2025-04-26 04:27:35

not worth the long ass wait but still very fun and worth it when its on sale.

2025-04-25 06:34:05

Dead Island 2 has been amazing! I have been playing in co-op with a friend for the majority of my playthrough, which I highly recommend doing to elevate the experience and make it more memorable. The variety of weapons, skill cards, and upgrades available has helped to keep combat fresh for us even after 50+ hours of playtime, which is awesome. And the sandbox itself is huge! So huge that they split it into around 10 distinct, iconic areas, and each was worth exploring to its fullest; I just wish fast-travel could be done from anywhere, and not only safehouses.

As for the story, it was quite interesting and we're curious about a potential Dead Island 3 continuation. The side quests were varied and entertaining enough that we made a point of completing every single one! I can't forget to mention the music either, especially the soundtracks during boss fights which were all aptly chosen to perfectly match the vibe.

My only serious complaint has to be the gore, which felt excessive even for a Gears of War fan like me! The Haus DLC dialled it up to a far more disturbing level—think carrying a bleeding, talking head or doing sadistic tasks like electrocuting yourself in a pool of water to continue with the narrative... it was such a jarring shift from the vanilla experience that we didn't get very far and may not ever finish it. By contrast, the SoLA DLC has been vibrant, and packed with great missions! We're still yet to complete it, but I can tell you that if you're loving the base game, definitely considering grabbing this to keep the good times rolling. :)

2025-04-24 00:49:42

Worth the money, combat is fun and challenging plus the gore is some of the best looking for a zombie game and online is chaoitc in a amazing way! :D

story do be ass tho (has fun but lots of moments where i'm staring at my phone rather than being engaged with some of the characters because the writing makes my eyeballs and brain bleed
8.5/10 it'll be a 9 when they make 4 player lobbies a thing
3 person co-op in 2024..

2025-04-22 19:33:17

So far i'm enjoying it
combat is fun
story is decent
had a few laughs
Overall a fun time so far

2025-04-22 03:46:36

well optimized good looking zombie game, no Epic login or anything required trust.

detailed review: u can’t really compare Dead Island 2 to Dying Light 2, true both are zombie slashers, but they live in totally different worlds, Dead Island 2 feels like the Zombieland movie funny, wild, chaotic, and still scary in the best way, Dying Light goes for a more serious tone, but it never quite hits that real world fear, not saying Dying Light 2 better, Dead Island 2 brings the horror too. might even be scarier, in Dying Light, night = danger, in Dead Island 2 that tension hits day and night, especially when u play solo.

if i had to choose? i'm going with Dead Island 2, it's hella fun, the gore is next level, graphics and animation are fye, gameplay smooth and brutal, u can literally feel the heart and love Dambuster put into this, these devs cooked fr.

to those whoe didn’t like the ending, use ur brain, that just a setup for part 3, take a chill pill and support the devs instead of seething and malding, we want a next chapter, not headlines about the studio getting bought out and shut down.

game's truly well optimized, insane details, story holds up, if ur into zombie games this gonna blow ur mind, my #1 pick, no regrets.

2025-04-17 21:49:05

single player is good, however multiplayer sucks, the servers are most of the time not online or when you look for a match it searches for less then 10 seconds and then creates a match by itself...

2025-04-13 01:07:30

Dead Island 2 by Deep Silver is typical spyware with a variety of snooping services, involved third parties and a prime example of how companies self-legitimize exploiting end users.

[h1]What does the product do?[/h1]
As is well known, every game, every program starts with an installation on the respective device. Here it can be observed that alongside the product itself, the Epic Games Launcher is also installed in the background. Included are the EOS Overlay Renderer and, of course, mandatory integration with the Epic Online Service (EOS for short) along with accompanying telemetry services.

But it would have been too nice if that had been all. Because Dead Island 2 is a digital surprise egg with lots of colorful things. However, gameplay, fun and excitement fall by the wayside.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3462923539

What follows is another forced integration with the Denuvo Anti-Tamper service for DRM, mandatory connections to various Google services such as Google Cloud Optimization Guide, Google Accounts, Google Safebrowsing, Google Update, Google Chrome. For those who still haven't had enough, you may also agree to Deep Silver's marketing analysis and, by the way, get signed up on the PRISM platform (a platform that provides online services for selected future games from Saber Interactive, Deep Silver, PLAION, Prime Matter).

