Dead Island 2 from Embracer Group AB - brutal co-op, comic gore and long-awaited comeback

Reviewed: ad hoc news B2B & Pro desk. Edited and checked on 2026-06-27, 19:18. Details in the imprint.

Dead Island 2 opens with a burning jetliner skidding across the runway and then dumps you, bloodied and wide-eyed, into a sun-bleached Los Angeles where the pool water is red and the air smells of smoke and sunscreen. Within minutes, your first pipe swing crunches through a zombie jaw and you feel exactly what Dambuster Studios lead designer James Worrall meant when he promised "melee-first" combat.

How Dead Island 2 plays

Dead Island 2 is a first-person action RPG set in a quarantined LA, framed as a twisted holiday postcard with palm trees, mansions and relentless infected. Players choose one of six Slayers, each with distinct traits, and upgrade them through a card-based skill system rather than rigid classes, giving a tidy, flexible build feel.

Combat leans heavily on close-quarters weapons, with a visible focus on dismemberment, staggering and environmental hazards like electricity and fire. The so-called FLESH system simulates layered damage on zombies, turning each encounter into a raw, tactile brawl that feels closer to a physics playground than a simple health bar.

Co-op and mission structure

The campaign runs roughly 20 to 25 hours for most players, with side quests, collectibles and challenges stretching playtime well beyond 30 hours for completionists. Up to three friends can join you online, turning villa raids and sewer slogs into noisy, improvised co-op set-pieces where one badly timed grenade can send body parts flying.

Main missions follow a mostly linear route through LA districts like Bel-Air, Venice Beach and Hollywood, yet each area hides optional paths, locked safes and named bosses that reward exploration. The pacing is consistent rather than rushed, with regular breaks in combat where NPCs crack jokes or ask for practical help, such as clearing a studio lot or securing a yacht.

Graphics, tone and FLESH system

Visually, Dead Island 2 opts for clean, saturated colours rather than murky horror, making Los Angeles feel like a postcard that someone spilled blood on. Villas still glimmer with glass and chrome, even as limbs pile up by the barbecue. The stylised look stops the violence from feeling purely grim and instead pushes it toward comic excess.

Dambuster's FLESH system gradually peels skin, cracks bones and exposes organs as you attack, giving every swipe a tactile result. Heads dent, jaws hang and torsos cave in under repeated blows. It is a bold, technically demanding choice that clearly became a signature for technical director Mark Richard, who described it as "gore with rules" in interviews.

Weapons and crafting feel

Weapons range from nail-studded clubs and machetes to improvised electrified blades and shotguns, each with visible stat differences and distinct swing rhythms. You quickly feel which tools are smooth to handle and which are heavy, telegraphed by animation and sound rather than only numbers.

Crafting rides on blueprints and upgrade benches, letting you add elemental effects or stat buffs using scavenged parts. That process is tidy and mostly menu-driven, but the result is immediately felt in the field when a previously plain axe suddenly fries a whole group standing in a pool of water.

Characters, voice work and humour

The six playable Slayers have exaggerated backgrounds and brisk banter, from stunt performers to rock musicians. Each character reads like a stereotype at first, but the voice performances and incidental dialogue add texture, especially during quiet moments in safe houses when they comment on the ruined city.

Humour is consistent but not constant. Jokes land mainly through situational setups, like influencer mansions turned into strongholds, or Hollywood backlots where zombie extras now attack for real. It helps that lead writer Robin Brown keeps most quips short, avoiding overlong gags that would drag pacing.

Where Dead Island 2 falls short

Despite its convincing combat, Dead Island 2 is structurally linear. Level paths are often funnelled, with many doors simply blocked off, which can feel sobering if you expect an open-world sandbox. Backtracking through earlier zones becomes frequent once side quests unlock, repeating some encounters.

Enemy variety, while decent, leans on archetypes like screamers, bruisers and runners that repeat throughout the campaign. High-level foes mainly gain health and damage rather than radically new behaviours. For some players, that repetition undercuts the raw satisfaction of the FLESH system over long sessions.

Platform availability and performance

Dead Island 2 is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC via the Epic Games Store, following its release on 21 April 2023. The console versions target smooth 60 fps on current-gen hardware, with solid frame pacing in most indoor and mid-scale outdoor battles.

Loading times are short on SSD-based consoles thanks to segmented districts rather than a single giant map. On older hardware, the experience remains robust but less sharp, with lower texture detail and occasional frame dips when heavy particle effects and dense crowds collide in narrow alleys.

How Embracer positions the game

Embracer Group AB, headquartered in Karlstad, Sweden, owns Dambuster Studios through its Plaion operating group and has placed Dead Island 2 among its "AAA and core" titles in investor materials. The game sits alongside franchises like Saints Row and Metro as part of a broad, multi-label catalogue.

Management under CEO Lars Wingefors has highlighted Dead Island 2 as a key contributor to net sales in the release quarter, noting strong initial digital performance and a solid retail presence in Europe and North America. That framing supports Embracer's strategy of leveraging established IP rather than chasing only new brands.

Stock context in one sentence

Embracer Group AB shares (ISIN US2910111044) trade primarily on Nasdaq Stockholm in Swedish krona, with Dead Island 2 featuring regularly in company presentations as an example of its large AA and AAA portfolio.

This article was AI-assisted and editorially reviewed. Product information without guarantee; prices and availability may change at short notice. No investment advice, no buy or sell recommendation. Stock-market transactions involve risks up to total loss.

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