40 Fun Facts About Dead Island

Dead Island's There and Back Again achievement, sharing its name with The Hobbit's subtitle, is unlocked by doing what?

Exploring the whole map of Banoi is the entire task, and finishing the story and side quests covers most of its areas. Progress carries over if you beat the game and start again.

Dead Island's fictional Banoi lies just north of Australia, off the coast of which real country?

Papua New Guinea is the nearest mainland in the game's lore. The same lore bills Banoi as an untouched paradise and the largest island of its own archipelago.

Despite its title, Dead Island 2 leaves the tropics for which quarantined American city, split into ten open zones?

Los Angeles was chosen because its postcard-famous districts suit the series' theme of paradise gone to hell. The developers also weighed Catalina Island, then dropped it.

Which Dead Island hero, a one-hit-wonder rapper, returns in Dead Island 2 as actress Emma Jaunt's ex-boyfriend?

Sam B turns up at Emma's mansion to get her out of the city. His immunity is what tells the sequel's new heroes that they are immune too.

When Dead Island's creators had a sequel pitch with freerunning turned down, which zombie game did they make instead?

Dying Light reused the rejected ideas, parkour included, and came out through Warner Bros. in 2015. The official sequel then spent years passing between studios.

Dead Island's announcement trailer, hailed as one of the best ever made, stirred controversy by depicting what?

A child's death, shown out of sequence as she turns into a zombie, was the trailer's centrepiece. The short film was made by UK animation studio Axis, not by the game's developers.

In which country was Dead Island held back at launch over its violence, then indexed as harmful to youth?

Germany got no official launch, though some online stores sold the game briefly. It stayed on the national index of youth-endangering media until January 2019, when its removal cleared the way for a German release.

Dead Island leans so hard on one kind of weapon that guns only turn up halfway through; which kind?

Melee weapons, both blunt and bladed, carry the combat. They wear out with use, cost more to repair the longer you wait, and can be thrown at targets.

After beating the final boss at the island prison, how do Dead Island's four survivors finally leave Banoi?

By helicopter: the heroes fly off in the defeated colonel's own aircraft. The follow-up, Riptide, opens with them landing on a military ship.

In Dead Island, researchers trace the outbreak to a mutation of which real disease, once spread by funeral cannibalism?

Kuru is a real prion disease known for tremors and bursts of laughter. In the game, scientists send the heroes to sample a native mummy to study its original form.

Which Polish studio, also behind the Call of Juarez westerns, developed the original Dead Island and Riptide?

Techland is based in Wrocław and began in 1991 as a software distributor. Its founder started out selling games to shops across Poland while still at high school.

Which publisher, also known for Saints Row and the Metro shooters, released Dead Island, Riptide and Dead Island 2?

Deep Silver scored its first chart-topping release with Dead Island in September 2011. The label later moved the long-delayed sequel to one of its own studios to get it finished.

Dead Island's slow zombies, styled after George Romero's films, go by which name in the game?

Walkers are the classic slow zombie, most dangerous in groups. Their sprinting cousins, the Infected, attack far faster but go down more easily.

Unlike the spin-off Escape Dead Island, the main Dead Island games are played from which camera perspective?

First-person view puts every swing at arm's length, fitting a series built on close-quarters combat. Escape Dead Island pulled the camera back and added stealth.

In Dead Island, playable hero Logan Carter is a Texan whose pro career in which sport ended after a street-racing crash?

American football made Logan a rich star quarterback, until a reckless street race killed his passenger and wrecked his knee. In the game he is the group's throwing expert.

John Sinamoi, who rescues the heroes at the start of Dead Island and leads the beach survivors, holds which job?

Lifeguard Sinamoi moves his group from a beach house into the sturdier lifeguard tower. When food runs short, he sends the heroes to the city in an armoured truck.

In Dead Island, what must a player own before a workbench can add nails or electrified blades to a weapon?

A blueprint is the recipe behind each mod, from nailed bats to poisoned blades. Any weapon can also be upgraded three times to raise its stats.

Dead Island's No Raccoons in Here achievement, for finishing Act II, nods to the Raccoon City of which horror series?

Resident Evil's Raccoon City is a fictional American city overrun by zombies after a bioweapons lab leaks. The same achievement list also nods to The Hobbit and Carmageddon.

One Dead Island achievement only unlocks when players return long after first starting the game, in a nod to which film?

28 Days Later lends its number to the task: start the game, then play again at least 28 days on. The game's sprinting zombies are modelled on that film's runners too.

Dead Island 2 was among the first games to support which voice assistant, letting players shout to distract zombies?

Alexa Game Control, Amazon's voice software for games, launched alongside the sequel. Players could call out to draw zombies away instead of pressing a button.

