PlayStation

Both Adams agreed that realism is a key point of Dead Island 2, and this extends to its visual depiction of damage to both your enemies and your own equipment. In fact, even if you turn the HUD off, Duckett explained, you can still “see the weapon degrade in front of you, in various stages,” and thus know when it’s time to swap to something else.

Advertisement

“That’s something we really wanted to do with this game; we want you to be able to turn off the HUD and know everything that’s going on,” Olson said. “From our point of view, we want you to be able to tell the enemy’s health, how damaged they are, how degraded your weapon is, how long you’ve been in the fight…just from looking around you. We want everything to be obvious to you, with the UI or without it.”

In fact, they report that approximately half of the studio’s developers now play completely HUD-less.

Advertisement

I appreciate that the HUD isn’t necessary for gleaning important info in the heat of battle. Knowing when my weapon will break gives me some idea as to when I should look for another one. But I don’t always play games for realism, and a zombie-killing game isn’t real to say the least. That I have to worry about my weapon degrading in my hands while also avoiding an undead’s chompers surely does create tension, but it also could be frustrating if weapons break too often.

That was my main problem with Breath of the Wild, so we’ll see how Dead Island 2 fares. Sucks for me, but it seems weapon durability systems won’t be disappearing from major video games any time soon.

Advertisement

Read More: Dead Island 2 Hopefuls Get Played By Goat Simulator 3 Parody Trailer

Dead Island 2 drops on February 3 for PC, PlayStation consoles, Stadia, and Xbox systems.

Advertisement