History VideoGame / DeadIsland

* FakeDifficulty:
** The inventory system. You can carry limitless amounts of materials, but health items like Energy Drinks and Fruit are consumed immediately. You'll frequently find yourself backtracking to that cache of energy drinks you left alone just in case. And also, you can only carry up to 12 weapons (expandable up to 18 as you level up), so get used to dropping perfectly serviceable knives and guns as you find new or better ones. Sometimes, explosives will be leveled for no reason, which means you'll need TWO inventory slots for your regular Molotovs and those leveled ones which do exactly the same thing, since the game considers them two different weapons. And, oh, yeah - Medkits and Alcohol count as weapons too![[note]]To the extent that they can both even be equipped into a weapon slot, and used by 'attacking' with them.[[/note]] And, of course - Champagne doesn't count as Alcohol, so you can carry as much as you like! [[FlatWhat What.]]
** The minimap looks like it has been coded by trolls sometimes, pointing you to the opposite direction of where your objective is, THEN switching to the correct direction after several meters in the wrong direction. When it's not telling you to go through a wall or a cliff.
** The quick inventory have no idea of what it's doing if you play with a pad on the PC version. No matter how you organize it, you weapons will always be a complete mess when you scroll them using the quick-draw button instead of shambling through it yourself. Why is my shotgun last when I put it in the second slot? Why can't I switch to a weapon after using a med kit? Where are my Molotovs?!
** Ryder White's campaign is filled with this, likely to help disguise the fact that it's only a few hours long. When the player isn't running and shooting like mad at the endless waves of Infected or being shot by hostile human survivors, they can look forward to seeing a respawn screen after accidentally running into yet another poorly placed Suicider and getting blown away before they even realize what is going on.

** Jin is the companion character and is regarded as an unpopular character by players. Jin has to protected during the outbreak, she can't fight, and her only use as a character is to have her carry unwanted weapons and save her from bandits and zombies. Speaking of those bandits, she's optimistic and philanthropic, her optimism, however, is punished when she tries to share food with them, who promptly imprison her and rape her.

** [[spoiler: The four heroes manage to escape the island with Yerema and Kevin, but at a high cost: Jin dies, all the other survivors the heroes meet either die or get left behind, and the "cure" they worked so hard to help create turns out to ''strengthen'' the zombie virus rather than destroy it. To top it all off, it's implied that Yerema is a TyphoidMary carrier for the virus, and that Kevin, aka Charon, may be planning to use her for his own purposes.]]

* DramaticThunder: Played straight with the hurricane, but reversed with a lot of the game happening in bright sunny days. However, there's also [[http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=25028446&postcount=699 a mod that adds this]] to a supernaturally non-stop level.

* EverythingIsTryingToKillYou:
** Well, not other survivors, but you ''never'' feel safe outside the safehouses.
** Punks are survivors too. They shoot you on sight. Yeah...

** Ryder White's campaign is filled with this, likely to help disguise the fact that its only a few hours long. When the player isn't running and shooting like mad at the endless waves of Infected or being shot by hostile human survivors they can look forward to seeing a respawn screen after accidentally running into yet another poorly placed Suicider and getting blown away before they even realize what is going on.
* FanDisservice: Tons of bikini-clad chicks in this game? Awesome! Wait... they're almost all undead berserkers? Was that one's left breast completely torn off!? Not so awesome...
** And the ones who aren't, are post-traumatic and weeping on the floor. Good times.
** Not to mention there's only ''one'' body for all the bikini-wearing female npc's, and the texture maps have color variations for ''race'' but not ''age'', so the old wrinkled grandma's face and grey hair are topping a mid-20's smooth and perky body... ''dissonance'' ensues.
* FetchQuest: Fairly common throughout the game. By far the most annoying ones are those that ask you to get something ''you already have on your person.'' For example, one guy in the church wants you to run halfway across a zombie-infested city to get him a gun... when you probably have half a dozen to spare.

* ForegoneConclusion: [[spoiler:The Ryder White DLC if you've already finished the main story.]]

* GameBreakingBug: If you have too many items in your inventory, it corrupts your save game, destroying all your progress. Worst of all, it usually happens after you've already put in a few dozen hours into the game since it takes that long to stack your inventory to the point the bug occurs. This is a universal bug and ''always'' occurs if the proper conditions are met, on ''all'' versions of the game(though it can be avoided if you play the game offline). This was finally fixed in one of the latest patches, but many of those who bought the game in the first few months after launch still lost a lot of progress.
** More annoying than anything else, but as of the latest patch for the PC version, nearly all of the sound effects aside from some select examples (voices, door ramming and drinking) to be corrupted and no longer work, and this is notoriously hard to fix.
** Sometimes, if a zombie approaches you in the back, you can't hear him walk or anything. Passable when it's just a Walker, less when it's a Suicider or a Ram.