At which five-star Banoi hotel do Dead Island's four heroes wake up the morning after a party?

Royal Palms Resort is a luxury hotel with a shady side. The tie-in comic has its manager keeping secret files on all four heroes before the outbreak.

In Dead Island, which city on Banoi do the heroes reach by armoured truck, finding a church full of holdouts?

Moresby is Banoi's capital, a port town that grew up around a river. During the outbreak, armed gangs seize its supermarket and police station.

Which Dead Island character, a colonel revealed as the story's final boss, later got his own playable DLC campaign?

Ryder White's campaign retells the outbreak from his side. It shows him trying to save his bitten wife while a hacker impersonates him on the radio.

Purna, the former police detective turned bodyguard in Dead Island, is the group's expert in which weapon class?

Firearms are her specialty: when her rage meter fills, she draws a revolver with unlimited ammunition. Upgrades let that burst heal and strengthen nearby allies.

Which special zombie, first met outside a church in Dead Island, wears a straitjacket and is best attacked from behind?

The Ram chases down survivors with a single ramming charge that frontal attacks barely dent. Its arms are bound, so once knocked over it cannot get back up.

Which special zombie in Dead Island and Riptide groans for help as it closes in on survivors?

The Suicider keeps a flicker of awareness and lures victims in before exploding. Killing one with a grenade from a safe distance earns an achievement.

Each Dead Island hero has three skill trees: Combat, Survival and which third tree, tied to a special attack mode?

Fury fills as a hero lands kills, then unleashes a burst of boosted attacks unique to each character. Kills made during it multiply the XP paid out when it ends.

Xian Mei, Dead Island's blade expert sent to Banoi to spy on wealthy guests, works at the hotel in which role?

Receptionist is only her cover. She trained with the Hong Kong police before her superiors posted her to the front desk as an informer.

In Dead Island's finale, what does the villain intend to call down on Banoi to purge the infection for good?

A nuclear strike is his plan once he has fled with a stolen vaccine. Instead he injects the vaccine himself, and it mutates him into the last enemy of the story.

Which Dead Island character, a mechanic's daughter, joins the heroes when they leave the resort in an armoured truck?

Jin stays with the group to the very end. On the prison roof she turns the finale by freeing the villain's zombified wife from her restraints.

In Dead Island: Riptide, the survivors wash ashore from a wrecked military ship on which neighbouring island of Banoi?

Palanai is the archipelago's second-largest island, and the outbreak has already reached it. The survivors head for its main city, hoping an army base there can help.

Dead Island: Riptide's Zombie Bait Edition drew an apology from its publisher for including a statuette of what?

A mutilated female torso in a bikini was pitched as a take on classical Roman sculpture. Press reaction was overwhelmingly negative, and the UK branch apologised within hours.

Which British studio, earlier behind Homefront: The Revolution, restarted Dead Island 2 from scratch and shipped it?

Dambuster Studios, based in Nottingham, threw out everything two earlier developers had made. It rebuilt the sequel around a gore prototype its own team had liked best.

Which acronym names Dead Island 2's dismemberment system, which breaks skin, bone and organs where blows land?

FLESH stands for Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids, and it creates wounds to match each weapon. The studio was prototyping it before it was handed the sequel.

Instead of the skill trees of earlier games, Dead Island 2 has players assemble what to shape their character?

A deck of cards replaces the old trees, with skill cards earned from quests, level-ups and special enemies. Some cards grant a perk but weaken the player in return.

For Dead Island's North American box art, the ESRB had which image in the tree logo replaced by a standing zombie?

A hanging corpse dangles from the tree in the original logo, which stayed on boxes in other territories. Even in North America, the logo inside the game stayed as it was.

The spin-off Escape Dead Island, a stealth mystery starring a journalist, uses which graphics style?

Cel-shaded visuals give the spin-off a comic-book look that suits its unreliable hero. His hallucinations go as far as buildings falling from the sky.

When Dead Island launched on Steam, what were PC players mistakenly given, complete with a noclip cheat?

A development build went out by accident, with debug features and leftover references to the Xbox 360 version. A first-day patch then targeted 37 separate issues.

Which studio, known for Spec Ops: The Line, was first hired to make Dead Island 2 but later taken off it?

Yager Development won the contract as the lowest bidder and planned a shared-world California it called the world's smallest MMO. Losing the project pushed its dedicated division into insolvency.

In Dead Island, which hacker, hiding in the prison as a helpful inmate named Kevin, manipulates the heroes by radio?

Charon is the alias of a hacker for hire, and the DLC campaign reveals he posed as the colonel on the radio all along. He ends the story free and plotting to spread the virus.