Dead Island 2is a title that has captivated fans in many different ways, with the game recently releasing on April 21. Not only does the game offer a bombastic experience via a more eccentric portrayal of the survival horror genre, but it has also revived a franchise that first laid its roots over a decade ago.
As a long-awaited sequel,Dead Island 2maintains a lot of the core motifs and gameplay beats of its 2011 predecessor, with fans having waited an uncharacteristically long 12 years between the franchise’s only two mainline releases. With this in mind, it is understandable why many tentative newcomers to the IP are wondering if the story and involved characters of the firstDead Islandneed to be understood to fully appreciate the narrative and overall experience of its recent sequel.
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2011’sDead Islandfeatures the same RPG survival mechanics and penchant formelee combat asDead Island 2, but the majority of the setting and involved characters of the first game are somewhat detached from the sequel. Firstly, the originalDead Islandis set on the fictional island of Banoi, located off the coast of Papua New Guinea, with the island being a remote yet luxurious location mostly removed from wider society.
One of the most interesting aspects ofDead Island’s gameplayis the fact that the player can choose between four playable protagonists, each with their own unique backstories and personalities. This leads to an overall lesser importance on the main character ofDead Islandlore-wise, with the protagonist’s choice of the game leading to a vague canon in which each of these four characters is given similar levels of importance. The story ofDead Islandsees these survivors working with remnants of the island’s defense force to procure a vaccine for the zombie infection, only to be double-crossed prior to a daring escape that saw the island be destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
While there are some fascinating narrative links between the firstDead Islandand its recent sequel, the huge gulf in time between the two releases and the different studios that have spearheaded them mean that these references are not as overt or as important as they might have otherwise been. Off the bat,Dead Island 2is set in Los Angeles, and while existing in the same universe as the originalDead Island, the sequel’s core location is a far cry away from the remote island setting of its predecessor.
Other than the presence of the same zombie infection, the narratives ofDead IslandandDead Island 2are removed from one another, so fans can easily play the new release without needing to be intimately familiar with the former. The shakydevelopment ofDead Island 2saw it in limbo for over a decade, so it would be remiss of Dambuster Studios to make knowledge of the first title overly necessary for newcomers.
That is not to say thatDead Island 2is entirely without reference to its predecessor, with one of the original protagonists,Dead Island’sSam B, returning to the game as a side character. Sam B can even tell the player interesting tidbits about what happened after the events of the first game, as well as what happened to its involved characters. Beyond this,Dead Island 2offers an experience completely detached from its 2011 predecessor, and new fans should be unafraid of diving straight into the new release with no prior franchise knowledge.
Dead Island 2is now available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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