Dead Island - On this day

Cooperative zombie hitting was also current eight years ago, but a game called Dead Island still became notable when it appeared on seventh-generation PCs and consoles. Namely, Dead Island placed the players in the open world, that is, on an island that could be navigated using vehicles, and unlike Dead Rising, it was a somewhat scary title.

Dead Island was the first zombie game by Polish studio Techland to previous work on the western series Call of Juarez. The game stood out right after the announcement thanks to the CG trailer that started shockingly and then turned the action backward. At the time, it was an example of a very imaginatively crafted trailer.

The game itself didn’t look as impressive as on the first trailer, but the zombies were fun to tear apart with weapons we put together ourselves. At that time, we were not yet afraid of microtransactions, loot box awards, and similar exploitation mechanics.

Dead Island in itself proved to be profitable for the Poles, so a faster or better expansion was made, Dead Island Riptide, and after that a few worse spin-off titles. Seven years ago, a sequel was announced, which was left to another team, but there has been nothing from it until today. Techland, on the other hand, switched to a completely new franchise and merged the zombies with parkour mechanics in Dying Light, which can be considered the real successor to Dead Island.