The long-awaited, blood-soaked dead island 2 published todayand after almost a decade of waiting, I’m sure you have some questions. The game shares a peacefully awkward sense of humor with the first game from 2011 dead island, which repeatedly refers to her menacing surroundings as “Hell-A” while being gory enough to actually justify the zombified dad joke, but it’s also changed in important ways. Skill cards appear for the first time, and playing on modern consoles has its own quirks.
The unknown scares. But I’ll walk you through the game and tell you everything I wish someone had told me before I started playing dead island 2.
How to unlock co-op
dead island 2uses co-op like the original, allowing players to pit a cast of unique playable characters – in this case six – against an endless onslaught of dislocated jawed zombies.
To enable co-op mode in a new game, complete the first three missions of the main story. Co-op is unlocked in the fourth, aptly named “Call the Cavalry,” and you can add a maximum of two players to your game by selecting either “Online Options” or “Social” when prompted.
Once co-op mode is enabled, you can accept a friend’s request to join their game as long as they’re in the same spot or earlier, or you can select “Join” from the main menu for a random multiplayer pairing. Quest progress is saved in co-op mode, so you can play the entire game and switch between single and multiplayer at your leisure.
Note, however, that there is no crossplay.
I know it’s annoying, but you should spam the “Collect” button
Just as Amazon continues to transform our planet a desolate dump from Funko Pop, dead island 2 Environments are crammed with stuff. You’ll find upgrade materials like glue, spray cans, and blades on tables, in closed drawers, and raining down from wood like you’re popping a ghastly piñata.
Forget your hand-wringing over memory management – everyone is a scavenger in the zombie apocalypse. pick up the stuff All of it. As long as you regularly upgrade weapons with the materials you find, you’ll find yourself doing just fine dead island 2 Inventory is impressively bottomless.
Keeping upgrade materials handy will save you time when you find yourself at infrequent upgrade workbenches. Although these benches allow you to “track” missing materials, they’re most helpful when you have your materials ready to go, and can repair broken weapons or make them even more powerful just before your next fight.
To free up space, scrap worthless weapons like wooden planks and sell real weapons to traders for big money. Upgrade materials allow you to create weapon modifications, upgrades, and repairs, but it takes money to actually buy them.
You have to make tradeoffs between special mods and attack power
You’ll unlock and find motley weapon schematics (often conveniently placed right on an undiscovered workbench) as you progress further in the game, unlocking wild mods that turn your weapon into two-hit electrocutioners and crematoria, as well as damage-boosting upgrades strengthen your weapon.
While the constant influx of shiny toys is understandably tempting, be aware that extreme weapon mods and upgrades aren’t always compatible. While the descriptions of some upgrades clearly state that they require specific mods to be equipped, general upgrades like damage that increase a weapon’s damage dealt lose their overall effect when combined with a mod. Before attempting to irrevocably change it at a workbench, try to have a plan for the type of weapon you ultimately want.
“Slaughter” is a perfect weapon upgrade
The game’s massive array of weapon customization options leaves a lot to consider, but I think you should prioritize the Slaughter upgrade.
It lets you chop off limbs more efficiently, making it most compatible with sliding-bladed weapons like katanas and hunting knives, but also increases the weapons’ durability.
dead island 2 Weapons can break intolerably quickly, leaving you suddenly bare-knuckled in the middle of an encounter.
Although you can track weapon breakage by looking at the exhaustion meter in the lower-right corner of the screen, it’s best to avoid this by adding Slaughter. Also, don’t forget to repair your favorite weapons when you’re near a workbench.
You can’t blast through the fight – learn to dodge
Despite dead island 2s quickly gaining a reputation as a mindless, mass bloodletting event, attempting to aimlessly plow your way through fields of snarling zombies will kill you fast and destroy your stockpile of weapons even faster.
To protect yourself and your arsenal, practice dodging or tapping L1 in the split seconds before a zombie attacks –and I mean really fractions of seconds.
It took me a while to get the timing right. I’d recommend that you practice by picking out rogue zombies you encounter while exploring environments, and not necessarily in the middle of a stressful main mission. Dodging (or alternatively blocking an incoming attack) stuns a zombie and opens it up for a damaging counterattack.
When a zombie mob comes down, use their own powers against them
Just as each playable hunter has their own inherent advantages, each zombie you encounter has their own violent quirk.
Most of them are thematic and obvious. For example, a frizzy zombie surrounded by blue sparks will eventually unleash a huge blast of electricity, or a crunchy zombie completely submerged on fire, if it touches you, it will set you on fire.
Be aware of these quirks and use them to your advantage when faced with zombie swarms that may at first seem unmanageable. Throw a gas can at a fire zombie to trigger a distant AoE burst that kills nearby zombies. Use an electrically modified weapon to smash a hole in the water canisters some zombies are carrying on their backs and turn the resulting puddle into a Livewire Trap.
And once it becomes accessible to you in-game, don’t forget to use Rage Mode, which builds up as you kill zombies and fills you with their destructive powers for a short time.
Make sure you level up, but it’s not necessarily as important as you might think
Once you beat a boss fight in the main story or get to a savage enemy with a skull over their head, meaning they’re a higher level than you, you’ll feel the power differences right away.
To avoid being overwhelmed by enemies that are too strong, take a look at the recommended main story and side quest levels and make sure your natural leveling matches them before attempting them.
But not you have Being at the recommended level of a chapter or enemy to try. Most of the time, especially in rogue combat, which is where you’ll spend most of your time, leveling up makes almost imperceptible difference in terms of damage output or defense. Most standard wild enemies also scale with your level, which is reflected in the number that appears above their heads next to their name.
If you get stuck in the main story, switch to a side quest that you can benefit from
Don’t worry if you aren’t at the right level to complete a main level chapter (at least without much difficulty). You have 33 side quests to choose from.
You’ll unlock these without really trying – by exploring new environments, answering radio calls, or chatting with friendly NPCs.
But before committing to a side quest, open the Quests tab, look at the rewards listed, and consider what your main goals in the story are. Do you want to level up as soon as possible? Choose a side quest with plenty of XP gains. When your guns suck, you need some more Excruceating? Accept the side quest that awards you with a special weapon. Having fun and being practical at the same time. Kill responsibly.
Don’t be afraid to customize your low-stakes skill deck
As you progress through levels, the main story, and side quests, slots are unlocked on your skill card deck. You acquire skill cards without really trying, either by grabbing them after spamming your “Pickup” button or by purchasing them kill for her.
So you can always rearrange or declutter your deck Try every skill card that intrigues you. Most skill perks are nebulous enough – they specialize in the type of kicks you perform or how you regenerate health – that it never feels like you’re choosing them. It’s more like deciding whether or not you want pickles on your burger.
Did you know that there is voice control?
dead island 2 has a unique voice control system that infatuated me at first as someone who knows how use ccomputerbut just barely.
You can speak scripted commands to switch weapons, taunt zombies, and activate the extra powerful Rage Modeincluding through the use of a microphone and yours Amazon account.
To enable it, enter your Amazon account information in the “Alexa Game Control” section of the options menu, make sure voice commands are set to “enabled,” and Select your preferred audio input device. Read through the available Voice Control commands in the Tutorials section and wonder like me if Jeff Bezos can hear you scream.
what are your best dead island 2 tips so far?
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