Dead Island 2 takes place in Los Angeles, California, aka not on an island like the title suggests. This version of LA – cleverly nicknamed HELL-A by the game’s developers – is brimming with undead creatures of all shapes and sizes. At the start of the game, you’re making an attempt to escape the city by plane. Unfortunately things don’t go as planned and you end up right back in the condemned street of LA, fighting your way through hordes of zombies, looking for fellow survivors.
Dead Island 2 is a first-person, semi-open-world action-RPG. Throughout the game you’ll be able to explore iconic Los Angeles locations such as Venice Beach and Beverly Hills, but all these areas are stitched together by loading screens instead of being one big seamless world.
In our preview of the game, Mark Delaney said, “Sometimes the way these areas would snake around surrounded by unclimbable walls felt very restrictive, closer to a game as tightly set as BioShock rather than even the original Dead Island's large hubs. While this is a much more linear game than its predecessors, there are many optional nooks in each area. I encountered many locked rooms, safes, and loot caches that would each require further investigating or even backtracking, some of which wasn't possible in my limited demo.”