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If they can pull it off, it sounds like great fun.
IGN AU: What's the core setting and storyline for Dead Island? Where did the concept come from?Pawel Kopinski: First of all, like many gamers out there we're zombie fanatics. We crave movies and comics featuring the living dead of all shapes and sizes. We have always wanted to make a zombie game not just for the fun of it but because the existing titles were missing something. They were either not taking their story seriously or the so-called zombies weren't really zombies at all.Dead Island allows players to live the story of an unlikely hero who finds himself stranded on a tropical island following a plane crash. Not only is his wife missing but the entire holiday paradise is devastated by a deadly virus that turns people into vicious walking corpses.IGN AU: How different are your zombies from George A. Romero's archetypal zombies? Or from Resident Evil 4's not-quite-zombies? What do we need to know to take them down?Pawel Kopinski: There will be more than one type of zombie in Dead Island but the most typical and numerous one is going to be closer to the classic "Romero" variety. It has limited intelligence and is unable to use any tools or weapons. One similarity with RE4's zombies I can think of is the fact that our undead are also victims of a virus infection that transforms them into shambling, bloodthirsty nightmarish creatures.
IGN AU: Dead Island sounds very much like it will feature a lot of 'sandbox' elements Рusing everyday items as weapons, setting environmental traps for zombies, and so on. Can you give us an example or two of some of the coolest weapons you can wield and traps you can set?Pawel Kopinski: We don't want players to think in terms of specific weapons and specific traps. Rather we'd like them to look around a place and immediately know what they can use. If it can be picked up by a human in real life, it's a weapon. Traps can involve all sorts of mechanics. Stuff can be thrown or dropped onto enemies, enemies can be pushed off ledges. There's electricity, gases and liquids that can be combined to ruin the zombies' day. One of our favourite weapons is an iron ļ. Of the more standard variety, machetes are very handy in combat.
IGN AU: What makes Dead Island different from a standard survival horror title or first person shooter? Can you tell us about some of the RPG elements?Pawel Kopinski: Dead Island adds much more depth to both genres. On one hand it's a survival horror with all the excitement of shooters and on the other it's an FPP game with immersive, terrifying and believable storyline and exciting melee combat. RPG elements are there to add even more fun and variety. Character development, optional quests and new fighting abilities to learn mean that there's always something new to discover.IGN AU: Dead Island takes a non-linear approach to game structure – can you give us some examples of how the player's actions will have long term consequences?Pawel Kopinski: Interaction with other survivors on the island can serve as a good example. Let's say we get a chance to deliver much-needed supplies to a camp. Later on its occupants may offer us something in return: information or items. Choosing not to help the camp, or worse to unleash zombies on the innocent people by sabotaging the defences, we deprive ourselves of that extra assistance. In addition our reputation can make dealing with other groups very difficult.We can accidentally or purposefully get a very important character killed. That can have all sorts of consequences, from depriving us of a convenient access route to a minor goal all the way to changing the game's ending.
IGN AU: Dead Island focuses heavily on melee combat. Can you tell us a little about the melee mechanics?Pawel Kopinski: Melee combat is severely underappreciated and rarely used in the FPP genre. In Dead Island we're adding much more depth to it. In real life it isn't easy to obtain firearms in a holiday paradise. Many guns that had been there were already snatched by other survivors. This means that players will need to improvise weapons from objects found in the environment. Any item that can be picked up can also be used in a fight. The type and size of the object determines the fighting style. There's a world of difference between slashing in close quarters with a combat knife and throwing an LCD panel from a distance.All of this is reflected in thousands of varied animations depicting hundreds of fighting moves in different styles. They are determined by the nature of the weapon: its size, weight and the type of damage inflicted on the target. Thanks to our advanced multilayer damage system the effect each weapon has on enemies is also realistic. Blunt weapons cause fractures and internal injuries while sharp objects cut into skin and tissue. Last but not least we're developing an innovative control system that allows precision without getting in the way of fun.
IGN AU: Will Dead Island have co-op through the main game? Will it have adversarial multiplayer modes? If so, can you tell us about any of them?Pawel Kopinski: We're not planning any multiplayer modes at the moment. Dead Island is focused on an intense, storyline-driven single player experience. It would have to be designed from the start as a co-op game or the multiplayer mode would be only very loosely linked to our core gameplay. We didn't want the former and we definitely don't want the latter. There is a solid zombie multiplayer game on the horizon that doesn't feature any significant single player fun so there's plenty of room for Dead Island.
How did I miss this? It sounds awesome.
Today Deep Silver announced that the company will be working with Square Enix to distribute Techland's Dead Island out to retailers in North and South America. Deep Silver is still publishing, Square Enix is just getting the game out to store shelves.I asked Aubrey Norris, PR Czar at Deep Silver, why Square Enix is handling the distribution and it's due to Deep Silver not being large enough to work directly with retailers yet. "Retailers will only buy from companies that they do X amount of regular business with. Since [Deep Silver] is too small to have that, we need a distributor.""A retailer won't buy from you unless you do X amount of business with them annually" Aubrey went on to tell me that "it's kind of part of establishing yourself as a publisher. You have to get to a certain level of volume before retailers will work with you directly."I'm pretty sure Deep Silver will be able to reach the level they need with retailers considering how the entire Internet was talking about the chilling Dead Island trailer from a couple of months ago.
Included with the Steam pre-order is "The Ripper," a weapon that combines the versatility of a baseball bat and the spinning sharpness of a buzz saw. The weapon is also available to console users pre-ordering at GameStop.Though the game will be available at other digital distributors, Steam is the only retailer promoting the exclusive "Ripper" weapon.Dead Island's Steam bonuses also include free access to the "Bloodbath Arena" DLC, which is also being made available for pre-order customers looking to slay zombies on the Xbox 360 and PS3.
The downloadable content will be made available "one month" following the September 6 release of Dead Island and will also priced at $10 for those that miss a chance to get the content for free.
North American gamers who had picked up a copy of Dead Island from Steam were dismayed to discover that downloading the title today appeared to score them a developer build of the Xbox 360 version rather than the proper PC version, making it unplayable for some gamers and somewhat erratic for others. There's some discussion of the issue on the Steam forums.Developer Techland and publisher Deep Silver are both aware of the issue, with the latter telling Rock, Paper, Shotgun earlier that "the final version will be out during the day."Whoops.
Oh no, something that didn't actually end up in the game! The horror!