Personally, I've an aversion to PRISM terms since the Snowden leaks, but that's just by the way. Well, the purpose is the same... unauthorized snooping and extensive non-transparent data collection.

[h1]Who operates the product?[/h1]
In-house production: Developed by Dambuster Studios (formerly Free Radical Design, formerly Crytek UK, acquired in 2014 by Koch Media GmbH (now Plaion) and distributed by Deep Silver (again Plaion)

[h1]Which service providers are involved?[/h1]
Dambuster Studios – Nottingham,United Kingdom
PLAION GmbH – Embracer Platz 1 – A-6604 Höfen
Irdeto Access B.V. – Taurusavenue 105, P.O. Box 3047, 2132 LS Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
[noparse]Amazon.com, Inc.[/noparse] – 410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, Washington, 98109, USA
Google, Inc. – 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Building 43, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
Epic Games, Inc. – 620 Crossroads Blvd., Cary, NC 27518, USA
Valve Corporation - 10400 NE 4th St, Suite 1500, Bellevue, WA 98004 USA

[h1]What data is collected[/h1]
A lot of data is collected and transmitted non-transparently via the gRPC (HTTP/2 Google Protobuf based) protocol.

[b]Epic Online Service (EOS)[/b]
Along with the hidden software installation -> As has often been described, EOS is a complete package with many functions. In addition to the linked telemetry service, it is responsible for achievements, anti-cheat, ecommerce, leaderboards, lobbies, matchmaking, metrics, player data storage, statistics, title storage, voice chat, and much more. This always includes! a login, product ID, user ID, account IDs, display names, gaming platform used, timestamps, device IDs, network information, operating system details, logins, language settings, passwords, cookies, session data, data on STUN servers, rate limit functions, account linking, friends lists, tokens, and much, much more.

In older games, it was easier to block telemetry services in Unreal Engine games. Today, these snooping services have been absorbed into the API and are inseparably interwoven. Epic Games, Inc. takes advantage of this and delights us with not one but two of these permanently active mechanisms.

[b]Google Services[/b]
Google Account Services: Silent tracking, even without being actively logged into Google accounts.
Google Cloud Optimization Guide: Optimization of machine learning workflows
Google Update: Initiates the download of the subsequent Google package installation
Google Package Installation: Download of Google Translate, CRX files (triggered by Google Update)
Google Safe Browsing API: Invalid request along with dummy token

[b]DeepARC Telemetry[/b]
SID, BID, GID, PID, UID, SessionID, Hardware: Chipset, GPU, Generation, SKU, Service, Vendor, UserID, Screen type/name, Menu names, Language, DLC entitlements

The variable list of in-game tracking is somewhat larger, but includes everything—whether a weapon was repaired, mobs spawned, players died, an item was equipped or used for crafting, matchmaking, error tracking, Amazon Game Controller, voice commands, matchmaking, etc.

Although users are informed (including optin/out) about the Marketing Telemetry Data in the game, it is ultimately pointless.

[b]PRISM (Prism Ray Online Services)[/b]
Mandatory integration with Plaion's attempt to launch its own platform. e.g. UUIDs / device IDs / session IDs, platform & system, Steam login, registration, cross-save, QR code, telemetry configuration, ad banners and graphics and much more.

To make sure users swallow the pill, the service is directly tied to a reward system. Giving up digital self-determination and legally enshrined rights for digital items? Great! Woof, woof *tail wagging* ∪･ω･∪

[b]Denuvo Anti-Tamper[/b]
You’re better off asking the warez scene about that

[b]Captive Portal Check[/b]
The game enforces a client connection to Valve's Captive Portal service

[h1]Privacy Policy/Terms of Use and Opt-Out/In?[/h1]
The [url=https://store.steampowered.com/eula/934700_eula_0]terms of use[/url] on Steam are only available in English. There is merely a reference to DRM (Denuvo Anti-Tamper), online activation (on several Platforms and services), account binding (likewise) and no third-party data recipients are named - neither specifically (e.g., Google) nor functionally (e.g., update, security, or analytics services).