* GenreBlind: A subtle example when the survivors are told the island is going to be nuked. Australia doesn't actually have nukes, something Purna at least should have realized.
* GiveMeYourInventoryItem: The "Out of Stock" side quest features Stanley, a man who SleptThroughTheApocalypse by getting wasted. After saving him from a group of zombies, he demands more alcohol, specifically, 15 bottles of it. Unfortunately, alcohol is much more useful for the player as it's required to make Molotovs.

* {{Gorn}}: The physics engine will not only allow you to dismember zombies, but also tear their flesh from their bones.
** Especially evident with one of the developer's weapons, The Hand Of Glova, which does almost no damage but fries flesh off with electricity and leaves enemies looking like the flayed corpses you occasionally find on the ground.

* GrailInTheGarbage: The vendors will sometimes sell white, common weapons, which have much, much better stats than the rarer, colored weapons. For instance, you could see them selling a blue colored machete which does 500 damage, then the white colored machete right below it does 650 damage...

*** NotCompletelyUseless: However, against human enemies, headshots are a one-hit kill, and 99% of them carry guns and bullets, making ammo a non-issue. As well you can make your own ammunition once you get the recipes fairly early in the game. Followed by later [=NPCs=] start selling you ammo which does make it a non-issue when they become desirable.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Mowen. He gives his life to keep Jin and Yerema from being killed by either the zombies or the convicts during a pitched battle in the prison.]]
* HockeyMaskAndChainsaw: An enemy with a hockey mask has a chainsaw in his shack. [[spoiler: Yes, it's [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]].]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The father from the trailer, who hastily rescues his own [[TheVirus bitten]] daughter from the zombies, is attacked and bitten by same daughter seconds later when she reanimates.
** The mayor in Act 2. Let's just say he deserves what happens to him after refusing to help your group out.
* {{Horrorcore}}: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78bj6ebUVqA Who Do You Voodoo.]]

''VideoGame/EscapeDeadIsland'' is a third-person action-adventure game serving as a side quest where you work with Xian Mei to uncover the truth, and promises a beta copy of the second game. Trailer can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErgekxJv0k here.]] ''VideoGame/DyingLight'' [[SpiritualAdaptation was the sequel Techland wanted to make, despite the change in names.]]

* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: It's a mini-apocalypse, you've just saved a church and a small village from being overrun by zombies, and they still want to charge you absurd amounts for mundane items. Some of the weapons dealers flat out say things like "I'll be rich by the time this blows over," therefore assuming the apocalypse would die down without your efforts.

* [[spoiler: HeroicSacrifice: Mowen. He gives his life to keep Jin and Yerema from being killed by either the zombies or the convicts during a pitched battle in the prison.]]

* [[spoiler:LeftHanging]]: The Crew gets a vague idea as to the origin of the zombies; [[spoiler:A variant of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) Kuru]] - a local tribe has been ceremonially cannibalizing its dead for generations, ''completely aware'' that some of those who do so will become zombies - They see this as a "good" thing. However, a [[MegaCorp Geo-Pharma]] lab is ''implied'' to have modified the process - reducing something that normally takes decades to hours - instant ZombieApocalypse. And everything else is left as a SequelHook - the military's involvement, the Crew's immunity, the '''{{Final Boss}}' OneWingedAngel transformation''', and the nuclear destruction of Banoi. And a PlayfulHacker named Charon, a new character introduced in the '''''ending sequence''''' is implied to be the mastermind behind the Crew's survival.]]

** Oh, the father succeeds in keeping her from being eaten. Keeping her from being ''[[ZombieInfectee bitten]]'', however...
** Keeping ''himself'' from being bitten isn't a success, either.
** BadassNormal, according to the Literal Lyrics trailer.
** At the start of the game, you can find the two of them dead in their hotel room.

* NamedWeapons: In the 20 minute gameplay trailer the player receives the "Diving Knife of Havoc" at the start.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The leader of the street gang that takes over the police station calls himself Rage Machine.

* NeverTrustATrailer: One of the main criticisms reviewers and players had with the game was that it was absolutely nothing like the tragic, TearJerker trailer that grabbed everybody's attention when it was first announced. Techland did, in fact, outright state that would be the case as soon as they realized what people were expecting. No one listened.

