Dead Island Riptide Preview and Video Interview

We have rounded up a new preview and interview for Dead Island’s quasi-sequel Riptide, which doesn’t seem to radically alter the original title’s formula.

First, The Sixth Axis has a write-up:

Once you get to the church you need to defend, and there are a lot of simple ideas combined together. You can set up the pair of miniguns ripped from the chopper to cover various angles of zombie approach, put up wire fencing to cover up a few doorways for a little while, and drop mines in the surrounding swamp for zombies to blow themselves up on. There’s a lot of different ways to set up your defences, and this can naturally depend on if you’re on your own or playing co-op.

As soon as the pump is going, zombies start showing up in numbers, shuffling up to the wire barricades, tearing them down and getting on with trying to chomp on people. If there’s any weakness in your defence, you can shift stuff about for a better angle on the action, trying to stall the moment where you’re fast become overrun.

But the most impressive part of the demo was the environmental weather during this zombie siege. A huge part of the engine overhaul has focussed on adding big weather effects to proceedings, and it’s been used to really ramp up the tension and atmosphere during pivotal battles. The wind builds until it’s roaring at you through the speakers, the skies darken as the clouds close in and torrential rain starts to come down, reducing the distance you can see and making survival even trickier.

While GameTrailers goes video for their interview with creative director Sebastian Reichert which touches upon the save game importing, the new “defensive” gameplay, the addition of boat sections, and a few more things.