Yager's Bernd Diemer has spoken to Angry Joe about Dead Island 2, touching on topics such as the game's seamless multiplayer and non-linear story, as well as the best looking cats you've ever seen in a video game.
Asked why people should be interested in yet another zombie game, Diemer replied "because it's awesome and cool, basically it's our favourite movies, Zombieland and Expendables and we mixed them together, added zombies and threw it all together in California where the game takes place.
"New heroes, new story, new environment, new weapons. Everybody has cars because you can't have California without cars, right? We have more guns than the original game and they are more powerful because it would be useless in California without the guns.
Apparently well aware of the internet's fondness of felines, he added, "And we mo-capped a cat! Motion capture on an actual cat."
Four cats were brought in by trainers for different aspects of the motion capture process such as jumping. "No cats were harmed, the cat (in the game) is your companion. There's this guy called Max" who dispenses quests and has a feline with "cat fidelity and perfect motion capture on the cat."
The game's multiplayer feature eight player matches with seamless drop-in drop-out play. "We like to call it the world's smallest MMO." He revealed that they've been working on it for a year and a half and the Yager team are thrilled that this seemless co-op play seems to be the direction the industry is moving in at the moment.
He also said that the trailer for Dead Island 2 matches the tone of the game far closer than the original game's dramatic, emotional cinematic.
"It actually doesn't end, it doesn't have a linear narrative. It has these little narrative LEGO pieces that are repeatable and they change over time and that's one of the things about seamless multiplayer, it doesn't have a linear story that ends you can play, basically, almost forever."
It's a bold claim and whether Yager can live up to it will be revealed when zombie slayers pick up the game on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. You can check out our E3 preview of Dead Island 2 here.
