing an ever-rotating collection of weapons the player can scavenge from whatever’s lying around. Whether it’s a plank of wood, a sledgehammer, a baseball bat or a decorative samurai sword stolen from someone’s house, there’s a continuous search for something blunter or sharper than what’s currently in your possession.
This stands for Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids, which from what we’ve played is an accurate moniker. Hitting an enemy with your weapon will cause them to take damage in the exact area you hit them, with the type and extent of damage depending on the weapon involved. “We’ve got a really good, small team of people together like myself, the lead character artist and a couple of programmers, and we just had the space to experiment and develop. And we were all very committed to making it the most sophisticated and ridiculously gruesome system that anyone had ever made.
“But also, there was loads of stuff that we completely hadn’t predicted in terms of how people would react, and I think maybe there was some new stuff in terms of signage that went in, that maybe took some influence from that. But I remember thinking it was definitely interesting to compare the art to real life.”
“In one mission, the influencer stands on the roof filming you while you kill waves of zombies for her in a variety of ways, but not before she reminds you not to swear for the first 10 seconds because ‘I already have two strikes on my account’.” “We wanted all the characters to be these larger than life personalities,” narrative designer Lydia Cockerham answered. “They’re not meant to be real people that you would actually come across, they’re these huge bombastic personalities.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Fan enthusiasm for Castlevania is ‘motivating for Konami’, developer says | VGCA Konami developer has said the “excitement and enthusiasm' of Castlevania fans is 'motivating' for the publisher. 'We know that our fans always want more, and we do too,' Tsutomu Taniguchi said.
Read more »
Microsoft confirms it won’t be on the E3 2023 show floor | VGCMicrosoft has confirmed that it won’t have a presence on the show floor at E3 this year.
Read more »
Stalker 2 studio claims it’s been hacked by Russians, asks players to ignore leaks | VGCThe Ukrainian studio behind Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl claims it’s been hacked by a group of Russians.
Read more »
Studio behind Soulslike Bleak Faith addresses allegations of Elden Ring asset ‘theft’ | VGCThe studio behind Soulslike title Bleak Faith: Forsaken has defended itself from allegations that it reused animations from Elden Ring.
Read more »
The Pokémon Company is hiring someone with ‘deep knowledge’ of NFTs and the metaverse | VGCThe Pokémon Company has posted a new job advert seeking someone with blockchain, NFT and metaverse expertise
Read more »
Soulslike dev accused of reusing FromSoftware animationsAfter being accused of copying from Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3, the creators of Bleak Faith say they bought the animations from the Epic Marketplace.
Read more »