If you were to pick 10 random games from the last two decades, there’s a pretty good chance that at least a couple of them would feature zombies. It’s a popular enemy in video games, and many developers have been eager to introduce their own take on the genre. However, Dead Island 2 looks to level up the splatter and gore exponentially in a world where the combat largely blends together.
In a recent interview with Dot Esports, developer Dan Evans and narrative designer Ayesha Kahn discussed how their combat and gore work. While other zombie games encourage players to run in some scenarios, Evans stated that the fighting up close makes this game special. Evans said, “You really got the feeling of that combat being really visceral, really in your face.”
He continued, “Like I think you’re saying that thing about like people laughing when they’re glad, and it’s because you’ll be playing it and hit the zombie around the head and his eyeball will like fly out on the spring and kind of like bounce.”
Kahn then added, “It’s anatomically correct. That eyeball flying off in that direction because you hit it with this kind of weapon in that location.” This speaks to a higher level of depth to the gore system if something as small as an eyeball can be smacked out of the zombie’s head.
But it wasn’t the developers’ goal to make a game that’s just viewed as horrifically mature and violent, they also wanted to create something players could enjoy.
Earlier in the interview, Evans said, “I wanted to do something where it is, it’s really very much a mature game. And as much as you know, it’s horrifically violent. But yeah, like I say it’s horrifically violent, but it’s also fun, like, and I think that’s a mixture that you don’t see a lot.”
In discussing how important it was to make the actual splatter fun, Evans says, referring to the melee system, “Like, and when you test it against like a passive zombie who’s not reacting, not trying to eat you, you feel really bad. You’re like, ‘Oh, this is awful. I’m just like, bashing someone’s head.’ And so it was really important to get that tone right.”
To put it simply, Dambuster wanted the gore to feel good and like a natural part of fighting decaying zombies, but they didn’t want it to be the sole focus. There are a lot of elements working in Dead Island 2 with the RPG stuff and different main characters, but it sounds like the splatter and gore systems will be something special by themselves.
