After a long wait, Dead Island 2 is finally slated for release this April, and rant screen We met with the game’s two developers — art director Adam Olsson and narrative designer Lydia Cockerham — to discuss the game’s cinematic inspiration, setting and, of course, zombies. play.
In recent years, the zombie genre seems to favor darker, scarier stories. Dead Island, Dead Island GhenhAnd death siege series. The drought is now over because rant screenpreview of Dead Island 2 Shows how loud, bold and bloody sequels are, all enhanced by the power of modern hardware. Here’s what Olsson and Cockerham had to say about creating the new world:
Dead Island 2: Change Settings, Inspiration and Zombie Type
Screen Rant: Why did you choose Los Angeles over fictional islands like Banoi [from the original Dead Island]?
Adam, Art Director: Los Angeles is a city full of personality for us, and I think it’s a city that lives between fiction and reality. We all have access to and live in it through a variety of means, and we want to take advantage of it. It’s bigger than life, and as you play, you’ll find us taking players all over Los Angeles, from sunny Venice Beach to the lavish mansions of Bel-Air.
Screen Rant: Some of the ways players attack zombies get really scary and bloody. Corrosion attacks can be especially terrifying – is there another movie or game that inspires these silly B-movie combat methods?
Adam: I think of our entire game as a love letter to old Hollywood B-movies and horror movies, and our entire team has been greatly inspired by them. It’s hard to give a specific example, but I think all of them have given us great inspiration.
Lydia, Narrative Designer: I agree. I think that’s the whole cheesy side and pop culture through the lens of many years. We want to take advantage of things that feel new but familiar
Adam: Finding the right tone for the game and finding the right balance between horror and humor took a lot of work.
Screen Rant: Players can wreak havoc by doing simple things like driving zombies into batteries or detonating flammable objects near them, sometimes offering a multitude of ways to maximize destruction. Can you talk a bit more about creating environments that provide this kind of playground level destruction?
Adam: We’ve created a dynamic set of environments, zombies, and weapons, so at every point you’re challenged to think for yourself and tailor your gameplay. We’ve had a lot of fun looking at how the environment can help or hinder your success at killing zombies, and in the end we hope players enjoy trying these crazy ways to fight back. zombie again. Fire, water, electricity, and caustic acid are all elements you can play with, but you’ll have to be smart as some zombies will be immune to certain elemental weapons and attacks!
It’s been a long time since we’ve had a stupid zombie game in AAA space! So far, 2023 is about post-apocalyptic horrors like the last survivor show dominates the headlines and Evil 4 Next. Is there a stupid side to zombies in such a busy market?
Lydia: Exactly exactly. I think the tone helps us stand out from other games, movies and TV shows in the zombie genre. There are plenty of people who want to immerse themselves in a dark and gritty world and ask existential questions about what exactly would happen if people started turning into zombies. But for us, we know that there are plenty of other people who want a different approach and want to see the slightly more quirky side of the apocalypse. We don’t want to take ourselves too seriously.
Lydia: We wanted to bring back the fun of actually smashing zombies, which is clearly the focus of our game.
What is your favorite type of zombie? Dead Island 2?
Lydia: Personally, I really like Screamers because whenever I encounter them I suddenly have to change my playstyle because I can’t hack them. You really have to think about it. Should I throw my weapon at them? How can I dodge or ignore them? It was an explosion of sound. So I find it interesting that they force you to try different things.
Adam: I love The Walking Dead, and this seems like an easy answer, but our standard zombie types let you have fun with the different ways you can attack them. I like to go straight in and break them to pieces. We wanted to turn zombies into real “monsters” in Dead Island 2, and the MEAT system really helped take that to the next level. In a lot of other games I’ve watched, it seems like you’re really just dealing with injured people. But here you can see a zombie with its brain exposed, intestines everywhere and eyeballs dangling. I feel like we’re really bringing horror back to the zombie genre with this movie.
Dead Island 2 Released on April 21, 2023 on PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC
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Dead Island 2Franchise: Dead Island
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/WORLD
Release time: April 28, 2023
Developer: Dambuster Studios
Publisher: Deep Silver
Genre: First Person Shooter, Action RPG
Multiplayer: Online Co-op, Online Multiplayer
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
ESRB: Male
Summary: Dead Island 2 is the sequel to the original Action RPG/Multiplayer game that was released in 2011. Months after Dead Island, California went into total quarantine after a worsening zombie outbreak. to the coast of the United States. Players will take control of a character who lives in this new post-apocalyptic world and will survive with and against others as all of Los Angeles and San Francisco are turned into a playground for zombie carnage. Also new to the franchise is the eight-player multiplayer co-op mode, where they work together to solve the game’s mayhem.
Prequel: Dead Island
Mode: Single player
Dead Island 2