Parents' Guide to

Dead Island 2

By David Chapman, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 18+

Escaping "Hell-A" is a bloody and brutal guilty pleasure.

Game Xbox Series X/S , PlayStation 5 , Windows , Xbox One , PlayStation 4 2023
Dead Island box art featuring Jacob lounging in a pool surrounded by zombies.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

Community Reviews

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age 14+

Based on 2 parent reviews

Andrew S.
Andrew S. Parent of 10 and 15-year-old
May 8, 2023
age 15+

Amazing game for mature children.

Personally, I enjoy the dead island franchise. I think that it is an amazing series but, the game has an extreme amount of gore and violence. Depending on how mature you think your child is I would recommend 13+ but for more immature children 15+. The game is an amazing game and I think more people should try out the game for themselves. The flesh system is amazing, we haven't seen anything like it in gaming yet, well maybe if you think about the doom games but nothing tops this. The flesh system includes realistic melting, slice marks, stomping, putting holes through zombies, decapitation, and body trauma, and if beaten a zombie enough(or shooting, slicing, and melting) you can see the insides of the zombies. I think for this day and age it's an amazing feature. Also in certain areas, you can see blood splatter, zombies with their insides outside, and also dead bodies. It can be a pretty boring game at times, I enjoy fast-paced action such as dying light. Also to parents, don't be worried.

This title has:

Easy to play/use
Lebron J.
Lebron J. Parent of 13-year-old
April 21, 2023
age 13+

This title has:

Easy to play/use
Too much violence
See all 2 parent reviews

What’s It About?

Zombies go Hollywood in DEAD ISLAND 2, the sequel to 2011's hit undead splatterfest, Dead Island. It's been years since the zombie outbreak on Banoi Island and the subsequent cover-up of the incident. But proving that you just can't keep a good zombie virus down, a new infestation has broken out in the heart of Los Angeles. While you manage to hop a ride on an evacuation flight out of the city, a dramatic turn of events leads to your plane being shot down and you being left stranded deep in the quarantine zone. On the plus side, you discover you're somehow immune to the zombie virus. On the negative side, you're surrounded by legions of the undead that still want to feast on your tasty flesh, and you've got a slew of fellow survivors counting on you to find a way to escape from L.A. It'll take a little luck, a lot of skill, and a whole arsenal of improvised tools of destruction for you to get out alive. Thankfully, that's just the sort of adrenaline rush you're built for. Those zombies won't even know what hit them ... or burned them, or electrocuted them, or dismembered them, or, well, you get the idea. Welcome to "Hell-A." Hope you survive the experience.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (2 ):
Kids say (4 ):

It's been more than 10 years since gamers found themselves trapped in a tropical paradise with the undead in the original Dead Island. While there have been expansions, spin-offs, definitive editions, and more, it has taken more than a decade for a proper sequel to bring the franchise back from the dead. It's fitting that the new game, Dead Island 2, brings the undead menace to Hollywood, where bigger, flashier, and over-the top is the norm. Dead Island 2 brings the undead to life in all their gory glory, and then lets players dispatch them with even more brutality than ever. Using makeshift weapons, players can target specific parts of the zombies for different effects. Getting pummeled by a heavy-handed brute? Disarm it, literally, by slicing its arms off at the shoulders. Getting chased by a speedy runner? Take out its legs. Players can even use an Alexa connected device and shout at zombies to get their attention and lead them into well-placed traps.

Players choose from a cast of Survivors, each with their own unique abilities and stats to start. They then earn or discover cards through gameplay that can be equipped to a custom Skill Deck on the fly, giving players a lot of flexibility to play however they want. While the game is considered open-world and players do have a lot of freedom to explore, just how open the world is could be debated. It's more of a giant labyrinth of streets, driveways, and buildings with locked doors, disabled cars, and other conveniently placed environmental blockades. This serves to funnel players from Point A to Point B and makes for more claustrophobic encounters against groups of zombie foes. Add a few extra players into the mix via online play, and things can quickly become a chaotic frenzy of blood and body parts. Whether you go solo or with others, though, there's rarely a dull moment. Imagine for a second what it would be like to live inside of the guilty pleasure of a cheesy (zom)B movie, but one that managed to get a substantial special effects budget -- that's Dead Island 2 in a nutshell.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about violence in video games. Is the impact of the violence in Dead Island 2 affected by the large amounts of blood and gore shown during play? What makes over-the-top or graphic portrayals of violence and destruction appealing to gamers? What sort of impact can extreme violence in video games have on younger audiences?

  • While it's doubtful anyone will ever experience this in the real world, how can the scenario of a zombie outbreak help to prepare people for an actual emergency?

Game Details

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