Dead Island 2 releases in April, and many fans have been waiting with mixed emotions since 2014. Dambuster Studios, however, has only been working on the game for four or so years, and some of the hype and drawback of the title's history doesn't necessarily reflect its choices regarding the game. In fact, anything from before 2022 doesn't really reflect the current state of Dead Island 2, but for some, concerns regarding its 'development hell' linger. Lead narrative designer Ayesha Khan said that Dambuster doesn't feel it has to apologize for actions and decisions that took place before it took over and only asks for a fair shake by those concerned, which is more than well-earned.
What's clear is that Dead Island 2 is Dambuster Studios' game, not some amalgamation of material accumulated over years and different developers. Speaking to this history with Game ZXC, Khan also dove into the elements the studio tackled to make this universe its own, to create a story that honors the past but focuses more on the future, and to support a vast, different player base. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What it's like to work on Dead Island 2 versus other games, since this game comes with a lot of baggage history-wise?
A: I would say that every game has its own flavor of baggage, just to mix my metaphors. We've been working on this for a little over four years now, and that's a fairly normal dev cycle. We're all feeling that rush as we approach the launch and that excitement. It's kind of nice to know that any other development wasn't in a way associated with us, so we don't feel like we have a lot to apologize for as a studio. We get to feel like a fairy godmother, like 'at last your wish is granted!' It's been really exciting to be able to fulfill people's wishes, and watch and share that excitement with them.
Q: Yeah, for many, it's a little surreal that it's actually coming out next month. What would you say to anyone concerned about Dead Island 2 because of that history?
A: I would say that I hope that they give us a fair shake, you know, that they play the game and then judge for themselves. I would also say, though that [2014] trailer, excitement, and hype were not ours, we have doubled down on our very pulp tone, the over-the-top gore, the irreverence, the location, and even the quality of the sunlight. I believe that anybody who got hyped up from that trailer is not going to be disappointed by what they get.
Q: Dead Island 2 seems to be more humorous than the first game or Riptide. Why go in that direction?
A: For sure, the gameplay of the first one and Riptide is over the top. It is marvelously over the top with that abandon, that glee, and the ridiculous amounts of gore. To me, that is fully pulp and is fully our over-the-top tone. We've just worked to make sure that our story matches the feel. I can give a whole talk on ludonarrative dissonance and how we're trying to avoid it, but that's basically it.
We're trying to make sure that the way players feel is reinforced by the story. They are these Slayers, these pulp action heroes, these over-the-top characters, and that story has to match it. The decisions that other studios have made are totally valid, but that's not the direction we've gone.
Q: Will there be any major connections to the first Dead Island or Riptide?
A: There is one major character in the cast who will be a very familiar face to people who played the first one and Riptide. Overall, there are a few little world-building hints here and there, but our goal was to make sure you didn't have to have played the previous games to get into and understand the story, partly because it has been so long. There are Easter eggs, but it's not the main point of the story. It's in the same universe, but with a different focus and different characters.
Q: Is it Sam B you're talking about?
A: It might be.
Q: What has changed with the world's treatment and understanding of the zombie outbreaks since the first game?
A: I think that we cannot help but have a different context from the player base. You know, we all have new opinions, I think, and new knowledge about such things. When it comes to the story, however, if people were to again, look into those worldbuilding elements, look into those Easter eggs, they would get some really interesting breadcrumb trails that relate to the science or the facts of the matter for the earlier outbreaks.
When it comes to each outbreak, each has been its own contained situation, in whatever way, on that "island." Sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's a little bit more metaphorical. This game matches that; this is a situation being dealt with by the world, on its own merits.
Q: Fans have gotten some biographies, backgrounds, and gameplay of the Slayers. Is there one that you're most fond of?
A: Yes, because I wrote one, so I might be a little bit biased. She's always going to be close to my heart. I will say, though, that one of the advantages we have is that our narrative team is small but fierce. We've had just enough people to make sure that every Slayer got their own voice and got a different treatment. It doesn't feel like they were all written by one person just rapidly changing hats. They all have really different ways of looking at the world, different ways of expressing themselves, and different personalities. I think that that's the thing I hope that people are going to enjoy the most about the Slayers.
Because though all of them, gameplay-wise, are a little better at this or a little better at that, once you get to the middle and endgame, you can use most skill cards on all of the Slayers. You can use most of the weapons for all the Slayers; you're not locked into a play style that you don't like just because you want to play this character. Instead, you can have the play style you want and then also find the personality that you jive with best. I think that's actually one of the really fun things, one of the wonderful parts of this.
These are not cookie-cutter characters, to the point where I expect some of them are going to be disliked by some players. But you're going to find one that you absolutely do mesh with, one you absolutely do want to hear more about. If you don't like one Slayer when you start the game, switch to another one and see how that feels. Try on a couple of coats.
Yeah, sometimes the best characters are not designed to be liked by everyone.
Exactly, try to please everyone, and you get oatmeal. Nobody even really loves oatmeal, and that's coming from somebody who likes oatmeal just fine.
