Dead Island Preview and Interview

Mixing zombies with open-world action-RPG trappings is an intriguing idea, so in case you’re interested in seeing how it fares, Bit-tech has cooked up a two-pages preview for your perusal.

We got our hands on the game mid-way through the campaign, teaming up with three fellow players to complete a mission that involved sticking up posters throughout the zombie-infested city area of the game’s tropical paradise setting. The players aren’t the only survivors of the zombie plague though; there are plenty of NPCs holed up in safe houses, and in the demo we played the central hub for this was a barricaded church. NPC survivors offer missions, while also serving merchants who can sell you better weapons.

There’s also a nifty crafting option, which enables you to modify existing weapons to become deadlier, or add extra zombie-slaying effects. For example, adding a battery and some wire to a blade makes for an impromptu electro-prod that can briefly incapacitate foes, while adding a saw blade to the end of a baseball bat makes it even better at caving in skulls. These added benefits are balanced by the fact that Dead Island’s weapons visually degrade the more you use them, becoming less effective and dealing less damage too. That master-murder-stick might make mincemeat of zombies for a while, but it’ll soon need to be repaired, or swapped out for a different weapon in the confusion of a fight.

On the matter of Techland and Deep Silver’s upcoming title, the[a]listdaily offers a short interview with Deep Silver’s International Marketing Director Georg Larch, which mostly deals with the much-discussed CGI trailer. Here’s a sampling:

[a]list: Has the CG trailer affected the development of the game at all?

Georg Larch: First of all, the short has always tried to tell a story that makes an impression AND provides subtle links to the game such as the use of found items for combat, dismemberment, melee focus, etc. At the same we have been very happy to see that the game itself was received well by the key journalists from the beginning on. Today, the vast majority of our Dead Island fans are absolutely clamoring to play the game as their attention was sparked by the film but their hearts were ultimately won by the gameplay.

[a]list: Who came up the idea and direction of the CG trailer, the animation studio or the developer?

Georg Larch: The creative concept was co-developed by Axis and Deep Silver. The final concept was different at the beginning of our work together, but was developed through excellent teamwork and passionate and highly talented individuals on both sides. It was not necessarily based on one striking idea, but a very productive, collaborative process that has made this piece of work what it is a very rare and almost hard to believe story of success.