Dead Island 2 Reviews
Check out Dead Island 2 Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 39 reviews on CriticDB, Dead Island 2 has a score of:
Despite a satisfying combat system and buckets of gore, Dead Island 2 missed its ultimate potential to push the franchise forward and settle into a wilder B-movie tone, and like many of the game's features, it doesn't full commit to the bit, leaving it largely unfocused and shallow.
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The fact that Dead Island 2 is finally here and enjoyable to play is nothing short of a miracle given the game's 10+ year development cycle. We feared this one may end up being a real mess, but Dambuster has largely delivered on what you'd expect from a sequel to Dead Island - just not much more than that. We'd have loved to see the team expand on things a little more to fully capitalise on the game's absurdity, but a safe sequel will do just fine in this case. Dead Island 2 won't blow you way, but it's shiny...
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Not to provoke an existential crisis, but back in 2014, nine years ago, Dead Island 2 was revealed to the masses. It was with a quaint little teaser, showing off a man with a visible bite mark, jogging through Venice Beach as the infection took over. After turning into a zombie, he gets obliterated by incoming survivors in a vehicle I can only describe as a murder mobile. It was gnarly as flip, but then, in the following months, there was nothing but deafening silence. It seemed like this gam...
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This is a classic zombie killing game but does little to bring any new or ground-breaking ideas to the zombie action-RPG genre.
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Dead Island 2 review for PS5. Developed by Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver. Is it worth buying and playing?
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Dead Island 2 delivers bone crunching combat alongside a generic experience that feels ripped straight from 2011.
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After nine years, Deep Silver’s zombie sequel delivers all the ridiculous fun you had hoped for
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There’s a lot of fun to be had slaying zombies on the streets and beaches of HELL-A, but if that first bite doesn’t infect you, you might find - like the protagonist - that your experience gets stronger as you play.
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A group of feverishly hungry undead creatures stumble and lunge toward you, eager to feast on your flesh. You’ve spent some time gearing up at the nearby safehouse where other survivors cower within. You know you need to try and figure out what the hell happened to set this virus ablaze, and you have concocted some strange weapons to aid you. With a handful of zombie flesh as bait and a sword that is somehow charged with electricity, you dropkick a corpse into a swimming pool accompanied by...
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Drop the poker face, because Dead Island 2 is here, showing the co-op zombie-slaughtering genre how it's done in 2023.
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Dead Island 2 is a one-note experience with little to offer beyond an open-world playground full of zombies to slay with whatever blunt instrument comes to hand. The thrill of carving up rotten flesh initially appeals, but soon the repetitive missions and obnoxious writing will sap your enthusiasm. This is one island you might want to give a wide berth.
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Dead Island 2 should serve as a shining example for both games that make it out of development hell and sequels with a long time gap. Unlike in some cases, I didn't just get a zombie game that was given the Dead Island title slapped on it, I actually got more of the game I wanted. I'm sure some of my love for the original is down to nostalgia, and I could probably never return to it. However, it turns out that whenever I have thought about the first game in my head over the last decade, Dead Island 2...
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For a game that’s so eager to call out the vapid world of influencers and empty-headed Californians, Dead Island 2 sure doesn’t have much to say itself.
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A surprisingly lean and mean sequel which amplifies the bloody thrills of the original through its impressive presentation and flexible mechanics.
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Dead Island 2 does a great job of reanimating this dormant zombie-battling series, with the gore-filled combat and excessive weaponry that goes well with the oversaturated LA setting. It’s an enjoyable romp, but at the same time, ironically feels like it's playing it safe.
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With Dead Island 2’s development history, it is a pleasant surprise to see the game release in as complete and stable of a state as it is. It ran flawlessly on Xbox Series X and looked beautiful to boot, especially its incredible new gore system. While it may not deliver the interesting stories or new concepts of its genre contemporaries, its sharp humor and satisfying combat help make up for it.
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Dead Island 2 is a return to a tried-and-true formula: murdering zombies with baseball bats. What else does Dead Island 2 bring to the table? You'll find out in our review.
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Dead Island 2's engaging combat, the sheer number of customization options, and its laid-back satirical world-building make it a worthy sequel. There are a few gameplay and quality-of-life issues that make this a somewhat frustrating experience though nothing major that would rob the overall fun factor of this game.
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Dead Island 2 is fantastic. It knows what it is, and that’s a ton of sneakily smart dumb fun. The FLESH system is horrific and awful and the best. Smashing, chopping, burning, and exploding humans has never been so fun. At $70 some may want to wait as it isn’t the longest campaign. I’m already doing a second playthrough though, and this is a game I’ll be coming back to for a long time.
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It’s been nine long years since Dead Island 2 was first announced. Any game that goes through that kind of protracted development has a lot to prove at launch, but it’s especially true of one whose predecessor wasn’t much cop. The original Dead Island was arguably more famous for its gorgeously produced CG teaser than the end product, although developer Techland since evolved its zombie slaying for the better with the Dying Light series.
