The folks at Deep Silver have proven themselves to be a clever bunch, and it’s obvious they want Dead Island to be huge. Normally, that rare combination of talent and passion would lead to something truly great. Only it hasn’t. Missteps are common, expected even, when a series is still developing. That’s what the first game is for, to find out what works and what doesn’t, to make mistakes and learn from them.

Unfortunately, I’m starting to wonder how much Deep Silver has learned from the numerous stumbles they’ve made with this series.

After being catapulted to the world stage by an unforgettable introduction, which enamored the world and broke our hearts, Dead Island was guaranteed an audience long before it would release.

That heart-wrenching trailer sold a lot of copies, but it also raised our expectations astronomically high — too high — essentially setting Dead Island up for disappointment. The game didn’t blow many minds, but it did an admirable job in building the foundation for a promising new horror franchise.

Rather than use that reception as a guide, we were given Riptide, a pseudo-sequel that didn’t even try to realize that untapped potential. Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager is in charge of Dead Island 2, and it looks like the series may finally take that long-awaited step in the right direction. But first, we have Escape Dead Island.

This game shouldn’t exist, but it does, and that makes me sad.

A publisher that’s willing to experiment with their IPs can be a breath of fresh air in an industry that’s gradually being overrun by “copy and paste” sequels, usually delivered in annual installments. It’s become increasingly rare for studios to be willing to innovate since we redefined a modest production budget to mean something like $50 million, not including the millions spent on marketing.

Deep Silver took a stab at the MOBA market with Dead Island: Epidemic, and while I’m the last person to be critiquing that genre, I can confirm that it wasn’t terrible. Escape Dead Island is a continuation of this, but where previous games in the series have managed to retain some semblance of a heart and soul, this game is as dead as the ghouls that populate it.

There’s an impressive array of things to hate about Escape Dead Island, and we’re going to talk about all of it, starting with what was supposed to be its selling point — the story. This spin-off wants to be all about that narrative. It wants you to care about what’s going on, even if it fails miserably in offering any real incentive for us to invest anything in this world or its cast of unlikeable characters.

For the unfamiliar, the game follows Cliff Calo, one of the more poorly named video game characters in recent memory. As the son of a wealthy media mogul, Cliff has lived an easy life. “But Adam,” you might say, “How can I care about this guy when he’s such a gargantuan dick?” To which I’ll reply, you can’t. The only thing that’s deep about Cliff is his family’s coffers.

Because this kid is the worst, when his dad hands over the family business to his sister, he throws a tantrum and embarks on an adventure to prove his worth. This takes us to the zombie-infested archipelago of Banoi.

Much like its lead, Escape Dead Island suffers from an identity crisis. This game really wants you to like it, only it’s not willing to put more than a modicum of effort into being more than forgettable. It wants to piggyback on the Dead Island name, even if it strips away everything that was good about these games.

Co-op, crafting, character customization — all gone. In their place is a “survival mystery” played in the third perspective that’s sprinkled with stealth sections and presented in an admittedly appealing cel-shaded art style. The only thing that makes this immediately recognizable as a Dead Island game is the plethora of bugs that inhabit it.

Escape Dead Island is surprisingly unpolished for such an empty game. Characters move with a robotic jerkiness, enemies get stuck in the geometry, and its world lacks the details that would make it feel alive and lived in.

With the crafting, leveling and co-op gone, what we’re left with is a clumsy action game with an underdeveloped combat system. Cliff has a light attack, a strong attack, and a sweeping slash attack. When things get hairy, he can perform a shove or a hilariously useless dodge maneuver. That’s it.

When Cliff sees an enemy, there are only two ways the ensuing fight will play out. He can Sam Fischer his way to an unsuspecting ghoul to execute it, but this move is only to be used when the ghoul is alone. The reason for this is the execution can alert any nearby bro-ghouls who are then free to violently murder Cliff while he’s stuck in the execution animation.

The second way goes something like “See ghoul, shove ghoul, bludgeon ghoul until it falls down. Repeat steps 1-3 on nearby bro-ghouls.” You will be using one of these two tactics on the game’s paltry selection of baddies until you realize you’re better than this and go do something, anything, else.

Have I mentioned the backtracking? There’s a lot of that. The campaign takes roughly six hours to complete, depending on how much time you spend hating yourself for wasting your rapidly diminishing youth on this garbage, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent a third of that returning to the same bland environments over and over again.

The Final Word: Escape Dead Island is like winning a vacation to a tropical island you’ve been to before, only instead of spending a few days soaking up a paradise, you’re playing a shitty, soulless video game. That metaphor needs some work, but you get the point.