Between four days of deadly missions and a final battle for survival, Dead Island 2’s new Neighborhood Watch mode has enough to challenge the most hardened zombie apocalypse veteran. We spoke to FIshlabs Director of QA, Thomas Bark, and ace QA tester Ro Griffiths, to get their top five tips for getting through it in one piece.
Keep your eyes on the prize
A lot of players get lost on the streets of Hell-A, trying to fight and kill every shambler going. ‘Keep in mind that, for every zombie you kill, there will be another one coming’ says Thomas, ‘and slowly but surely, they’ll converge on you’. Instead, keep your focus on your mission, and skirt around groups if you don’t need to fight them. Get where you need to get to, complete your objective and grab your rewards.
Look after your weapons, they’ll look after you
If you chance upon a weapon that works for you, treat it nicely. Upgrade it, buff it and repair it when you get the chance, and don’t focus too much on finding specific weapons or perks. ‘I always invest in a small suite of weapons that I can keep with me going forward through the session’ says Ro. ‘Some will break, but if you’re upgrading and repairing them at the end of the mission, you can end up with some really powerful weapons that will get you through your daily missions and eventually the shelter defence.’
There’s no ‘I’ in team
Play as a team and use your skills and talents to help each other. There’s nothing wrong with wandering off quickly to search for loot or investigate a building, but the further and longer you’re away from your fellow Bobcats, the faster your Stalker meter builds up. Let it fill up, and you’ll spawn a Butcher zombie – and that means you’re in big trouble. As Thomas puts it, ‘he’s going to be very tough to deal with on your own, but if you can get to your friends they can help you take him down’. Sure, you can only spawn one Butcher per mission, but isn’t it smarter not to spawn one at all?
Get ready and go with the flow
The shelter defence will be your biggest challenge, so go into it with your best weapons, all the shelter perks that you can muster and enough materials to build a bunch of traps. Pick your missions and rewards with the final day in mind, but go with the flow. If you’re getting lots of traps or shelter rewards, think about how you can adjust your defence to make the most of these. And don’t save all your traps and materials for the final battle. ‘Just strategizing with them and using them in a pinch is a good way to get through the missions’ says Ro.
Coordinate and communicate
When you’re on the final shelter defence, coordinate your efforts. Make sure you’ve got the three doors covered, and that you haven’t got two players heading out to revive a downed Bobcat, leaving your defences open wide. Voice chat can be really helpful here, but quick emotes are fine if that’s not an option. Also, think about how you can combine attacks and signature weapons. There’s no point having your Chemist freeze the zombies only for your Medic to unfreeze them with a quick and ineffective attack. Look for ways to maximise the damage!
Don’t panic
As Thomas says ‘the mode can be overwhelming, especially for new players. When one of your team is downed, there’s no respawn, you have to pick them up again.’ When that happens, don’t rush in. Keep calm, assess the situation, and see if you can distract the zombies or lead them away so that your other teammate can get in and help. The Hunter’s Meat Stick trap can be really useful here, or – if you’re stuck – using the signature attack will make you temporarily invulnerable. You won’t be slaying so many zombies, but you’ll have a chance to get your buddy back in action.
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