Video Games
‘Dead Island 2’ Now Available on Xbox Game Pass
Dambuster and Deep Silver are seemingly up for matching Techland’s Dead Island 2 in terms of updates. With the latter getting a new bundle, the former has made the jump to Xbox Game Pass, allowing those who aren’t quite sure if they’d like to plunk down their money for Dead Island 2 (though it’s definitely worth it) a chance to check out the game.
If for some reason you’ve never gotten around to playing Dead Island 2, the story goes that HELL-A is in quarantine thanks to a deadly virus. You are put into the shoes of one of six survivors immune to the virus. Known as Slayers, you (and if you choose, up to three players in co-op mode) must embark on an epic pulp journey across a plethora of well-known locations such as Beverly Hills, Venice Beach and Santa Monica to uncover the truth behind the outbreak and who or what they are turned into.
And armed with a wide range of weapons, mods and skills to craft and equip, players can personalise your Slayer in the style you see fit. And thanks to Dambuster’s F.L.E.S.H. (Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids) system – which makes dismemberment gloriously gory – killing zombies has never been so spectacular.
Dead Island 2 is currently available on PC via the Epic Games Store, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The Steam version of Dead Island 2 arrives April 22.
Bits and pieces of the cancelled DOOM 4 project have made their way online over the years in various forms, and it’s no exception with the latest batch of media. Per Video Games Chronicle, X users @Runhob and @WadOverdose, who previously had posted unreleased material from the cancelled shooter, over the weekend released more images, including a piece of concept art that until now had only been available in cropped images on Instagram.
@Runhob over the weekend posted the aforementioned concept art by concept artist Christian Piccolo, depicting an epic vision of Hell. The original piece had been posted to Piccolo’s Instagram back in 2017, but was obviously only a square piece of the original art. That in turn was followed by more images from an early build of DOOM 4, showing off a couple of weapons and the urban environment that had resulted in many referring to the game as “Call of Doom”, due to the derided Call of Duty inspirations.
Not to be outdone, @WadOverdose posted images of very early models of enemies from the game, including one referred to as a Combiner, which as @WasOverdose noted, would have used a similar merging mechanic that was seen in Cronos: The New Dawn.
All of this comes after last week’s “reset” by Xbox, which has resulted in layoffs and pivots by all of its studios, including DOOM developers id Software letting go 100 of its staff members.
Meanwhile, id has just released the first DOOM: The Dark Ages expansion in Revelations, which is available now on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and the PC via Steam.