Dead Island: Game of the Year Edition

Overview

Dead Island is a 2011 action role-playing game developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver. Released for Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game is centered on the challenge of surviving a zombie-infested open world with an important emphasis on melee combat. The plot focuses on four playable survivors trying to survive and escape off the fictional island of Banoi.

Dead Island features an open world, divided by relatively large areas, and played from a first-person perspective. Most of the game-play is built around combat (mainly melee weapons) and completing quests. Dead Island is an action role-playing game and uses experience-based gameplay. The player earns XP by completing tasks and killing enemies. Upon leveling up, the player gains health and can invest one skill point into a skill tree and level up one of their skills.

The night after a party, four playable main characters (hereafter referred to as "the survivors"): rapper Sam B., hotel receptionist and spy for the Hong Kong Government Xian Mei, former American football-star Logan Carter, and ex-detective now bodyguard for hire Purna Jackson, are awakened by a voice over the emergency intercom system directing them to evacuate the hotel. They discover that the majority of the population have been overcome by a contagious and infectious virus, turning them into psychopathic, flesh-eating creatures. Briefly overcome by one of the infected, they are rescued by lifeguard John Sinamoi.

A promotional film, created by UK animation studio Axis Productions and directed by Stuart Aitken, featuring the transformation of a young girl into a zombie, played in a nonlinear sequence, was commented upon by Ben Parfitt of MCV. Parfitt praised the trailer itself, but criticised the online reaction to it, writing "It's a video that uses an image of a dead girl and images of her dying to create an emotional bond with a product."

In Australia, a collector's edition was available to pre-order exclusively from EB Games Australia. The collector's edition came with a Turtle Beach X12 headset, Ripper weapon DLC and Bloodbath Arena DLC. The collector's edition in Canada has the Ripper and Bloodbath DLC. On 20 July, Dead Island became available for pre-purchase on Steam as a single copy of the game for full price, or a four pack with one free copy. Both the single copy and the four pack include the Ripper and Bloodbath DLC.

Dead Island received generally lukewarm to positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the PC version 80/100, indicating "generally favorable reviews", while the Xbox 360 version received a score of 71/100, and the PlayStation 3 version received a score of 71/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Shooter, Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up

Developer

Techland

Publisher

Deep Silver

Series

Dead Island

Platforms

PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360

Age rating

ESRB M

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

No

Online multiplayer

No

Co op

No

Age ratings

ESRB

M

Release dates

Space and patches

Space neededAbout 5 GB

Playable today

Playable offline todayYes

Single-player only, with no online features.

Online

Plays offlineYes

Credits

Publisher

Deep Silver

Developer

Techland

Released

2012-06-26

Age rating

ESRB M

Region

US

Time to beat

about 19 hours