Dead Island: Riptide

You should know how the story goes by now. After escaping Banoi Island the Dead Island crew get stuck on – can you believe it – another island.

The four-piece band of the original return to form with Sam B on blunt weapons, Xian Mei on blades, Logan Carter throwing weapons and Purna rocking firearms. They’re joined by newcomer John Morgan, whose speciality is hand-to-hand combat. Weapons are the name of the game so it’s best you figure out who suits your play style most before starting. Blunt weapons break bones, sharp weapons slice off limbs, thrown weapons are the only ranged option, guns pop heads and hand-to-hand weapons hit fastest; simple enough. There are also specials like chainsaws to boot, but you’ll probably find yourself sticking to just one or two of the aforementioned weapon classes after mucking around until you find your forte. Each character has three subtly different skill trees, focusing on one of the main weapon types alongside fury mode and survival bonuses. It’s still easy enough to build a well-rounded character thanks to ten bonuses available for blunt, sharp, hand-to-hand weapons and firearms; unlocked based on how often you use them.

You’d be forgiven for thinking you’re experiencing déjà vu for the first hour or so of exploring Palanai Island if you played Dead Island. Not only are the enemies the same, but the entire beach area retreads some very familiar territory. Give it time though and soon enough you’ll be knocking drowners off your shiny new boat, walloping witch doctors in huts and beating down screaming lady zombies any which way you can.

At the first hub you arrive at you’ll meet a crew looking for someone to go do busywork for them. These folk’ll be your main quest givers from here on out. Around half of them are vendors, while the others are keener on battling any invading zombie hordes. As you progress through the main story you and the crew will venture on to new hubs that you’ll need to defend with your posse in tow. For them to endure any kind of zombie walloping they’ll need to be levelled-up. How? Fetch quests, of course! These usually entail finding several rare items that spawn inside caves, buildings or huts dotted around the map. Many of the new enemy types will be introduced in these areas as bosses.

For these first few hours it’s easy to get spooked thanks to the downright chilling music and unwieldy analogue control scheme. As you level up and get more used to controlling your swings and throwing your punches, this wears off a little, but you still need to keep your wits about you. Even maxed out at level 70 just one zombie can end you if you aren’t paying attention. There’s a lot of fun to be had in obliterating swarms of zombies in fury mode and gracefully strafing around bosses as you slowly put them out of their misery one limb at a time.

The problem is that after a while you figure out there isn’t really that big a downside to dying in-game. You lose a relatively small percentage of your money, which you’d otherwise use on buying, repairing or upgrading weapons. That’s it. If you were in the middle of a boss fight you can just get right back in there and keep whittling his life bar down. The game is quite exploitable too; load up in an area next to canned food or painkillers, pick them up, save, reload, rinse and repeat until you’ve got all the experience and cash you could ever need.

All this adds to Riptide seeming a little easier than the first Dead Island overall, especially when playing solo. However, the locations feel more varied, with the final area seeming more lush and easygoing than the downbeat, overrun church area of the first game.

Dead Island: Riptide is not a full-blooded sequel or evolution of Dead Island. It’s quite simply a new campaign with a couple of tweaks and few new tricks. As you’re able to import your characters from the first game, Techland is hardly pretending it’s anything else.