Blood Bath: (from top) Lots of rotting, festering bikini-clad flesh is on display in Dead Island, rapper Sam B faces down a horde, more hungry zombies, and (inset) Logan, another of the game’s playable characters.
Did the concept for the game always include an island setting, or were other locales considered? Haris Orkin: From the very beginning, the game was set on an island, and I think it’s an inspired choice. The contrast between the natural beauty of Banoi and the horror of what’s happening creates a great con- trast and tension. It makes the horror that much more surprising. You expect to find horrible things hiding in the shadows and in the darkness, but to not feel safe in such a beautiful, sunny place sets you imme- diately off balance. Also it’s a great way to illustrate the fall of paradise into hell.
The first trailer did an excellent job of displaying that fall of paradise very cinematically. Were there any films or video games that were particularly influential in the creation of Dead Island? Like Fulci’s Zombie, for example. HO: For me personally, I kept thinking of a Wes Craven movie set in Haiti called The Serpent and the Rainbow. For some inexplicable reason, I’m drawn to books and films about the end of the world and the breakdown of society. Some of the ones that have influenced me are A Boy
and his Dog, Mad Max, The Omega Man, Testament, Children of Men, The Road, to name a few.
Dead Island is a sandbox title that gives players a whole lot of freedom. What are the challenges of writing for a game with such an open world? HO: I tell people it’s like three-dimensional chess. In Dead Island, you have four different playable characters with four different points of view. They all have their quirks, desires and personal demons, and that should come across not just in the dialogue, but in the art and the gameplay. Plus, there’s the player himself, who creates his or her own story as they move through the game. You have to think ahead, like you do in chess, as to all the possible moves someone might make and have different things that can happen depending on the path taken. Even then the players always do something surprising and unexpected, which is fantastic but also ups the complication quotient. You need to populate the world and make it feel full, and that’s a job for the en- tire team. Part of that is creating all of the NPCs [non- player characters]. They each need a life and a back story so when you come across them they feel like they were there before you arrived and will continue on after you go. With each quest character you need responses and actions depending on whether or not the player decides to help them. On top of this, you need to make sure that some of the individual quests intersect with the over- arching story that pulls you through the game. Then there are purely technical issues, like if a player can play as a man or woman. The NPC’s can’t refer to the player by their sex; it has to be carefully written to be non-gender specific.
Dead Rising also utilizes quest-based gameplay. What have you done to set Dead Island apart from it and other popular titles such as Left 4 Dead? HO: The main difference is the tone. As much as possible, we wanted this story to elicit emotion beyond fear and surprise. This is much closer in tone to The Walking Dead or 28
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