Not only is it a surprise that Dead Island 2 is in the final stages of development - but in a state where we could play a polished and impressive 30-minute chunk. And then have a candid chat with the game director and creative director over at Deep Silver Dambuster Studios to talk about the game’s history and groundbreaking melee combat.

Where you can melt zombies!

“One of the most fun things to do in the game is to melt zombies because that shows the potential of it. We've modeled the clothes and the skin, and then it melts through to the organs beneath that where there are individually modeled and simulated gallbladders and intestines and that kind of thing. Right down to the skeleton. Performance obviously has been a challenge, making sure that we can get all of this stuff running at 4K 60 frames-per-second on gen nine [Xbox Series X|S and PS5].”

“Balancing performance with the fidelity that we wanted and the level of procedurality. If that's a word. And with this being an action RPG, balancing that arcade instant visual feedback with the RPG side. Where there are stats and data and rolls and randomisations. Hopefully, we've struck a really good execution of all of that.”

Head Here For Our Full Dead Island 2 Interview