Escape Dead Island

Fans of the franchise will love this spin-off, but even they will have to put up with the terrible checkpoints and audiovisual hick-ups. Clumsy game design at its err... best?

Escape Dead Island is totally different than any other entries in this franchise. The graphical design and the spontaneous happenings are entertaining, but the shallow combat system, the scant choice in weapons and the many crashes make this game very average.

Escape Dead Island is a decent game, but nothing more (though also nothing less).

Technical issues weigh down a game that could be good enough because, even when it doesn't catch the eye with its plot, the main character's charisma or its mechanics, it entertains while you unfold the mysteries of Narapala and the origin of the virus that turned the paradise into a swarming hell of zombies.

It truly rides that line of mediocrity without falling into either camp too heavily. If you’re curious, I’d say go for it. It does enough right to make it worthwhile to play through for those that can enjoy themselves despite some missteps.

There isn't much reason to play Escape Dead Island. The narrative has a few standout moments and you'll occasionally meet an enemy that will throw you for a loop. Those moments are, unfortunately, needles in a haystack of monotonous gameplay that's ultimately boring.

There's a pervasive plainness to Escape Dead Island that hasn’t been common since the PlayStation 2 days.

A big misstep on the path to the second Dead Island chapter. Developer Fatshark clearly rushed things, to the point where there are really few reasons to play this spin off.

Escape Dead Island is a very poor quality game, with so many flaws and bad design choices.

Escape Dead Island was almost a good experience, there was just six hours of terrible gameplay holding it back.

Wading through all that offal to get to the mildly interesting stuff is hardly time well spent. [Jan 2015, p.86]

Escape Dead Island is a terrible game with substandard graphics, unimaginative and rigid gameplay, convoluted story and unforgivable optimization issues.

Poorly written, poorly executed and designed. Even the most die-hard fans of Dead Island will find it difficult to accept this spin-off.

A game that leaves you basically going through the motions to get through a relatively short tale that has moments of intrigue, but otherwise falls flat.

I’m going to be honest with you, I haven’t finished Escape Dead Island yet. I just can’t bring myself to. The game plods along at a snail’s pace and just never hooks you. It’s certainly not the worst game I have ever played, but it’s bland and generic and feels rushed and unfocused.

It could have been a good spin-off, but in the end there's very little to save in this particular zombie apocalypse.

Filled with promises, Escape Dead Island was supposed to give an added deeper view of the series's global plot. All it manages to achieve is to bring the player on the verge of a nervous breakdown thanks to its appalling development quality, and the sheer number of bugs and crashes it suffers.

The developer attempts to justify non sequiturs with a psychological narrative that distorts reality, but the twists only become more and more meaningless as the escape progresses.

In an attempt to deliver something fresh to Dead Island's fans, Fatshark fails in every possible way: technically outdated, the game doesn't convince at all. Neither in its stealth phase nor its action phase.

To put it simply Escape Dead Island is a cash grab using the Dead Island name, before the franchise completely moves to the new consoles with Dead Island 2. There’s nothing really satisfying about Escape Dead Island, even if you are a huge fan of zombies or Dead Island.

Escape Dead Island should be avoided at all costs. The moment to moment gameplay is intolerable as you have to endure dull combat, an insulting lead character, and redundant backtracking through ugly environments. Pile on the game-stopping technical nightmares, and it all amounts to being one of the worst games of the year. It's not worth digging through corpses to salvage it.

Escape Dead Island is a lurching, rotting horror that wouldn't look out of place shuffling about in the apocalypse.

Yawn of the dead, people. Buggier than a petrol station sausage roll and it’ll give you the shits for much longer. [January 2015, p73]