The recently released Dead Island 2 is a momentous title for many reasons, with fans simply being overjoyed to finally play the game given its unprecedentedly long and at times unsure development cycle. As well as this, the release marks a confident return of the IP into the genre of zombie survival video games, which has since become spearheaded by other franchises that dominate the genre.
With that being said, Dead Island 2 essentially puts the franchise back on level terms with other IPs such as Dying Light, which itself recently received its own second mainline installment. The release of Dead Island 2 is subsequently a great marker for competition within the wider gaming industry, with many other once-competing franchises falling to the wayside in terms of presence and sway. For example, this release comes at a time where the likes of Battlefield are greatly falling behind their competitors, such as Call of Duty, and these struggling IPs should look to replicate Dead Island 2's success.
The Growing Gulf Between Battlefield and Call of Duty
When looking back upon the entire history of the popular first-person shooter genre, no two franchises are quite as synonymous with this particular frame of gameplay as the Call of Duty and Battlefield IPs. Over the course of decades, both franchises have painstakingly released numerous and frequent installments, showcasing warfare in a variety of temporal and physical contexts.
Both CoD and Battlefield are known for their single-player narratives and their intense online multiplayer, with the two gaming titans often competing directly against one another for dominance within the saturated and highly competitive business of FPS titles. However in recent years, the industry presence of Battlefield has significantly slipped to the advantage of Call of Duty, with the recent Battlefield 2042 being considered a disappointment by many long-term fans. When considering how CoD has only grown in this time thanks to its reboot of the Modern Warfare franchise and the popularity of its Warzone battle royale, it is clear that Battlefield has a lot of work to do if it hopes to regain its lost ground.
How Dead Island 2 Matches Dying Light
The first installments to the Dead Island and Dying Light franchises came out in 2011 and 2015 respectively, with both of these launch titles being developed by Techland. With the similar time of release and creative vision behind both franchises, it is no wonder that the IPs are so similar, and have often been pitted against one another as competing IPs within the contemporary zombie-centric gaming space.
While both games were well-received, the Dead Island franchise would soon go into a kind of limbo, with the development of Dead Island 2 being a long and uncertain process that took over a decade to be finally realized. In this time, the later-released Dying Light received another successful sequel in early 2022, putting the franchise far above Dead Island in terms of continued presence and evolution.
However, the more recent release of Dead Island 2 has brought the franchise level with Dying Light in the eyes of many, with it being likely that the two IPs will once again compete against one another in the future. This is a great sign for the wider gaming industry when considering how more and more genres are becoming monopolized, giving hopes to the likes of Battlefield that sustained effort can bring IPs back to a competitive position.
Dead Island 2 is now available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.