If you've been looking for a great new action game to play, I've got good news for you. For a limited time, Dead Island 2 — the $49.99 sequel to the original 2011 game and its 2013 follow-up, Riptide — is completely free to play and keep on the Epic Games Store PC platform.
This offer comes as part of the Epic Games Store's weekly free game program, and is scheduled to last from now until May 22, 2025 — next Thursday — at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET. Adding it to your library is as simple as a few clicks on Dead Island 2's storage page; even if you don't play games on your PC and prefer using a console, you may as well get it for free while you can.
I reviewed Dead Island 2 back when it released in April 2023, awarding it four and a half out of five stars and calling it "an amazing action-horror game" as well as "everything a Dead Island fan could ask for." Ultimately, I still feel that it's one of the best action games released in recent years, and is a blast to play whether you're carving your way through the zombie apocalypse alone or with a group of friends in co-op.
Dead Island 2 takes place after the events of the older Dead Island games, and sees players try to escape a quarantined Los Angeles overrun with a deadly zombie virus. Like its predecessors, the sequel is almost completely centered around physics-driven melee combat against the infected, with numerous different zombie types facilitating the use of different tactics or hazards in the environment.
The character you choose at the start of the game determines what playstyle will be the best for you, with some better at ragdolling the hordes around, others proficient at hacking off limbs, and one even capable of sneaking up on zombies to ambush them with devastating critical damage. Then, as you progress, you'll accrue special skill cards that pave the way for creative buildcrafting and unlock new moves to use in combat. A huge part of the experience is also finding and upgrading a huge arsenal of melee instruments, with everything from electric wire-covered sledgehammers to flaming claymore swords possible.
The best way to describe Dead Island 2 and "Hell-A" is that it's a wide open sandbox, and let me tell you: it's a lot of fun to play around in. Stellar animation work, comical physics interactions, and a ridiculously complex gore and dismemberment system called the "Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids" (F.L.E.S.H.) all work together to make its melee action some of the most brutal and satisfying I've ever experienced. And paired with the excellent aforementioned gameplay variety, top-tier audiovisual presentation, and a hilarious B movie-tier narrative script, it offers some of the best dumb fun in all of gaming. I can't recommend it enough.
Sadly, Dead Island 2 isn't available for free on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Steam, PS5, or PS4, but you can play it on Xbox through Xbox Game Pass thanks to its arrival to the service last year. Significant discounts for the versions on these platforms are also available from a variety of retailers at the moment, so you don't have to pay the game's full $49.99 MSRP to get your hands on it.
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