It wasn’t so long ago that a mostly unknown zombie melee game called Dead Island burst onto the scene, thanks to the help of a fairly astonishing trailer. It isn’t unreasonable to say that the trailer turned the game from “one-of-many” releases to an eagerly anticipated title, and while the trailer was developed by an independent company named Axis Animation, it did its job and got the name Dead Island on people’s minds. One year ago the game was forgotten and relegated to video game limbo, and now it is the focus of a bidding war between Hollywood studios. What a difference a good trailer can make.
The newly released trailer follows the same strategy of the previous clip by focusing on the melancholy world left behind by the destruction and death. The difference is that bits of the gameplay are actually highlighted—or at least in-game graphics.
The trailers are actually a bit misleading though, as the game is more about the action-oriented combat than the emotional toll the setting would take on a person, but that probably won’t matter as long as the game is good. If the trailers can continue to generate interest, they will have done their job—the rest is up to Techland and Deep Silver.
Find out for yourself how the game stacks up when Dead Island is released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on August 1.
