Dead Island: Epidemic is out on Early Access: here’s our Dead Island Epidemic review.
What might not be apparent if you haven’t played Dead Island is that it’s an action RPG. It looks like a Skyrim, but it’s actually a Dungeon Siege. And action RPGs can be a bit like MOBAs – just ask Chris Taylor, who was planning to make a game that was both.
What I’m doing here, see, is struggling really hard on Deep Silver’s behalf to justify sticking the Dead Island name on a new Dota-like. Sorry, ZOMBA.
That’s Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena – the heinous backronym the publishers have coined to describe their free-to-play PC game.
Details are scant – we don’t yet know who’s making the thing, for starters. But Deep Silver say Epidemic will feature three teams of players rather than two, so perhaps it warrants just the faintest hope of innovation (as opposed to slavish LoL recreation).
And that’s it, until Gamescom, which kicks off in Cologne on August 21. Deep Silver also ask fans to “stay tuned for more on the Dead Island universe as a whole” – though between Dying Light and Hellraid, I can’t imagine original series developers Techland have much spare time to expand it themselves.
ZOMBA or ZUMBA, if you had to pick?