With the launch of Dead Island 2 happening in Spring 2015 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Deep Silver Creative Producer Jan Eric Lauble caught up with IGN recently, where he explained why they chose California for this installment:
With the original Dead Island, we created the contrast of beautiful locations and the chaos of a zombie apocalypse. We allowed players to kill zombies on a tropical island where you normally would like to take your vacation. So for the sequel we wanted to capture the same spirit again and California is the perfect place to achieve this.
He added that California “also gave us the possibility to introduce new themes to the franchise thanks to its wide variety of different locations.”
As for the co-op in Dead Island 2, Lauble says they’ll push the idea for the sequel, giving up to eight players the ability to “share a big dynamic open world and it is up to them to decide if they want to cooperate, compete, or simply coexist.” Thanks to the co-op taking place in a single game world, it means there’s no “boundaries, matchmaking lobbies, or loading times.”
Past co-op, customization is a major focus, with the melee combat and crafting of weapons being “drastically” built upon:
The updated combat system offers way more control and possibilities and the weapon categories offer more variety through different attack types. And new additional features such as the dual wield system provide creative new ways for the player to slaughter zombies.
[…] The crafting system got improved a lot as well. Players are now able to craft and repair their weapons whenever and wherever they want to avoid annoying backtracking and the new modification system allows players to apply more than one mod to a weapon so they have more freedom when creating their personal zombie slayer.
While developer Yager is looking to build upon many aspects of the original Dead Island, they did leave the serious tone behind due to fan feedback.
Yager also convinced mo-cap studio Audiomotion to motion-capture a cat for use in Dead Island 2. As Lauble puts it, “Cats are not the most cooperative creatures, after all. It was hilarious, and if we would release the making-of video we would own the Internet.”
So long as Dead Island 2 is still on schedule, we should hear about the PlayStation-exclusive content soon, which includes a 30-day advance beta, character, and level.
Are you excited for Dead Island 2?
[Source: IGN]
