How The Internet Loves 'Dead Island 2' For Its Bland Storyline That Makes Gore Its Biggest Entertainment

Zombies, they have long been the antagonists in many horror and science-fiction works. And Dead Island 2 is just one out the many, many titles that depict undead as enemies.

But, things are a bit different.

Dead Island 2 is a 2023 action role-playing game developed by Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver.

As a sequel to the 2011 video game Dead Island and the third major installment in the Dead Island series, the game sets about 15 years after the timeline of the two previous titles, taking place in the city of Los Angeles, which has been made a quarantine zone due to a zombie outbreak.

The first-person shooter, melee-focused action game received "generally favorable reviews."

However, gamers' opinions have been kind of mixed.

Many said that the game is extremely average.

And because pretty much all of the gameplay's mechanics are introduced early, and that the story is kind of bland, the game doesn't really get that interesting the more players play it.

The game is pretty much get weapons, kill zombies, break weapons, get more weapons—rinse and repeat.

But apparently, an increasing number of gamers actually love being trapped in that cycle.

Many kept on playing even when they got bored, because of one particularly interesting bit Dead Island 2 has.

And that is its graphics.

First of, the colors of the environment are pretty vivid. And this makes every single thing in the game an eye-catching thing to see.

Second, almost every body part a zombie can be hacked off in a visceral and dynamic fashion. For example, gamers can cut off a zombie's leg at a specific point, pop out an eyeball, place a direct head hit to blow the brain out, or dislocate a zombie's jaw in the most gruesome kind of way.

Then, there is that interesting thing where the zombies are literally volatile, and not to mention the "jiggle physics" in some zombies, and more.

These are the most interesting part of Dead Island 2.

While the game does allow gamers to obtain enough ammo to literally finish the entire map without resupplying, it's the melee part of the gameplay that makes it unique.

Whereas most if not all first-person shooter games urge players to get their hands on bigger weapons with heavier firepower, Dead Island 2 doesn't really require that.

In most cases, players can go around and complete goals and side quests with just their existing melee weapons, which are upgradeable.

And because games are meant to entertain, Dead Island 2 entertains players with gore.

This successfully made Dead Island 2 viral on the internet.

So even with its weak plot and subplots, disposable characters that make no sense in introducing them in the first place, boring narratives and more, the combat is considered responsive and intuitive, and to some players, this alone is enough to compensate for the game's numerous shortfalls.

And this is apparently true, because the developer of the game wanted Dead Island 2 to have a truly nasty, high fidelity carnage.

Developer Dambuster Studios really made butchery a priority soon after they began working on the sequel in 2019.

Players can literally rip off enemies' skin and tear their muscles, as well as obliterate their fat and bones, and splatter their internal organs and blood.

Dead Island 2 made that happen using its F.L.E.S.H. (Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids) system.

This this system that how Dambuster describes the fall-off-the-bone combat graphics.

In a press release following a presentation, the developer described F.L.E.S.H as allowing the game to have "anatomically correct layers of skin fat and muscle can be ripped away with machete-point accuracy to reveal breakable bones and internal organs that are individually destructible."

"Sharp weapons can dismember heads or limbs at any point and slice torsos clean in half, utilizing advanced fluid and soft body physics," they said.

Even more, players who took a zombie down, can continue to hack it until all of the skin, fat and flesh are all gone, and that they finally hit a sturdy bone. And not just that, because players can still continue mercilessly abusing the carcass until the bones crack and destroy.

There’s no limit on how far players can go, because F.L.E.S.H allows them to mince even zombie hearts if they want to.

Not only that players can kill and dismember zombies in more than many ways, because they can also interact with environmental gore, too.

For example, players can simply pick up a jerrycan with water, and rinse blood spill right away.

As a result, Dead Island 2 is a game where players, and online reviewers as well as vloggers, are capturing and sharing the best gore the gaming industry has to offer at this moment.

Unlike Resident Evil 4 2023's remake which has continued gaining cult followers since the original was released in 2005, or the Last of Us which has become one of the highest-earning video games on YouTube, Dead Island 2 is all about gore.

For players, that is what they want in the game, and for the developer, that is exactly the reaction they want to get.

The game sold 1 million units in 3 days after launch.