The Dead Island series is a very interesting one. While many successful zombie games have been made that were primarily third-person – think Resident Evil, Dead Rising, etc – there aren't many that have found success as first-person titles. The first entry into the Dead Island franchise changed all that. While the game was buggy and had a number of other issues at its launch, Dead Island worked very hard to fix these. What this troubleshooting resulted in was one of the best zombie-killing games of 2011. Dead Island was followed up by Dead Island: Riptide in 2013. Riptide scored a bit lower, but was still a solid experience.
Dead Island 2 will be coming out in April of next year. Many of you may be excited to hear that there will be a beta for the game. This will allow players to essentally 'rent' the game before actually buying into the whole thing. What may come as unhappy news is that Playstation 4 owners will get access to this content 30 days before everybody else. Considering that PS4 owners are already getting exclusive content, it would appear that Sony has placed a lot of faith in the Dead Island franchise.
To be completely honest, early access for a game's beta test seems a little bit silly. Beta tests have basically become Early Access tools used to incentivize players. Why wouldn't the game's developer want 30 more days of testing time on two other platforms (Xbox One, PC)?
To guarantee access to the game's beta test, you'll need to have gotten a copy of the Dead Island spin-off Escape Dead Island. That said, we're sure there will be more ways to get in later on down the line.