Dead Island: Epidemic

GENRE: Free to play MOBA
PLATFORM: Windows
DEVELOPER: Deep Silver

OVERVIEW

Dead Island: Epidemic is a fast-paced MOBA-esq MMO continuing the Dead Island franchise where players are trapped on a tropical “Paradise” infested with all manner of infected mutant zombie types. Play through various maps and game modes against other players and the AI mutants, craft your own crazy weapons and fight for survival.

KEY FEATURES

- Fight in a PvPvPvE Battle Royale in a three way team based fight whilst simultaneously battling zombies
- Simple controls with WASD movement and mouse click and num keys for attacks and items
- Create your own weird and deadly weapons from knives taped to batons, claws made out of bamboo or a trombone with a boxing glove attached to the end
- Team based Co-op mode to fight waves of enemies
- Free to play

LORE

Enjoying the life of luxury on a tropical island when an infection breaks out turning the residents and guests into twisted, mutated zombie like “walkers” it is up to a group of humans to survive and find a way off the island. The virus has infected everyone, including the survivors themselves, and slowly they see how their mild mutations may work to their benefit.

PLAYABLE CHARACTERS

On the island comprising mostly of walkers there are four survivors trying to work out how to escape. In the game each of these survivors comes in three different versions, which completely changes their abilities: Survivor, Mutated and Armoured.

Amber: Amber has worked at shelters for the dangerous animals from all over the world so is more than ready to face off against the primal beasts that now occupy the island. In her mutated form she is able to turn invisible with her chameleon skin and fire off poison barbs at her enemies turning her into the predator. Her armoured variation stems from her tests on a dead walker, treating it with a rejuvenating string of the infection and now making her a capable healer to her companions.

Berg: Berg hails from the forests of Canada, born and raised as a lumberjack this axe swinging hulk of a man has traded cutting down trees to cutting down hordes of infected. The effect the infection took on Berg was to turn his skin into a thick carapace armour making him a walking tank. In his armoured variation he is tooled up with some heavily padded hockey gear, charging into the fray and throwing around his enemies like any opponent on the ice rink.

Bryce: This adrenaline junkie was chasing the waves in monsoon season, an avid surfer he quickly realised that facing waves of infected walkers was a much bigger adrenaline rush. With his mutation he is able to poison the air around him, dropping even the toughest of zombie walkers with his abilities to leech their health is almost unstoppable. In his armoured form he is tooled himself up with a bunch of makeshift weapons and armour hellbent on reclaiming the beaches where he likes to surf.

Isys: A professional gamer that came to the island as a prize from winning one of her competitions, with her keen twitch skills and online DPS she is well suited for the hordes she now faces on the island. Isys in her mutated variation embodies everything she was as a gamer, fast acting with barbed clause and tail and toxic skin her DPS drops enemies quickly. A techie engineer at heart in her armoured role she has kitted herself out with any scrap she can find and is able to build turrets on the battlefield to take down the enemy.

GAME MODES

There are two primary game modes that players can enjoy: Scavenger Mode and Horde Mode.

Scavenger Mode: this is the main PVP element of the game where three teams go head-to-head (to head) against each other on map trying to capture points and earn resources by defending them, first reach 800 scavenger resources wins the game. In the meantime players must not only fight each other but the waves of neutral walkers, from standard zombies to the more elite creatures that plague the island.

Horde Mode: a similar point capture system to scavenger mode, however this is a cooperative team versus AI game with no PVP involved. Players must work their way across the map taking several points and at each point they must defend it for a certain amount of time as wave after wave of tin used to attack, growing in strength and difficulty each time, culminating in a final boss fight.

CRAFTING

As with the previous titles in the franchise the weird and wonderful makeshift weapons that players can create has been included in the game where players can construct all manner of fist, light weapons, heavy weapons, pistols, rifles and shotguns to take out the enemy. With their own workshop players must uncover different schematics to build these weapons which will boost their attack bonuses and give special abilities.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT

Operating System: Windows 7 SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz
RAM: 2GB
HDD: 3GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or Radeon H