If the ESRB rating is any indication, Dead Island 2 is ready to deliver on its promise of unrestrained, gratuitous violence.
The ESRB rating for the upcoming game Dead Island 2 confirms that players can anticipate series staples like unusual weapons and graphic gore to feature prominently. Dead Island 2 has been in development since 2012, and several different developers worked on the game before Dambuster Studios, one of Deep Silver’s in-house teams, was chosen to finish it.
Dead Island 2 appears to have experienced its fair share of development issues despite being initially scheduled for a 2015 release. Techland had been working on it until the company decided to concentrate on Dying Light. After Deep Silver withdrew from the partnership, Dead Island 2 was placed in Yager Development’s hands. A key Yager employee claimed that the two companies’ respective visions for the game did not coincide. Dead Island 2 was initially announced to be in development by Sumo Digital in 2016; however, in 2019, Dambuster was revealed to have taken over. Unsurprisingly, by this point, many fans had long since lost hope that the game would ever be released, at least until Dead Island 2 finally got a release date in August 2022.
The ESRB has given Dead Island 2 the M (Mature) rating due to its use of drugs, blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, and suggestive themes. It almost seems as though the game’s creators used the list of factors that could result in a M rating as a checklist. The rating summary gives more information about why the game received this rating, describing the gameplay of Dead Island 2 and giving some examples, such as using unusual weapons to kill zombies, like car batteries, as well as a lot of blood spatter, dismemberment, and even some obscenity-filled dialogue.
Any fan of survival horror or zombie games will be excited about Dead Island 2 after reading the ESRB rating summary, if it is any indication of what to expect from the game. Previous games in the Dead Island series gained a reputation for their particularly gory combat and unusual, adaptable weapons. Baseball bats, swords, machetes, and axes all have various home-made upgrades that increase their damaging potential. Dead Island 2’s setting appears to be at odds with its name, but the gameplay suggests that it has managed to stay true to itself.
Dead Island 2 hasn’t been stopped from reviving into one of the most anticipated games of 2023, despite the fact that it has endured numerous delays to the point where it has been challenging for the publisher to create or maintain hype for the title. Even though Dead Island 2 may have finally emerged from the depths of development hell, one can only hope that after such a long wait, it won’t end up in a shallow grave of unfulfilled expectations.
Dead Island 2 launches on April 28, 2023, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