* NoFEMAResponse: Averted, as well as the BIDF already on the island trying to contain the outbreak Red Cross and the Australian Biological Institute have set up camps and quarantine areas, with more UsefulNotes/AussiesWithArtillery blocked in the army and navy blocked off due to weather and stationed off shore, where they hit the nearby islands instead.

** And that's not even including the numerous bugs that plagued the release version, ''especially'' the save-corrupting GameBreakingBug that, as of October 2011, ''still'' hasn't been fully fixed on all systems.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted. There are at least three people named Tim on the island (though, to be fair, 2 of them are dead already).
** There are also two Annes, three Bobs (all die), two Brians (one dies), two Carlas (one dies), three Franks (two die), two Jacks, two Johns (one dies), two Michaels (one dies), two Mikes, two Nicks (one dies), two Rogers (both die), two Sams, and two Teds (one dies, one disappears).
*** And that's not even mentioning the worst one of all - you can have 4 of ''the exact same character'' in online play. It's rare, but it happens.

* OnlyOneSaveFile: Not only does ''Dead Island'' use the {{Roguelike}} system of a single save file that gets regularly overwritten with every player action, it takes it one step further by preventing you from backing up your save file from the desktop. Attempt to do so, and the program ''destroys your save file''. That's pretty damn ruthless, Techland.

* RealIsBrown: The only attempt at de-consoleising the graphics to add high definition so far, the "[[http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2131505 Enhanced texture mod]]", reveals through screenshots on its download page that it mostly changes the shades of vegetation to a washed out green, most of the wood to a more washed out brown colour, and the overal scenes to end up looking less pleasant than you would think a resort actually should look, backfiring on it's stated aim of making it look more realistic! (Your mileage may vary)

* RepeatableQuest: There are several fetch quests for NPCs that can be done ad infinitum for some XP, money, or in one case, [[ThatOneComponent diamonds]].

* SandInMyEyes: The [[http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/02/23/dead-island-literal-trailer Literal Lyrics Trailer]] invokes this, even when its all done in a [[FirstPersonSmartass very humorous]], [[UnreliableVoiceover silly way]].
-->'''Singing Narrator''': ''Eyeball. Zoom out. She looks ex-cited, is-it-christmas?. No. She's...dead. Burning guy, hallway. Dancing burning guy, legs, Stop, drop, and roll'' '''man!'''.

* TakingYouWithMe: Invoked by the Suicider zombies if they manage to kill you, and accidentally by players who get a little too close to their own grenades...
* TemptingFate: In one quest late in the game, one of the NPC's is trying to hack open a door. He accidentally opens several of the wrong doors, then mentions something about those double doors down the hall leading to trouble if they open. Cue said doors opening a moment later with some zombies on the other side...
* ThirdActStupidity: First Ryder White, then Jin. With the former [[spoiler: Kevin/Charon is manipulating him on the pretense of saving his wife, which is understandable. Okay, why then on the helipad is he not only giving a speech about nuking the island, he is shooting at the survivors? It could be reasoned that Charon put him up to it or he just snapped, but when the survivors do confront him he is relatively composed, trying to justify finding a cure and saving everyone. After he just tried to kill them. Little wonder they became ShellshockedVeterans.]]

* TooDumbToLive: The survivors in the game run the gamut from people like Sinamoi and the nun in charge at the church, who are selflessly helping everyone they can find, to people whose continued existence spits in the face of Darwinian theory. Svetlana's probably the most egregious example, but the escort AI is really, really bad.

* TropicalIslandAdventure: As the title suggests.

* UndeadChild: You know who. Fortunately, it's the only one you'll see, since the game features no undead children. At least, not moving ones.
** Actually it does. In Moresby there's a man in front of his house who gives you a quest to deal with his wife and daughter inside. The daughter is noticably shorter than every other zombie.

