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Dead Island 2 Zero Punctuation review Yahtzee Croshaw Dambuster Studios Deep Silver

Dead Island 2 – Zero Punctuation

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This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Dead Island 2.

For more major games Yahtz has reviewed lately, check out The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, Dredge and Tchia, Resident Evil 4 (2023), Metroid Prime Remastered, Atomic Heart, and Hogwarts Legacy.

And check out Yahtzee’s other series, Extra Punctuation, where he’s recently talked about missing loading screens and refuting the notion that he hates video games.

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Transcript

Dead Island is a franchise with a history of being misrepresented by its own trailers. First there was Dead Island 1, a tooth-loosening gonzo splatfest whose trailer seemed to think it was an arty time manipulation infanticide game or something, and now we have Dead Island 2 whose announcement trailer in 2014 gave the false impression that it was actually being fucking worked on with any degree of expedience. Let’s do the usual thing and go down the list of stuff that lasted less time than the development of Dead Island 2. The Second World War. The NASA moon expedition. The average life expectancy of a St. Bernard. It’s gone through developers like a box of Curly Wurlies through dental enamel, too. The original devs, Techland, went off to do Dying Light instead, which was basically just Dead Island with bells on, then Yager had it for a while, the Spec Ops The Line lads, but I guess they had a PTSD flashback at some point and stopped responding to emails. Then it was given to jobbing developer Sumo Digital, the guys who made Crackdown 3, ouch, and finally ended up with Dambuster Studios, who made Homefront: The Revolution. Double ouch and a stubbed toe.


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Author
Image of Yahtzee Croshaw
Yahtzee Croshaw
Yahtzee is the Escapist’s longest standing talent, having been writing and producing its award winning flagship series, Zero Punctuation, since 2007. Before that he had a smattering of writing credits on various sites and print magazines, and has almost two decades of experience in game journalism as well as a lifelong interest in video games as an artistic medium, especially narrative-focused. He also has a foot in solo game development - he was a big figure in the indie adventure game scene in the early 2000s - and writes novels. He has six novels published at time of writing with a seventh on the way, all in the genres of comedic sci-fi and urban fantasy. He was born in the UK, emigrated to Australia in 2003, and emigrated again to California in 2016, where he lives with his wife and daughters. His hobbies include walking the dog and emigrating to places.