30 Jul, 2011
It’s the middle of summer, and it’s beautiful out. It’s sunny, bright, warm. Time to break out the swim suits and hit the pool, or maybe lay in the sun with a cocktail and in a hammock. It’s like an island paradise.
Until the zombies invade.
Since the undead-craze hit the world at full tilt, they’ve become the obligatory baddie in every scenario from the old west to modern times. So what do you have to do to make your spin on the zombie apocalypse stand out? Well, first you make it tug at the heart strings, and then follow it up by keeping your promises. Who better to answer all of the demands for the newest zombie masher than Sebastian Reichert, Deep Silver’s Producer of Dead Island.
With the emotional trailers that heralded the coming of Dead Island earlier this year, many zombie-shooting fans have been clamoring to catch a glimpse of this title. Upon first showing at E3 in June however, many described the game as “just another first-person zombie game.”
Well, said Reichert, this game is going to keep you on your toes because it’s going to be brutal. “The emotion that we put an emphasis on is terror,” he said in an interview with Team Xbox. “Brutal in-your-face survival. Grab whatever makeshift weapon you can get your hands on and fight for your life. The enemies are unforgiving. There is no level that can be cleared and then you can sit back and relax. Whenever you leave a camp of survivors you will be in danger. So become stronger and find a way off this hellish place.”
Welcome to Banoi. Your screaming starts here.
There’s no safe house, there’s no room for you to grab First Aid and load up on guns. You just have to keep on going until you escape or you can’t go anymore. Let’s hope it’s the former, because it would suck if you died on a beautiful island like Banoi. Minus the slobbering inhabitants.
The question is probably already on your lips: what’s going to be the difference between Dead Island and Left 4 Dead? Proximity, said Reichert. You are going to get really nice and cozy with this horde, so bring a pack of Tic-Tacs along just in case. “…in our game the experience becomes different as you have this melee focus in the gameplay,” said Reichert. “Rarely is there enough ammunition to simply shred a dozen undead in front of you. And if you only have a baseball bat at hand you have to get close to the horde to fight it.”
Reichert added that it will take, on average, between 25 to 30 hours for a single play through of Dead Island. This doesn’t include doing all the other stuff. Players will be given the chance to explore the island and help other citizens out too, but now it’s starting to sound like Dead Rising 2.
Maybe not. Did we feel scared as Chuck Greene? No, because we were too busy trying on tutus, banana hammocks, and Daisy Dukes. Yes Chuck, they do make your butt look big.
Will someone get this guy a t-shirt?
There won’t be any of this nonsense in Dead Island. It’s going to be dead serious, and Reichert explained that you’ll never feel safe, no matter how hard you try. “Everything that was put in the game was set up to bring this terror of survival to you,” he said. “Your weapons will break so you will never feel overconfident with only one weapon; no matter how good it is. As it is a vacation island you will rarely have enough ammunition therefore you are forced to get into close combat with these vile creatures.”
Killing zombies doesn’t sound like so much fun anymore, does it? But at least you’ll get the opportunity to mix and match and make new weapons, much like the weapons creation systems in Dead Space and Dead Rising (what is it with all these games that have the word DEAD in the title?). “Gathering all sorts of everyday items on the island shows off how desperate the fight is,” said Reichert. “Using these items in combination with blueprints to improve your weapons will help you a lot but at the same time this gives the player the constant feeling that they need to keep an eye on their scarce resources.”
They've all gone crazy.
Of course, with the world of Dead Island, you can’t expect them to have skimped on details either. With four different classes in the form of different main characters and different skill tress, players will have lots of re-playability options and a chance to keep on exploring the sprawling paradise-gone-to-hell of Banoi. Branching story lines for each character were excluded though, as Reichert explained he want to avoid the feeling of disconnect if players entered a multiplayer game. “Branching story lines for each character would be one thing we would love to see in the game,” said Reichert. “But with a strong multiplayer focus we had to put it aside for this title. The disconnect that arises when players enter another game and the world is completely changed from their own experience is exactly what we wanted to prevent.”
Might we expect a sequel for Dead Island? It’s far too early to be asking a question like that, but Deep Silver won’t toss away the idea just yet. “The first intention was to make an f’ing outstanding zombie game with all the things included that players love to do and of course all those things fans love in this genre,” said Reichert. “With so much passion involved in the whole creative process, the world of Dead Island became gigantic in no time! So you can be sure we won’t throw all that away.”
Take a vacation from work to fight your way out of a mess. Dead Island shuffles into action on September 6th on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
Via Team Xbox.
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