Oh...my...GOD! This sounds sooooooo awesome!
- Game takes place on a brand new island named Palanai. Areas also includes a military ship, the brand new City of Henderson, a church, and a brand new jungle which have been revealed as playable areas.
- Game includes the original 4 returning characters plus the addition of one as-of-yet unrevealed character.
- New character will have a completely unique skillset unlike any other character.
- Previous Dead Island character progress can be imported into Dead Island Riptide.
- Defensive quests will be included. Players will have to defend certain areas and survivors against onslaughts from the undead. Players will have to place traps, build fences, and arm turrets against the enemy.
- Online co-op experience has been improved.
Taken From the Unofficial Facebook page: Contains Demo Spoilers
Dead Island Riptide picks up right where the original game left off, then promptly crashes the chopper full of survivors into a brand new island full of zombies thanks to a tropical storm. Just when you thought they were in the clear!
So now they’re faced with a new tropical jungle to trek through and explore, as they struggle to find a way of this new and rather more bitey death trap. The game you start playing will be familiar to anyone that got through to the end of Dead Island. You can keep you character progression through to the sequel, with the same RPG-style character developments, crazy customized weapons and probably most importantly the same buddies to play in 4 player co-op.
Underneath this familiarity there have been a lot of tweaks made and Techland have been hard at work with numerous changes to the game engine ever since the original’s release. It’s had a lot more polish applied to it and plenty more optimizations, allowing them to show more zombies on screen at any one time. They’ve also overhauled the systems in place to handle zombie re-spawning. They will still reappear as you return to areas that you had already cleared, but it’s going to try and handle this in a more intelligent and complex fashion. It will take into account if you’re on a mission, how recently you last passed through, your character’s condition, whether you’re playing in a group and plenty other factors besides.
There's a whole boat load of extras that have been added to the game engine.
Speaking of group play this too has been sharpened up. Just as before, the entire game is playable in co-op but it’s been reworked to be a more seamless system. There are no more level limitations between co-op partners and the game will automatically re-balance to find a middle ground that all players can contribute to tackling. It won’t be too easy, so that higher levels can stroll through without breaking a sweat and will need help from lower leveled players.
The technical side of things with connecting to one another has been made simpler, where the game now automatically mentions if friends are logged in and nearby, letting them just hop into the action. Disconnections are handled more gracefully, and when people drop out of a group, there’s a simple notification before you can carry on with exactly what you were doing before hand. As little hassle as possible.
A bit of spit and polish to the technical side of things is all well and good, but Techland have been adding to the gameplay too. The main new addition on show here was the new set position defenses where you must hold a position as best you can for a period of time. The section I saw was a gameplay demonstration from early on in the game.
