Dead Island 2 is a title that has captivated fans in many different ways, with the game recently releasing on April 21. Not only does the game offer a bombastic experience via a more eccentric portrayal of the survival horror genre, but it has also revived a franchise that first laid its roots over a decade ago.
As a long-awaited sequel, Dead Island 2 maintains a lot of the core motifs and gameplay beats of its 2011 predecessor, with fans having waited an uncharacteristically long 12 years between the franchise's only two mainline releases. With this in mind, it is understandable why many tentative newcomers to the IP are wondering if the story and involved characters of the first Dead Island need to be understood in order to fully appreciate the narrative and overall experience of its recent sequel.
The General Narrative and Setting of Dead Island
2011's Dead Island features the same RPG survival mechanics and penchant for melee combat as Dead Island 2, but the majority of the setting and involved characters of the first game are somewhat detached from the sequel. Firstly, the original Dead Island is set on the fictional island of Banoi, located off the coast of Papua New Guinea, with the island being a remote yet luxurious location mostly removed from wider society.
One of the most interesting aspects of Dead Island's gameplay is the fact that the player can choose between four playable protagonists, each with their own unique backstories and personalities. This leads to an overall lesser importance on the main character of Dead Island lore-wise, with the protagonist's choice of the game leading to a vague canon in which each of these four characters is given similar levels of importance. The story of Dead Island sees these survivors working with remnants of the island's defense force to procure a vaccine for the zombie infection, only to be double-crossed prior to a daring escape that saw the island be destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
The Links Between Dead Island and Dead Island 2
While there are some fascinating narrative links between the first Dead Island and its recent sequel, the huge gulf in time between the two releases and the different studios that have spearheaded them mean that these references are not as overt or as important as they might have otherwise been. Off the bat, Dead Island 2 is set in Los Angeles, and while existing in the same universe as the original Dead Island, the sequel's core location is a far cry away from the remote island setting of its predecessor.
Other than the presence of the same zombie infection, the narratives of Dead Island and Dead Island 2 are removed from one another, so fans can easily play the new release without needing to be intimately familiar with the former. The shaky development of Dead Island 2 saw it in limbo for over a decade, so it would be remiss of Dambuster Studios to make knowledge of the first title overly necessary for newcomers.
That is not to say that Dead Island 2 is entirely without reference to its predecessor, with one of the original protagonists, Dead Island's Sam B, returning to the game as a side character. Sam B can even tell the player interesting tidbits about what happened after the events of the first game, as well as what happened to its involved characters. Beyond this, Dead Island 2 offers an experience completely detached from its 2011 predecessor, and new fans should be unafraid of diving straight into the new release with no prior franchise knowledge.
Dead Island 2 is now available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.