Dead Island is a new IP from Deep Silver that kind of came out of nowhere and has captured the imaginations of gamers everywhere. With a haunting and flawlessly executed announcement trailer, in which the sad fate of a family on vacation is told in reverse, the game generated instant buzz. The question at that time was ‘Okay, that looks great but what about the gameplay?’

The answer came back that we were looking at a first-person title focusing on improvised melee weapons that seemed to blend Left 4 Dead style gameplay with the weapons creation and implementation of Dead Rising. That sounded great but there were still questions of look, feel and precision. Plenty of games start off promising and then fall flat in the final execution. With a release date of September 6th, this could still happen but after getting hands on time with the game at E3, that is not terribly likely.

The release photos speak for themselves as to the fidelity that we are dealing with from a visual standpoint but the screen captures really don’t do the game justice. In motion, the game looks as good as the announcement trailer suggested it would. The textures are very sharp and there is an enormous amount of detail displayed. Character models look very good with realistic facial animation that do a great job selling the fear and intensity of the situation. Environments are similarly detailed and do a lot to sell the authenticity of the experience. Dynamic lighting delivers on promises that Resident Evil 5 claimed it would deliver but never did with a bleaching out of the screen when a character transitions from a dim environment to a sun covered beach environment. This effect lasts once your character’s eyes adjust to the brightness with a washed out quality that looks perfect for the setting. This goes a long way toward building on the horrifying feeling you get from the zombies as seeing the carnage in stark relief without the benefit of shadows and darkness to hide the gruesome details.

Graphics are only one part of the equation though but luckily so far Dead Island plays about as well as it looks. The controls were responsive and precise and the button layout is intuitive and easy to navigate. When you are doing predominantly melee combat against a bunch of zombies, your controls had better work smoothly or the whole thing breaks down.  There was nothing terribly surprising going on from a control standpoint. It is pretty much standard FPS controls with the right trigger swinging the weapon and a left trigger hold to throw it but the precision of the controls is right about where it needs to be for the level of action you are expected to deal with.

As far as the other aspects of the game like the importance of story, the characters and the sorts of things that we’ve yet to hear about are still kind of up in the air. Judging by the gameplay moments prior to getting into the thick of the action, it seems as if there is at least some importance placed on story as you can interact with the other survivors and they ask you to do things to save loved ones and that sort of thing. Dialog choices suggest story depth as well. The rep we spoke to was pretty tight lipped about a lot of things that I would imagine would be revealed by now so close to release but I guess they are looking to surprise us.

They were less tight lipped about the combat which, as mentioned puts the emphasis on melee weapons. These weapons are generally of the improvised sort from oars that you pick up to things you can find and put together to make a new weapon. There will also be vehicles which will feature a certain level of customization. Skill trees and experience add an RPG element to the mix as well. The player also has options on what sort of class they want to play as the four playable characters each have different classes that highlight weapon proficiencies and cater to different play styles. Given the four player co-op and the dynamic environments this opens the gameplay quite a bit and suggests that Dead Island will have a lot of different experiences to offer.

There are still plenty of things to discover about Dead Island but it seems like Deep Silver is headed in the right direction for a hit. The polish of the demo screams AAA and I am very excited to see how this turns out. With the crowded holiday season, I am a bit afraid the date might slip into next year but fingers crossed that this releases on time.