** Pre-ObviousRulePatch, [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Q20jhv29o Chapter 14, Pure Blood.]]]] An EscortMission where the DemonicSpiders are more interested in your escort then they are you. The Unwinnable part? Every other mission in the game permits SaveScumming - zombies that you kill are still dead when you revive, as DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist. Here, every time your escort is killed, ''all the zombies resurrect.'' Nasty, but just a case of TrialAndErrorGameplay, right? Wrong. '''Weapons damaged, ammo spent and health kits used in previous attempts remain so.''' You will eventually run out of all three, leaving you to fight a horde you couldn't beat fully armed with your bare hands. The developers responded by removing Butchers from enemy spawns and changing the escorts to InvulnerableCivilians.
** It is actually winnable in the unpatched state - ''if you're playing co-op''. Players are supposed to split up, with some protecting the escort while the rest take on the mob.
*** It's not "unwinnable" solo, just requires a lot of patience. There are sharp weapons lying around the area, so you won't have to fight with your bare hands, the easiest way to get past is to keep on killing enemies until you get enough fury, then restart the checkpoint and activate fury and you should be able to kill most of the enemies before they do too much damage. Afterwards make sure to run ahead of your escort to kill the last few infected on the path so they don't cause you any trouble.

* VacationEpisode: One that [[GoneHorriblyWrong goes horribly]], [[ZombieApocalypse horribly wrong]].
* [[spoiler: VillainProtagonist]]: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bE1MI7c324 Ryder White DLC]].
** [[spoiler: Subverted in that Ryder White was virtually innocent up until the final boss encounter, at which point he killed Jin in anger.]]
* VillainEpisode: The Ryder White DLC.

* WelcomeToCorneria: Unless they're a fairly important NPC get used to them spouting the same lines over and over until you complete their quest.
** Considerably noticeable for the few quests which lack location markers, if you haven't found or Google'd them yet.
*** "''I worried about him.''"
* {{Wendigo}}: See The Virus above.
* WideOpenSandbox
* WhamEpisode: Ryder White's campaign is this to the main campaign's storyline.
** How many times is the second trailer mentioned? By far the most powerful game promo of the year, maybe the decade.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Sinamoi, the Nun, and everyone else you've worked so hard to save in the beginning kinda just... gets forgotten.

** Partially remedied in ''Epidemic'', which confirms the survival of [[spoiler:John Sinamoi]], who managed to escape Banoi Island and make it to Amaia Island.
** Notes found in ''Escape from Dead Island'' imply that at least some Banoi survivors managed to escape the island safely, but is very vague on details.
* WrenchWench: Jin.
* YouALLLookFamiliar : Wait a second, didn't you just send me into the house to take it back from the Looters? Why are you in here shooting at me!? Didn't I just kill you?!
** If you join somebody else's game, it gives you the opportunity to have two of the same character running around. In fact, there's an achievement for joining a 4 player co-op where everyone actually is different.
* YouHaveResearchedBreathing: The ability to simply stomp on zombies that are lying prone on the ground has to be learned, and cannot be learned until a fairly high level. Until then, if you want to kill prone zombies without degrading your weapons, you have to just kick them repeatedly, sometimes dozens of times.

* ZergRush: The zombies love to do this given the opportunity.
* ZombieApocalypse: The game itself.
* ZombiePukeAttack: Floaters.

* GlassCannon: The "Infected" enemies. It's easy to kill them in one hit if you ready yourself as they're running at you but if you are otherwise occupied they can unleash a flurry of attacks that can take off half your health before you even know what's happening.

The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N48LNo07UIs trailer]] for the next sequel ''[[VideoGame/DeadIsland2 Dead Island 2]]'' premiered at E3 2014. ''VideoGame/EscapeDeadIsland'' is a third-person action-adventure game serving as a side quest where you work with Xian Mei to uncover the truth, and promises a beta copy of the second game. Trailer can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErgekxJv0k here.]] ''VideoGame/DyingLight'' [[SpiritualAdaptation was the sequel Techland wanted to make, despite the change in names.]]

* MadeOfIndestructium: You can drive trucks to flatten any undead which are unfortunate enough to get in your way. While this will eventually smash the windows and cause smoke to billow from the engine, the vehicles are still perfectly drivable in this condition.[[note]]The trucks are actually pretty effective for handling Thugs, which can be a nuisance to deal with on foot[[/note]] So far so good -- you can also drive them down cliffs onto the beach, and you can even drive them [[UpToEleven through the sea and back onto land]] with no ill effects. They'll even fit on the wooden walkways between the shacks -- with a little persistance,[[note]]You can get 'stuck' on bits of scenery, but you can often get free if you drive alternately forward and backwards while steering hard, like you're doing a 3 point turn[[/note]] you can drive most of the way out to Svetlana.

** The ''Definitive Edition'' version adds a bonus "just for fun" game mode titled [[Manga/OnePunchMan One Punch Mode]], which, as the name implies, allows the player to send enemies flying with just a single punch.

* KleptomaniacHero: Largely encouraged in this game due to finding items to help make modded weapons, or sometimes finding large stashes of money, or if nothing else, VendorTrash loot.

