Dead Island 2 has had a torturous road to release, arriving on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, last-gen consoles and PC some nine years after the game was first revealed - but there's a surprising level of technical polish evident across every console version. Dead Island 2 also does more than you'd expect from a typical Unreal Engine 4 release, with some novel technical features added on by developers Dambusters that are definitely worth covering.
In this article, we'll tackle those novel additions - and how the game runs on last-gen consoles, including PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One and Xbox One X. We'll also take a look at what visual upgrades can you expect by opting for the current-gen versions on PS5, Series X or Series S.
Let's get the bloody stuff out of the way first. Set to a sunny LA backdrop, Dead Island 2's focus on extreme gore is its trademark - with heavy violence, dismemberment and body physics, all enabled by the game's 'FLESH Engine' or 'Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids'. This proprietary tech simulates the physics of body dismemberment to a grisly level of detail, from clothing and skin to muscles, organs and even the skeleton beneath. It's grim, disgusting stuff, achieved with real technical prowess. Suffice it to say that swords, guns and elemental dangers all have terrifyingly realistic consequences on the unfeeling zombie hordes, making this easily one of the most impressive parts of Dead Island 2's technical makeup.