As much as I love trailers, I rarely watch coming attractions for games. To me, it feels odd to watch someone else manipulating a character on screen.
You want to move the protagonist along, and be part of the action yourself, especially against hordes of zombies. Still, everyone told me I simply had to check out Dead Island: Riptide, so I did, and was very surprised by what I saw.
At first, I wasn’t sure if it was a trailer for a horror game, or a coming attraction for an animated romance. There’s a man and a woman declaring their love for each other on a boat, but as the trailer goes on, you notice propane tanks, which are filling the boat up with gas. Then we see zombies pounding on the windows trying to get in. Soon the boat is surrounded by them, but the couple light a fire, committing dual suicide, and blowing the zombies to hell.
Not your typical game trailer by any stretch of the imagination, in fact you get the impression this installment of the game could be pretty grim stuff. Yes, zombies can be fun, but when the world is ending because we’re over-run with undead, that’s a pretty dark scenario to think about.
Deep Silver, who are publishing the game, recently described Riptide as follows:
“The survivors of the zombie-apocalypse on the once beautiful island resort of Banoi escaped in a helicopter to the safety of a military ship. When a furious storm hits and the virus suddenly spreads throughout the crew, the nightmare starts all over again, leaving hope drowning in the rising tides.
“Devastated by a monsoon, the island of Palanai is crawling with new zombie mutations. A fifth character with an all-new skillset will join the team, providing much needed support. Additional multiplayer communication features and brand new hub defense missions will test the survivor’s teamplay skills.”
Dead Island Riptide is slated for a 2013 release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Techland, the company that created the Dead Island series, are also working on a medieval horror game, tentatively titled Project Hell, and you can track the game’s progress on the website SharpenYourAxes.
