Which Slayer should you choose in Dead Island 2?

Dead Island 2 is finally releasing after nearly a decade of development and many fans can’t wait to take on HELL.A. with a whole new generation of Zombie Slayers. With six new heroes to choose from, players will likely be confused about which one they should pick up for their first playthrough. Fortunately, there don’t seem to be any bad options, but some may suit new players more than others.

Here’s all the information you need to know about which Slayer you should choose in Dead Island 2.

Related: Does Dead Island 2 support crossplay?

Which Slayer is best to play for beginners in Dead Island 2?

Admittedly, Ryan doesn’t seem like much from his brief intro, including his portrait on the character select screen. He seems like the boring vanilla protagonist players will find in games since the dawn of time, but he does have some funny interactions at least early in the game. Ryan’s not perfect by any means, but he does have more personality than it may seem.

What’s more important is that he has considerable toughness, which means he’ll be much better with melee weapons at the start of the game. Not only that, but he also has a base ability that allows him to regain health anytime a zombie gets knocked to the ground, which is a lot. If he needs health, all Ryan players need to do is aim for the zombies’ legs.

That being said, he’s not very fast, so it may be worth considering another character if that won’t suit your playstyle. While Ryan’s Toughness is high, translating to higher physical damage, his critical damage is almost nothing, which is something else to consider. There are other characters that may be better for your playstyle at the start.

Carla is a great fighter and has pretty good toughness as well, with the additional benefit of bonus resilience. She’s one of the funnier characters at the start of the game, as shown by her readiness to fight in her character profile screen. That being said, she doesn’t do a lot of critical damage, instead getting an overall boost to toughness when her health is low.

She’s also not afraid of getting surrounded, as she gets a damage boost whenever there are multiple zombies around her at once. This is a great benefit, especially since there will be many instances when an alarm or something else draws a mini-horde to your position.

In the end, there are no bad choices in Dead Island 2. Instead, the game encourages you to try out each character, with there being six different save slots on the Slayers screen in the main menu. Each character will play to different strengths and react to the world around them.