Although there is a reference to a privacy policy, neither the services involved nor their behavior are mentioned there either. On top of that, the link in the terms of use leads to a 404 error page and the actual privacy policy is again only available in English.

All in all, the game can be classified as spyware and a PUA (Potentially Unwanted Application). Customers are neither properly nor transparently informed about the actual behavior of the product.

Many of the involved services are not technically necessary. In this respect, there are multiple GDPR violations of various legal bases, information, transparency and consent requirements.

In-game opt-outs are placebo functions, as even if users deactivate the corresponding items via the menus, connections are still made to the mentioned services and a lot of data is exchanged.

[h1]Can the behavior be blocked?[/h1]
Well, if users absolutely want to play Dead Island 2 in its entirety, you'll have to bite the bullet and get digitally naked.

All others are advised to avoid the product altogether or to block all connections either individually via hosts, DNS resolvers or alternatively with blocked exe files by firewalls. Minimal Denuvo must be allowed for initial and periodic forced activation.

[b]Note[/b]
After uninstalling the game, the installed programs from Epic Games, Inc. remain on the hard disk. The same applies to obsolete files of Dead Island 2 itself. Unfortunately, the developers are incapable of programming their uninstallation routines cleanly, so that a lot of junk data is left on users' hard disks.

[b]Note 2[/b]
If the Epic Launcher files are updated, this is done at the expense of the playing time. This is important for the 2 hour refund limit.

[h1]Additional Info[/h1]
For additional details such as a full connection overview for blocking connections and involved IPv4 addresses, Company,- and service details, a German version of the review can be found as usual at [url=https://gameindustry.eu/]GameIndustry[/url]. If interested, join the [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/penguindome]Penguin Domination[/url] group to ensure you don't miss any reviews on Steam.

2025-04-09 20:04:08

If you’ve ever braved a virtual zombie apocalypse before, then you’ll be quite familiar with the combat formula that this cheeky iteration sticks quite close to. You start with basic melee weapons like baseball bats and hammers before crafting more elaborate tools of destruction like an electric katana or the demon lovechild of a sledgehammer and a flamethrower, and eventually guns, too. But while the more eccentric melee options have interesting designs, in practice they don’t feel much different than their unmodded peers, aside from applying various status effects, so they aren’t as exciting as they look. The melee creations at your disposal are also far less original and crazy than the kinds of bonkers weapons we got to play with in the Dead Rising series – you definitely won’t be seeing any umbrella lasers or sledgehammers with grenades duct taped to them, for example. Because of that, the novelty with Dead Island 2’s by-the-numbers close-quarters combat wears thin quite quickly. Despite how they look and how they sound on paper, there’s simply a lack of variety in the way the available tools of destruction work, and the fact that fighting against this zombie horde is about as challenging as whacking a T-ball off a stand. You can only slice a brain-eater in half so many times before the monotony sets in and you start to feel as jaded as Woody Harelson in Zombieland, and there aren’t enough late-game changes to inject any kind of variety into the mix. Multiplayer is the best remedy for staving off repetition, since it’s a laughing riot when friends are there to help you dropkick enemies off of rooftops.

2025-04-09 02:41:33

Generic lifeless combat, boring characters, mediocre story. Can't connect to Epic services, audio issues, the entire game is a mess. Current gen AAA gaming in a nutshell.

2025-04-02 11:16:19

For what the game is, it's alright, do I feel like I'd be missing out on a great game if I didn't play this? meh. The graphics are great, gore is gory, and the weapons are pretty cool, I'd get it if I wasn't a Dead Island vet and it's fun, definitely a game I would play when bored, wanted to kick some butt, or wanted some modicum of story-telling (spoiler wasn't the biggest fan), but........


As a Dead Island vet who waited the wait for this game since the 360 days, I was extremely disappointed. I definitely feel there should have been WAYYY more content such as weapons, bigger map sizes, more mods for weapons, just more. the story was there, but due to the fact that the map sizes are small and cramped, it forced the story to feel rushed and is rushed. unlike the 1st you can definitely see how low on content they made Dead Island 2, sure with the 1st and Riptide 90% of the quests were go retrieve this and don't die or go do that type missions, but it had the map size, plenty of easter eggs, more freedom to explore. It really all in all felt like a game that was supposed to be just a cash grab and nostalgia trip, but kinda succeeded in doing so.