The zombie-strewn action-adventure Dead Island 2 has spent the last nine years flipping between studios – original developer Techland, then Yager Development, then Sumo Digital, and finally Dambuster, launched in its former life as Free in the ’00s Links to the TimeSplitters series had Radical Design. Recently it’s picked up enough speed to have a real release date for next month, development… not quite hell, let’s call it purgatory, and a disgusting meat system. Yes, “meat system”.
That’s how Dambuster describes the processes behind his stunning combat visuals – layers of skin blowing away in chunks like too big a pile of whipped cream, and bouncy eyeballs. Whether or not you’ve maintained your enthusiasm for this sequel (Dead Island: Riptide was more of a disappointing expansion than a true sequel) in the nearly full decade since its announcement, its macabre next-gen “meat system” deserves some of your attention or at least your gag reflex. I’ve put together everything you need to know about this and other Dead Island 2 basics.
When is Dead Island 2 coming out?
It comes a week ahead of the last announced release date – April 21st instead of April 28th.
What consoles will Dead Island 2 be seen on?
PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
ok cool What is a “meat system” and is it illegal?
I’m glad you asked. It’s gross, but way more legal than some videos I saw on YouTube back in 2007.
The game’s “meat” system apparently stands for “Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids,” game director David Stenton told IGN in 2022. It’s a procedural system that the developers applied to all enemies in the game, and it creates a “progressive effect”. Lead Render Programmer Aaron Ridge told Game Informer last month, “So you can still do damage in many, many different ways.”
This means zombies will stalk you even after you’ve punched them in the jaw with your jaw, and jammed blood will spurt from their emptied eye sockets until you enter them again – with a blade? A baseball bat? The two-pronged eye opener maybe? — and see how their decomposing bodies react accordingly. More dander. blood bursts. Their skull cracks and caves. puke!
Image: Dambuster Studios
But also cool if you’re a fan of Cronenberg quirkiness in your games, like me. The developers of Dead Island 2 certainly seem to be enjoying themselves, telling the press at a presentation this week that in the game, “anatomically correct layers of skin fat and muscle can be ripped off with machete-point precision to reveal fragile bones and internal organs are individually destructible.”
“Sharp weapons can dismember heads or limbs anywhere and slice torsos cleanly in half using advanced fluid and soft-body physics,” they said.
Even after you’ve taken down a zombie, you can keep hacking through its layers of skin, fat, and muscle until you eventually hit solid bone. You can also cancel and dispose of it. There’s no limit to how far you can go – you can even shred zombie hearts with the meat system if you want to.
It turns the game into a butcher shop. There’s a “real sense that zombies are made out of something,” Ridge told Game Informer, “that they have parts inside them and are a volume of mass.” More somberly, technical art director Dan Evans-Lawes told Game Informer that the meat system also reminds players that these monsters were once “humans who actually lived in LA before the zombie outbreak happened.”
“That’s how they’re identified,” he said. “They feel like humans.” The allure of the atrocity, indeed.
Is there a less gross new feature in Dead Island 2?
There is, yes. Instead of the original and Riptide skill trees, the game uses trading cards or ability cards to guide you through combat, granting buffs and abilities that you can add to a customizable deck. However, like the original, Dead Island 2 will have multiple playable protagonists, multiplayer options, and breakable weapons.
