Zombies like you’ve never seen before and the city of Los Angeles like no other. Win a combo for Dead Island 2?
Game News Zombies like you’ve never seen before and the city of Los Angeles like no other. Win a combo for Dead Island 2?
Believe it or not, Dead Island 2 is definitely coming! The application settings will change and move from the paradise island to the city of Los Angeles. Knowing that the setting of the game technically gave it its name, it might seem interesting to choose the city of angels. But if we believe the developers, this option is really thought out.
Dead island, no island
What a long way it has come since its official launch Dead island 2 In 2014. Publisher Deep Silver then introduced a game that was as crazy as ever, but with a complete change of scenery. We left the beautiful sandy beaches of Banoi Island to reach the West Coast of America and the city of Los Angeles. Far from a disappointing choice, but nonetheless interesting to know the basis of the original title.
Since this announcement, the software has experienced an exciting development. Techland passed the torch to Sumo Digital before the studio abandoned the project. Since then, this latter studio has continued the work of its predecessors and intends to bring us this second work next year. Even if this new team joins the project along the way, they remain completely committed to the new premise of this title. The developers of Dambuster have just returned Game Reporter In Los Angeles, the philosophy they want to instill in their game and how this new framework can allow them to do so.
In fact, if Los Angeles is not an island, so to speak, a little script trick allows the developers to give the City of Angels a similar “metaphorical” status. In Dead Island 2, an epidemic affecting the townspeople is quickly spiraling out of control. After that, the authorities decided to quarantine him. The city of American show business then sees a landlocked city that no one can get in or out of. It actually becomes an “island”. A little messy, sure, but it works. And most importantly, this change allows more diversity for developers.
Going from Banoi to Los Angeles is… a lot of variety. There’s a ton of possibilities and potential, both in terms of the environment and the characters and even the zombies we can put into the game. With its vibrancy, sunny locations, beaches, and exotic homes, Bel-Air is a great environment to create our battle experience. – Adam Duckett, design director.
Los Angeles and its mythology
For developers, Los Angeles also allows surfing a certain fantasy image of the City of Angels, Hollywood myth, and the image cultivated by the city’s representation in cinema and popular culture. The teams at Dambuster Studios compare this presentation to “the obvious”.
Los Angeles has a somewhat quirky or idiosyncratic culture and personality, and that personality is recognized around the world. Whether you’re in Los Angeles or not, we’ve seen it all in Hollywood, and we thought this Hollywood spectacle would be great fun as you beat zombies and run.(…)
You have two or three surfaces. There is this fantasy version of Los Angeles – the Hollywood representation. On top of that we added the tragic collateral damage of the evacuation attempt. And finally, still at the top, there are the classic elements of the zombie apocalypse genre. But we convinced him to water it. (Art director Adam Olsson) and his team did a great job of “glamorizing” this place. We are not trying to create a version of Fallujah or some kind of war zone. It’s still a mythical place, easy to navigate and exciting. – James Worrall, creative director.
A true pop culture object
First off, Dead Island has a reference universe that is on the pulp-horror and archetypal offbeat zombie movie side. A certain idea about the zombie as a pop culture object, which the developers want to fully exploit and, above all, re-transmit through the city. For the sets and the general style of the game, the art teams took mostly from the genre cinema of the 80s and 90s, Robocop movies, Freddy from the claws of the night or even Predator.
I have really, really nostalgic memories of afternoon movie sessions. Then you’ve completely immersed yourself in the world presented to you, the end credits have rolled, and you’ve left the room in the sunset, you felt like you left the whole world behind. There’s a bit of a sense of loss, but also “oh, I can’t wait to see the next one”. – James Worrall
I think (of players) “why don’t more (games) do this?” Zombies are fantastic. We really want to make zombies fun again. There are so many games that popularized zombies over the course of 10 or 20 years, but there are just as many games that are simply a dark mirror of the deeper side of humanity. I really want people to come out (of the game) and say, “That was fun. Zombies is fun again.” – Adam Olsson, Art Director.
Dead Island 2 will be released on April 28, 2023 for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.