Q: Which character did you write? What can you tell us about her?
A: I helped write Dani. Because I'm the lead, I wasn't able to write every single word she did, so one of our junior writers helped write her as well. Lizzie's her name; she's fabulous.
Dani, she's confident in the way she doesn't care if you find her funny, she thinks she's hilarious. I think to some people that might feel quite unusual. It's not like my personality, for example, but it was really wonderful to inhabit that. I got to let her get away with a lot, as she's not quippy exactly, she's the sort of person who does impressions, but they've always been under her breath to herself. Now, they're out loud, and she's cackling away as she is splatting zombies. So yeah, I really enjoy Dani. I can't help but love her. That irreverence and that confidence is really at the root of it.
She's the rockabilly character, right?
Yeah, Irish gal. I lived in Boston for a while when I was a teenager, so I saw a lot of Irish emigres who came in, worked for a while, and then sometimes get hit by their first New England winter. They'd say 'actually, I need to be anywhere else.' And that was kind of what Dani did. She came in, she worked at my favorite old bar canonically, and then a winter hit. And that's how she ended up in Hell-A.
Q: One of the latest gameplay trailers showed mutated DNA powers like Dani's Fury Mode. How does that mutated DNA tie into the story? Does it explain why they haven't been "turned" into zombies?
A: It is very thoroughly tied into the story and also full of spoilers. I'm so sorry, I would tell you everything if I could, but yes, they're absolutely 100% linked to the story. You will learn as much or as little as you want to know about them as you go through the game.
Q: What is it like managing a narrative where you know some players are not going to engage with everything?
A: I mean, that's always the challenge of open-world or of nonlinear stories. I actually cut my teeth on an MMO, so I've been lucky enough to always think that way. You can guarantee the players will hit certain beats during the main quest line, at certain times, and in a specific order, but everything else is up for grabs. That means that you get to concentrate on little moments, little vignettes, little cutscenes, a singular quest or quest chain, and treat them as their own stories.
It can be really complicated, especially when you're balancing things like what is said to whom in the quest hub. You have to do a lot of behind-the-scenes smoke and mirrors to figure out what the player has heard from whom, when, where, what quest they've completed, who they've met, and who they haven't yet. It makes things a little more difficult for us in that way, but it also gives us more dialogue to write more creatively. Then, when it comes to singular quests and little stories, you can't hide behind the epic nature of the main quest, you know? There are epic stories, those are for the main quest, and that is good.
When it comes to side content and other details like environmental storytelling, you have to then be able to have it stand on its own feet. You have to be able to let a player peer around a corner and understand who was there, what they were doing, why they were doing it, and why they should care. That's its own challenge, but I think it's one that we've we've enjoyed. It's a good narrative challenge.
Q: On the flip side, what it's like also managing the narrative for players who want to dive into the game and see everything?
A: Yeah, then it becomes a question of being able to feed enough grist to the mill, but put enough things in there. What we've tried to do especially is we've got quite a lot of world-building details, environmental storytelling, text journals, audio journals, and other sorts of bits and pieces of narrative scattered around. We've tried to raise enough questions and give only enough detail to allow players to form their own theories, as well as put together puzzle pieces.
We didn't want it to be a huge, perfect finished jigsaw that people could put together, partly because we want to leave ourselves enough room for the future. Hey, publishers give us Dead Island 3! That sort of thing. We wanted to allow people to find details for themselves and figure out what those could mean and put together those clues because we do have a very big kind of cosmic-level backstory written out. We've got a Lore Bible under lock and key. We didn't want an info dump on players because that can get quite wearisome, so instead, we've left a lot of trails, and we're really excited to see who puts together what.
Q: Do you think there's going to be a bunch of theories when the game launches about what happened?
A: Oh, I hope so. I would strongly encourage that.
Q: Why skip over like a traditional skill tree RPG system for the skill deck? What's the core difference?
A: This is something I could go on about for a while, so I'll try to give you a short answer. The short answer is that the analogy, the conceit of a deck of cards, encourages by its nature the idea of shuffling, dealing, cutting, and re-dealing. It's a very mobile attitude towards the content as opposed to a tree that is steady and firm. Yes, it grows bigger and expands, but it doesn't change. The trunk doesn't change as you go, right?
You deal out a new hand, and it can be completely different cards. You can switch every single card out. You can do that midair, you can jump, switch, and land with a different loadout to deal with what's in front of you. That's what is at the heart of it. It is this encouragement of your playstyle not being static, and the enemies you face requiring new and different ways of solving that puzzle of how you face them.
This is one of the things that encourage you to look for new combinations, and it also allows us to give some quite powerful cards, because you can only have X number of them in this tier or X number of them in that tier. It allows you to min-max or mess around with your own loadout without us having to restrain ourselves because you could have so many things equipped at once. It allows us to give you quite powerful tools, because it's all about how those tools are combined with your weapons, with your playstyle, and with each other.
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Dead Island 2 is set to release on April 21, 2023, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X\S.
