The first details and screenshots to the upcoming sequel of last year’s Dead Island have surfaced over at OXM. From the sounds of things, the game picks right after the first iteration, following the same four characters. The tropical island of Banoi seems to have hit monsoon season, which makes for many murky marshes and lots of waist-deep water to wade through while hacking away.
To help you through all the wet patches the game introduces motorboats as drivable vehicles with which to mow through the undead hordes that refuse to drown. You’ll also have C4 mines at your disposal to help blow the zombies to smithereens.
A nice addition is that since the characters are the same, players of the first game will be able to import their characters over for usage here as well. Also, Techland has stated that while the battle focus will remain with melee weapons, guns should be slightly more common. Good news for those bringing their heavy-hitting level 50+ characters over – no having to start the game with broken oars or dull knives.
Now I enjoyed Dead Island, and am quite looking forward to Riptide, but it seems a downright lazy to use the same characters, in the same clothing no less. From the looks of the screencaps none of the survivors have managed to raid a Macy’s department store or gimmicky Banoi souvenir shop for a new get-up.
The game is supposedly taking place on a “different part” of the same island, so why not focus on a different group of people? Perhaps take a page from Left 4 Dead 2‘s book and bring out DLC later that shows the characters from both games interacting in some way. I don’t know. I’m still excited for Riptide; it would just be nice to see a change of flesh.