* WeBuyAnything: While what they sell you will vary, vendors in the game will buy any VendorTrash you sell them, regardless of if they're at a hotel resort, in a pawnshop in town, deep in the jungles, or even inside a prison.

* AdultFear:
** Before the game came out, Geoff Ramsey of Creator/RoosterTeeth[=/=]Creator/AchievementHunter fame sat down to watch the trailer, and [[http://roosterteeth.com/archive/?id=2922 couldn't even make it through the entirety of it.]] Justified since he has a young daughter similar in age to the one shown in the trailer.
** During the Church missions, Sinamoi radios to the player that there is an unseen 10-year old at the lifeguard tower who is delirious and possibly infected. Some of the survivors want to isolate and/or kill her. After a few more missions, the update is that she died.
** Ryder White's campaign plays an even harder fear, especially for those that serve in the military. It's bad enough that your wife is caught in the middle of a ZombieApocalypse, but what if you're ordered by a superior to eliminate her?

* DeathOfAChild: Averted right in the trailer, which prominently features a zombified little girl attacking her father.

* SaveGameLimits: Not only does ''Dead Island'' use the {{Roguelike}} system of a single save file that gets regularly overwritten with every player action, it takes it one step further by preventing you from backing up your save file from the desktop. Attempt to do so, and the program ''destroys your save file''. That's pretty damn ruthless, Techland.

* AIBreaker: Walkers and Infected can be easily overcome simply by jumping up on a car roof or something similar in height. Do this in the Quarantine Zone especially and the normally enraged Infected will get even angrier, with about thirty of them all screaming for your blood if they do not knock you off. Then it's just a matter of using the katana, baton, sledgehammer, throwing knife, firearm or explosive of choice.

** Not quite, it goes backwards at some points, everything (chronologically)after the girl was "rescued" by her dad), and forwards at before he reaches her, and they meet in the middle.

* AntiFrustrationFeature: When you die, the game will often respawn you near where you died with temporary extra health. Although its averted if you died in a swarm of zombies and they haven't broken up enough yet.

* BoomHeadshot: With the exception of boss characters, headshots will ''always'' kill Human enemies. Manually aiming at a Punk's head will save you a lot of ammo.

* BoringButPractical: Your spring-loaded neck boot, or 'mighty foot.' The amount of damage it does is pretty low but it can't be interrupted, and it has a pretty decent knockback. You will use it a lot to make the most common opponents fall before killing them, saving your real weapons for truly dangerous monsters. You need to watch your stamina when using it though, or you really can leave yourself truly defenseless.

** FragileSpeedster Infected are fast (they run instead of shambling), able to climb head-high obstacles such as crates or walls and attack in waves of 2 or 3. An armed one can be devastating to your health, but they have less HP and Stamina than Walkers, allowing you to frequently one-shot them in their run.
** MightyGlacier Thugs, in particular, are not easy to dispatch. They can send you flying with one hit and knock off a ton of health when they do. Even disabling both their arms doesn't make them easy to deal with - since they still attack by headbutting or biting you. Finding a weapon with long reach, like a fire axe or sledgehammer usually means you can sit comfortably just outside their arms reach and bring them down easily. Just make sure you don't miss, or attack while they're attacking at the same time.
** Rams, on the other hand, can be a pain to fight in enclosed areas or if you get stuck trying to jump onto a car to dodge its charge. And if you let it get too close, his kick does massive damage as well. They can be easy to take down if you're extremely good at aiming for their head, or have enough room to dodge their charge, and then attack their exposed backside.
** Suiciders will detonate if you get too close of them or kill them. Their explosion have the range and the punch of a deo-bomb, meaning it's an instakill for almost anything in the area. Fortunately, they are rather slow and their distinctive cry lets you know there's one nearby.

-->'''Sam B''' Yeah, I hear you, we a crew.
* [[spoiler: ForegoneConclusion: The Ryder White DLC if you've already finished the main story.]]

* GoombaStomp: The bottom skill in the combat tree for all four characters is a heavy stomp to a prone enemy's head that, if not interrupted, always results in a one hit kill, regardless of enemy type. Becomes a literal GoombaStomp if you fully upgrade it as your character will ''jump'' on the zombie's head.

* RespawningEnemies: The zombies are endless in number and respawn as soon as they're off screen in some locations. In others, they won't hesitate to respawn right in front of you, out of thin air. The Punks in the city also respawn and take up their former locations.