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For a long time, Dead Island 2 was not so different from the many undead survivors killed in the Banoi archipelago in the first entry in the series and Riptide. The game existed, but it wasn't in a good state at all. Announced back in 2014, the game's development was highly troubled, exchanging hands multiple times between different studios, including Yager Development and Sumo Digital, before it was given to Deep Silver's internal development team Dambuster Studios. Going through so many issues, Dead Island 2 was setting out to be one hell of a disaster, but instead turned out to...
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Dead Island 2’s visceral combat can effortlessly pull you into the zone as you slash, shoot, and kick zombies, while making sure they head into the afterlife with fewer limbs attached. A simple but effective upgrade system gives you the means to counter any foe, while its varied arsenal of melee and ranged weapons keeps things interesting for a good while.
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Dead Island 2 was announced just a few years after its 2011 predecessor, but the sequel has taken nearly a decade to come to life. Developer Dambuster Studios is the third studio to work on the game, using this opportunity to create its own Dead Island 2 from the ground up. While assumptions might be made about a game that’s spent this long in development, jumping from multiple teams, the final game is a worthwhile follow-up, especially for fans of the original. Dead Island 2, much like its predecessor, isn’t breaking new ground narratively, but a good hook moves you...
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The Dead Island franchise is more alive than ever with Dead Island 2. The game doesn't just aim to survive but thrives with its immersive world, endlessly engaging combat, and memorable characters. It truly lived up to my childhood nostalgia for the franchise. While the narrative leaves some meat on the bone, it does a great job of setting itself apart from the other two mainline entries in the series by delving into the origins and mysteries of the virus itself. While Dead Island 2 is far from perfect, it is a worthy successor to the zombie-slaying games that came...
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Zombie hacking at its purest, Dead Island 2 takes some simple ideas and works them to perfection in a well-made and fun game. It's a one note thrill, but does well to make that note absolutely sing.
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Against all odds, Dead Island 2 is pretty much everything we wanted it to be. This is the ultimate zombie game, dropping you in a setting that’s an absolute joy to explore and spend time in while taking apart zombies in any way you please. Fans of Dead Island will be overjoyed at what’s been delivered here, taking the core concept of the original game and building upon it to make something that’s perhaps a little more linear, but better in all regards. It’s funny to think that we once considered this game dead, because developer Dambuster Studios has proved...
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Dead Island 2 doesn't pretend to be anything other than a daft, messy romp through undead LA, and this carefree, capricious attitude is precisely what makes it fun.
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Dambuster Studios raises the dead in a vicious sequel long thought doomed.
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Dead Island 2 isn't ground-breaking, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. With its vibrant yet bloody take on the undead streets of LA, its brutal and enjoyable combat, and its gleeful excess of gore, it delivers a solid experience that's well worth your time.
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With a consistent and crunchy limb damage system, some great sightseeing to catch, and more secret side-quests than you can shake your damaging electrocutor pike at, Dead Island 2 is absolutely worth the ride, despite its flaws – that zombie sticking out of the kitchen sink? That’s not part of the terror ride, you can be certain about that.
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Dead Island 2 is a gory adventure that offers up plenty of mindless mayhem for zombie slayers. The remnants of California make for a great playground to dismember and destroy the walking dead in every conceivable way the game presents. The beautiful, sunny environments provide a stark contrast to the reanimated rotting carcasses. But as fun as the combat can be towards the end of the story, the missions began to feel as fresh as the enemies' flesh as the repetitive nature of the quests turn them into chores in the final hours. Unremarkable story and repetitive gameplay aside, what...
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Nine years ago, Dead Island 2 entered the public zeitgeist with a vibrant and funny reveal trailer. It teased a new, colourful setting in L.A. whilst doubling down on that irreverent tone of the original game. However, as the years passed on, the rumour mill began to churn out tales of internal struggles, with the project switching development hands and being delayed time and time again. When the review code eventually landed in our inbox — a mere eight years after its proposed 2015 release window — we couldn't help but feel sceptical. Thankfully, our pessimism was met with utter...
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Dead Island 2 manages to pull off an incredibly fun experience, and delivers on some of the missed promise of the first title. That said, there's not much here beyond hyper-active zombie slaying, so if that's not your bag you probably wont enjoy it.
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If you'd buy a summer home in the zombpocalypse, Dead Island 2 is for you. For anyone else, it's more complicated than that.
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It's in the opening sections where the immediate desire to mash zombies to bits grinds most awkwardly against the restrictions of the RPG framework. Playing as a cop-trained firearms expert, only to be told you can't actually shoot a pistol because you're not level 10, is about as immersion-breaking as you can get. It also gets tiresome, constantly foraging around for pipes, planks and kitchen knives with which to defend yourself as you jog from poolside bar to lifeguard tower to gas station.
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