I should note before anything I played the vast majority of the game with the “Essential Fix” mod which, while not altering the game fundamentally, removes motion blur and other post processing effects, along with “fixing” the movement to feel less awful.

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Dead Island is many things. A zombie game; of course. A bit of an RPG; for some reason. A huge disappointment; for sure. And above all, almost entirely redundant in a world where Dying Light exists. That’s probably a bit hyperbolic. The existence of better games never makes something obsolete, but given everyone has limited time, I’d argue Dead Island just isn’t worth said time.

I don’t want this whole review to be a contrast between the two games, so lets highlight what Dead Island does well. With the juiced up visuals of the Definitive Edition, Dead Island looks mighty fine. The games tropical resort locale was a selling point from the start, and the game never looks better than the first act, set amongst the glistening blue sea, idyllic coastal shacks, and serene poolside deck chairs. Zombies too, abetted by solid animation work, are a real horror treat, particularly when contrasted by the otherwise cheery scenery.

Built into that is how the undead act in combat – which as a whole, while floaty and somewhat inconsistent, is one of Dead Island’s strengths. With a focus on melee, Dead Island excels at embodying the scrappy and sluggish swings of a baseball bat as it tumbles through the air, slowing travelling towards the zombie skull set as its destination, concluding with our target staggering and slumping to the ground. There’s a sort of aiming system here where you can direct your hits at specific body parts, though I found it was only ever useful to strike heads and arms, and because of that, enemies react in a genuinely impressive fashion, swaying with believable and satisfying inertia. These strengths don’t extend to ranged combat though, where aim assist is inexplicably always enabled even when using a mouse. Even disregarding that, pistol duels – either against zombies or humans – are a drab affair, failing to even live up to the shallow standards of a trite CoD copycat.

Everyone remembers the infamous Dead Island trailer; the raw and artful depiction of a zombie outbreak, the expertly paced imagery of ordinary parents beating back undead to save their child, and in graphic detail, failing. None of that of course exists in the game. It’s an emotionally detached brawler with godawful writing, woeful acting performances, and under baked, wholly incongruent RPG undertones, from the side quests to the levelling system. What should be a grim juxtaposition of paradise and hell is turned on its head by base RPG elements, ranging from a level up perk tree to weapon stats to every terrible side quest structure we hate. The writing is universally cringe, but the side quests aren’t even afforded the luxury of B-movie-esque cutscenes present in the main story. Every single one follows the pattern of “go to point A, kill zombies/pick up item/escort survivor, get reward”. The game is split into four acts, and I stopped doing almost all side quests by the mid point of act two, already pushed to my limits by the banal writing of the primary mission.

That’s only the start of Dead Island’s RPG-ification. It’s most apparent in levelling up. A childhood favourite of mine is Oblivion – a game which progressively gets worse as I become more aware of its many, many problems, one of which being level scaling. Dead Island uses level scaling, which is to say all enemies, regardless of location, get stronger as you level up, and no day goes by where I don’t daydream about how utterly pointless and infuriating level scaling is. Levelling up in Dead Island seems like an oversight, given the only benefit is to plonk a point into an uninteresting and near worthless perk tree. Just like in Oblivion, you’re somewhat punished by levelling up unless you somehow gain power elsewhere, since your enemies are just plain stronger than you otherwise. It’s a pure mathematical problem – because zombies and math go hand in hand, dontcha know? – whereby I get a perk to increase the amount of money I find by 5%, and my undead assailants get buffs to their health and damage. There do exist some perks of note. Two in fact – one which lets you stomp on prone enemies for an easy kill, and another which makes that kill instant – are so much more beneficial than the rest they further exemplify how laughable the whole folly is.

The only way to circumvent this is through your arsenal, but the firm grips of terrible RPG mechanics know no limits, for weapons in Dead Island, while superficially diverse, essentially fall into the same trap. Even going as far as adopting a rarity colour system, every weapon from lead pipe to kitchen knife to sledgehammer scales with the game, meaning the ultra rare excalibur you picked up at level five is a mere rusty bread knife by the second act. You can repair, upgrade, and modify weapons, giving them boosts to their damage output through raw number bumps or special effects like electric or bleed. It’s ultimately a futile task though, in the same way clinging to a weapon in modern Zelda is. They are going to break or be outclassed very quickly, the infinite circus of finding new weapons is a necessary chore, which is unlike modern Zelda, where new, peculiar weapon interactions are worth tossing old sticks and hammers for.

It’s not a total waste of time, though to loop back to my initial argument, why settle for less when better games exist? Dying Light for example, has many of the aspects discussed here – both in the positive and negative camps – yet those in the latter are either less of an issue or turned on their heads. There is a degree of RPG gameplay to Dying Light, but with a far more robust skill tree and crafting system, I looked forward to kitting myself out with new weapons. Just the same, the stale side quest structure can be present there too, though in terms of writing, much of Dying Light’s best material is found in these inconsequential secondary escapades; I mean, it certainly isn’t found in that games equally dreadful overarching narrative. It’s also worth noting that by mashing together these two disparate tones of zombie horror and silly brawler, Dead Island sacrifices consistent scares for an unsatisfying middle ground, whereas Dying Light’s nighttime was so terrifying I personified my inner NPC and stayed put at the fort until the sun rose. The nicest thing I can say about Dead Island is that is provided a framework for better things. That being Dying Light. Just play Dying Light.