* UpdatedReRelease: ''Dead Island: Definitive Edition'', released 5 years after the original, features new, improved textures and character and weapon models, as well as better graphics effects. It also features the new User Interface and various gameplay changes first seen in ''Dead Island Riptide'' (i.e. rebalanced damage tables, throwable and healing items no longer use up inventory space, better inventory sorting, improved crit chance against downed enemies, etc).

* UnwinnableByMistake: Pre-ObviousRulePatch, [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Q20jhv29o Chapter 14, Pure Blood.]]]] An EscortMission where the DemonicSpiders are more interested in your escort then they are you. The Unwinnable part? Every other mission in the game permits SaveScumming - zombies that you kill are still dead when you revive, as DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist. Here, every time your escort is killed, ''all the zombies resurrect.'' Nasty, but just a case of TrialAndErrorGameplay, right? Wrong. '''Weapons damaged, ammo spent and health kits used in previous attempts remain so.''' You will eventually run out of all three, leaving you to fight a horde you couldn't beat fully armed with your bare hands. The developers responded by removing Butchers from enemy spawns and changing the escorts to InvulnerableCivilians.
** It is actually winnable in the unpatched state - ''if you're playing co-op''. Players are supposed to split up, with some protecting the escort while the rest take on the mob.
*** It's not "unwinnable" solo, just requires a lot of patience. There are sharp weapons lying around the area, so you won't have to fight with your bare hands, the easiest way to get past is to keep on killing enemies until you get enough fury, then restart the checkpoint and activate fury and you should be able to kill most of the enemies before they do too much damage. Afterwards make sure to run ahead of your escort to kill the last few infected on the path so they don't cause you any trouble.

* NeverTrustATrailer: One of the main criticisms reviewers and players had with the game was that it absolutely nothing like the tragic, TearJerker trailer that grabbed everybody's attention when it was first announced. Techland did, in fact, outright state that would be the case as soon as they realized what people were expecting. No one listened.

''Dead Island'' is a WideOpenSandbox [[FirstPersonShooter first-person]] {{survival horror}} game by Techland, makers of the ''VideoGame/CallOfJuarez'' series, with action RPG elements (such as skill trees, random weapon drops, and heavy emphasis on 4-player co-op gameplay) very reminescent of ''{{VideoGame/Diablo}}'' or ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}''. It is set at the Royal Palms Resort on Banoi, a (fictional) tropical island off the coast of Papua New Guinea. For reasons unknown (a mutated strain of Kuru is hinted), the dead have risen from the grave to consume the living, and the surviving tourists, staff and locals are fighting for survival. Melee combat is the name of the game; since you can't really expect to find that many guns in a luxurious beach resort, you have to make do with the assortment of close-range weapons that you have around you. This is reflected in the game's physics system, which places emphasis on [[{{Gorn}} detailed gore]], including limbs that may be broken or chopped off and heavy damage that may gib.

* InfantImmortality: Averted right in the trailer, which prominently features a zombified little girl attacking her father.
** Played straight in the game itself. There are [[http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/dead-island/1192427p1.html no child zombies]].
*** However, in one mission, In Cold Blood, Mugabe asks you to kill his his re-animated wife and daughter. His daughter does not have a special model but it's clear she is a teenager.
*** There's also a Tape Recording that features the speaker coming across a zombie child who attacks him.

* ActionizedSequel: The Ryder White DLC plays more like VideoGame/Left4Dead, due to a more powerful player character as well as the much more ready availability of ammo making a pure firearms run much more viable. It even has an AI Director, if you even think of thinking about pausing to search, loot corpses or stray from the path then the game will spawn a wave of Infected and several Suiciders.

** Gabriel's Sledgehammer is an Infinity Plus One Hammer. If you play Sam B, have the patience to wait till level 60 to do the quest to obtain it and apply the Tesla Mod on it, you are officialy unstoppable.

* {{Bowdlerise}}: In the Definitive Edition UpdatedReRelease, the various lingerie ad posters have all been removed. Somewhat jarring, considering they were pretty tame and actually fit the tropical resort setting fairly well.

* AllThereInTheManual: Averted. Xian Mei's biography is completely different in-game, although it explains her facility with edged weaponry.
** [[FridgeBrilliance She's an undercover cop. Only makes sense that she has a fake backstory]].
* AnAxeToGrind: Used by the dad in the trailer.
** Also one of the rarer (and usually more powerful) bladed weapon varieties.

** When going to find Yerema one basket contains a super wrench called the [[Franchise/SuperMarioBrothers Italian Plumber.]]